Rehab: No more brace. Really.

Thanks to a phone mishap, I finally had my second follow up appointment yesterday. Graft looks strong and I can finally walk outside the apartment sans knee brace. I'll probably do some walking downtown tomorrow to test my endurance.

My flexion is up to 140 degrees and 135 degrees is considered to be a normal functional knee, yet I won't be satisfied until I can bring my heel to my butt (~155 degrees). Extension is somewhat problematic. Prior to injury, my knee naturally hyper-extended, but I've accepted that my knee may never be able to do that anymore. My knee can go to zero (full extension) with some force, but otherwise it's stuck at a "2". Not quite full extension. The fact that I've been sleeping with a pillow underneath my knee is inhibiting full extension. I normally do this to alleviate pressure my lower back, but I'll have to switch the pillow to my right (good) knee.

I have a bad habit of picking at scabs resulting in the main incision oozing for number of days in mid september. Butterfly bandaids may look useless, but they actually helped the wound close up. The scar tissue around the main incision is breaking up slowly as I am now able to pinch the skin somewhat. Post-op the incision was "stuck" to the underlying bone and I couldn't pinch it.

Aside from no pivoting, life feels normal as I don't feel real discomfort or soreness. Full extension hamstring curls then snap me back to reality as I'm struggling with the lowest weight setting. This whole rehab process is beginning to wear on me and I find I'm losing motivation to do some of the exercises. I've already taken 3 non consecutive days off and when I visit the PT, I don't do anything extra that night.