As Good as it Gets?

As functionality and range of motion improve daily, I am convinced that the knee will work at least as well as it did before, maybe as early as Memorial Day, May 31 this year (picking a date certain gives me a target to work toward). However, when pain descends relentlessly in the evening, I worry that this familiar companion will not disappear anytime soon.

A 4:30 AM, the time I decided to get out of bed this morning, there isn't much comfort in thinking that most people seem to report less pain after knee replacement surgery. Just when does this happen? I don't want to be hitting the Tylenol bottle so early in the morning (almost 5:30 now) but I think that's where I'm headed.

Looking beyond the whine:

• Going down the stairs yesterday, I forgot to favor the right leg. For me, "favor" means tighten and bend, to avoid the possibility of it "giving way" on the stairs, a very frightening and frequent event that precipitated (so to speak) the first surgery I had on the right knee over 16 years ago.
• My balance is really improved. Not afraid that I'll get jostled in church anymore.
• I'm tempted to ditch the cane. If we didn't have so much ice, I'd give caneless walking a try outside.

The weather has been warm for the last week, above freezing most days. The snow is melting and the days are getting longer. Yesterday, I saw an item on Kare 11 about eagle viewing in Red Wing. We see eagles on our junkets to Fort Snelling State Park but it's always fun to view lots of them, and to observe the birders and others congregating with the fervor that seems to go with this activity. That might be a destination today or later in the week.