My right knee is healing well. I can do a lot with it now.
For example, I can walk upstairs now the normal way. I don’t need to lead with the good knee. Both knees are good enough for that task.
Also, and this is more exciting, five weeks past total knee replacement, I can pedal forwards on the bike. Yay! I’m doing about five minutes of forward pedaling at a time. I haven’t turned Zwift on yet as I’m not keen to see my speed, power, or cadence but being able to pedal forwards is exciting enough.
I’m also impressed that my knees match. Check out those surgical scars. A friend reminded me to use sunscreen on them.
I spent some time looking at tattoos for knees but then decided I don’t want to cover these up. Also, if I need revision surgery in there future I’d hate to mess them up.
My much more functional knees make me smile. And I’m not bothered by the scars. I’ve been wearing shorts and not feeling at all self conscious about them. I do notice now that lots of other people have them and I don’t think I noticed at all before.
Do you have visible surgical scars? How do you feel about them?
Maybe not exactly visible scars – they have faded over the years – but I still have a big dent just below my forehead on the left from a craniotomy (gross total resection of low grade glioma – brain surgery is surprisingly painless!). It’s obvious when I point it out, but yeah, no one seems to notice. It will have been with me for 25 years come September and it’s been years since I thought of it with the slightest self-consciousness.
Flaunt those scars – you sure earned them. But don’t be disappointed when no one seems to care!