Learning to walk (11 weeks)

Check out my walking sticks--a few seconds walking slowly and listing to the side solo, then using my walking sticks!  My therapist wanted me to walk with these to increase my cadence and create a more normal gait than the one I have with a cane.  It does feel more liberating to use them although I feel really ridiculous in public.  Going out in the snow made me feel really silly; it was as if I thought the snow might get deep enough to need them! 


This is an old story, but I think it is significant.  Before my setback with physical therapy, I went to the Y at St. Francis Hospital one day to use the machines for my core and upper body.  As I strolled in with my walking sticks, there were a bunch of older men on most of the machines I wanted to use.  I walked determinedly to an empty machine in the midst of them, and one guy speaks out with, "Are you going skiing?"  I turned to him and announced very excitedly that I had 2 new knees.  Then the room erupts with, "We do, too!!!!"  I became an instant member of a knee replacement club!  Everyone wanted to tell me his story, tell me how to use the machines more efficiently, blah, blah, blah.  My son had driven me there, and he was astounded at the camaraderie that had developed.  There was one man on the elliptical going 90 to nothing that had had 2 knee replacements at the same time like I did. ( most of the others were spaced out by several months)  He became my instant role model.  Recently when I was in so much pain and discouraged, I told my husband that I wanted to be like the man on the elliptical.  He wisely said, "Let's see, he had his surgery 4 years ago.  That's 52 weeks times 4--so he's over 200 weeks post op, and you are, um 6." Lesson learned.