As part of an assessment recently conducted by my physical therapist, an intriguing question provided an opportunity to wax philosophical.
After noting my surgically repaired left knee's range of motion and flexion, she asked me: How would you gauge your recovery on a scale from one to 100?
Slightly more than one month after surgical repairs for a torn meniscus, my knee's flexion is virtually full. More tolerable amounts of pain ring through the knee and its environs as I pull my left ankle against my left gluteus maximus and hold it. The strengthening and stability exercises provided by the physical therapist definitely helped reduce what was an enormously tender region that previously began aching with that stretch immediately after starting it.
Now I am able to hold this stretch and pull the ankle as close as possible for extended periods of time.
Orthopedic surgeons also ask when one's recovery from surgery is at 100 percent.
The answer I provided my physical therapist – while noting I do not believe 100 percent recovery is ever possible after surgery considering I'm missing part of my knee that never will grow back – is somewhere between 75 and 80 percent.
-Henry Brier