The countdown has begun....

This time next week, I’ll be getting my things ready to head to the hospital for yet another knee surgery.  I know when I had my meniscus surgery, I was in a rush to get better and get on with my goals and didn’t follow directions and rest and heal like I should have.  As a result,  I over did it and caused more pain for myself in the long run.  This time, I’m having a total knee replacement and I plan to follow all of the orders (or at least try). I know there is a long road ahead and because of my age, I will probably have to have another replacement in my lifetime but  I really want to be able to do the things that I was doing before my knee got to be as bad as it is now.  I miss doing things in the gym like squats and lunges and I look forward to doing them again.  I miss little things like walking and races.  I’m tired of the weight that I’ve put back on because I’ve not been able to keep up the cardio-pace that I would like.

But as I’ve said before…. This will be a time for recovery and for focusing on what I’m eating. 

I’ll be in the hospital for several days and recovery time (at least for work) will be about 8 weeks.  I know that full recovery can take up to a year though.

I had my pre-op on Friday and met with a list full of doctors to go over what I can expect.  If things go well, I might be able to gradually start back into the gym at about 4 weeks but I have to check with physical therapy on that once they are assigned to me.

I’m beginning to get a bit nervous but I know that this is the right decision and I’ll feel so much better (once I have healed). I have done a lot of research to learn about what to expect and I have a class to go to later this week to go over more in depth info, which is pretty awesome.