Downscaling.net

The best metaphor I can come up with for recovering from knee replacement surgery is kayaking in a rough river without a paddle.

Or a kayak, really.

From the minute I woke up from the surgery, I feel like I have been bobbing along in choppy waters armed with merely a life jacket of my own not-so-steely will. My head dips under frequently and I have to fight to find the surface. Some days the flow is smooth, other days I can barely keep afloat.

Every day I improve my skills at navigating this wicked stream, but sometimes I still feel like I am thrashing against the current and occasionally I get tossed back downstream.

Maybe I just have water on the brain since I started pool therapy last week.

Yesterday I drove my car by myself. I was cleared to drive four weeks post-surgery, which was yesterday, but I confess I did drive with my husband as a passenger on Saturday.

I was a little nervous to get behind the wheel, but I did OK, running three errands — including walking through a grocery store — in the morning and driving myself to the pool for physical therapy in the afternoon.

By the time I finished my water workout, showered, changed and got myself home, I was a mass of aching muscles. I sometimes forget that while all this fat I carry allows for extra buoyancy in the water, it really drags my down on dry land.

I am in pitiful shape AND I had major surgery just four weeks ago.

I did too much in one day, I suppose. I was so excited by my own freedom of movement I forgot I am still treading the rapids of recovery. Today I am resisting the urge to run more errands. I need to let my body rest, to float along and see where the water takes me.

I have come to realize that recovering from this surgery is indeed a full-time job.