Wobbly Walk of Wellness

     I didn't expect to bounce right back after knee replacement surgery. At my age you don't bounce, you jiggle--and in all the wrong places, too. My daily allotment of energy drains away with a little "pffftt" sound that isn't even long enough to be rude.  While healing from my warm-up, arthroscopic surgery in October, I  experienced first, and second, hand (one handed massage is as satisfying as one hand clapping) the benefits of massaging my wounded leg morning and night with an anti-inflammatory oil concocted by my massage therapist.  It is easy to massage my own leg, the problem is that the fluids need to reach heart level to expel from the body and I can't massage past my own hips. The good news is, self massage makes my knee look and feel better, the bad news is, my hips become uncomfortable. Further good news is that my massage therapist can relax my hips, more bad news is that her office is downstairs. But that's not a problem because she can borrow the acupuncturist's office on the main floor Tuesday evenings, but that doesn't help because this year Christmas and New Year's Day fall on Tuesday. Massage loosens tight muscles and improves circulation, so its post-surgical benefits are intuitive, even to me, with my natural skepticism of "natural" medicine. My sister, who is a dedicated doubter, probably wouldn't even enter the building because the massage office is in the Wellness Center.
     My other concession to my wobbly walk of wellness has been using arnica tablets.  Arnica montana is a plant with benefits both from its natural anti-inflammatory qualities and from having montana as part of its name.  I had used it previously as an ointment and believe that it does speed healing of bruises, but it is also available in sublingual (under the tongue) tablet form, which I have faithfully used three times a day until both my supply and the bruising went away.
     I have also been faithfully taking my prescribed, unnatural meds. I use pain meds mostly at night because my leg gets in uncomfortable positions while I am sleeping and I want to go back to sleep.  Today I took my last dose of blood thinners. Yeah! Tomorrow I should get my stitches out and be able to shower without a Glad Press'n Seal condom on my knee.  Faithful exercise and a fairly flexible frame has enabled my knee to both straighten and acutely bend, but I didn't sweat the physical therapy worksheet once I realized the 14 exercises were really only three steps: quads, straighten, bend. I also added most of the exercises I normally do at home, but  have raised them from the floor to the bed, because the floor is harder and has more gravity than before my surgery.  However, day by day, the floor is getting back to normal.  And if the floor can do it, so can I. If not back to normal, at least back to usual, it would take more than knee surgery to make me normal.