Yesterday, Easter Sunday was a perfect day for riding, rain Saturday night, clear blue skys and 22 deg. My brother planned to come out to my place and take my wife for a trail ride as he has done for the last year as I have been injured.
A legacy of knee problems, years of football and trying unsuccessfully to be a marathon runner in the 1980s. A third arthroscope in my right knee and the threat of a replacement as the next option if the surgeon had to cut again resulted in October 2007. Dirt bikes and knee replacements don't seem to mix. May 2008 and without crashing or connecting with anything (I have witnesses) I managed to dislocate it and made a mess. A cortisone injection the week before might have contributed. The physio looked at the MRI report and within a second said to me that I really stuffed it this time. How could she tell, she'd only glanced at it? Apparently its normally a paragraph at best and mine was a page!
So 5 months of natural healing before surgery could be undertaken, and time to decide whether living with it, a replacement or perhaps a reconstruction was possible and what was preferred. A test ride in November confirmed that living with it was not first option.
Then surgeon (and I) ultimately decided on the full reconstruction including a hamstring acl graft in November 2008.
I've been on a mix of rowing machine, exercise bike, weights, the treadly and walking almost every day since I could and yesterday was one week short of 6 months from surgery which was the target date. Doc reckoned 12 months would be best, physio said at least 5 months. Knee felt good.
Doing up the knee braces I was pleased to note that the muscle wastage I had suffered had been fixed, to the point that the LH straps now have a bit more free length than the RH.
The perfect ride was realised, great conditions, great company and body coped with 3 easy hours on the bike no worries. Paranoid about keeping feet on pegs and all is good. My brother is pissed because I'm just cruising with feet on pegs and he still can't keep up. :twisted: The missus is thrilled to have me back out and life is good. ':cry:
See you in the bush,
Steve '
'
A legacy of knee problems, years of football and trying unsuccessfully to be a marathon runner in the 1980s. A third arthroscope in my right knee and the threat of a replacement as the next option if the surgeon had to cut again resulted in October 2007. Dirt bikes and knee replacements don't seem to mix. May 2008 and without crashing or connecting with anything (I have witnesses) I managed to dislocate it and made a mess. A cortisone injection the week before might have contributed. The physio looked at the MRI report and within a second said to me that I really stuffed it this time. How could she tell, she'd only glanced at it? Apparently its normally a paragraph at best and mine was a page!
So 5 months of natural healing before surgery could be undertaken, and time to decide whether living with it, a replacement or perhaps a reconstruction was possible and what was preferred. A test ride in November confirmed that living with it was not first option.
Then surgeon (and I) ultimately decided on the full reconstruction including a hamstring acl graft in November 2008.
I've been on a mix of rowing machine, exercise bike, weights, the treadly and walking almost every day since I could and yesterday was one week short of 6 months from surgery which was the target date. Doc reckoned 12 months would be best, physio said at least 5 months. Knee felt good.
Doing up the knee braces I was pleased to note that the muscle wastage I had suffered had been fixed, to the point that the LH straps now have a bit more free length than the RH.
The perfect ride was realised, great conditions, great company and body coped with 3 easy hours on the bike no worries. Paranoid about keeping feet on pegs and all is good. My brother is pissed because I'm just cruising with feet on pegs and he still can't keep up. :twisted: The missus is thrilled to have me back out and life is good. ':cry:
See you in the bush,
Steve '
'
