7 Weeks

I think I'm doing well at 7 weeks.

The swimming seems to be very good for knee flexion. My flutter kick -- very slight earlier in the week -- is now  quite strong. I swam for an hour yesterday and about 90 minutes today, and I didn't have any trouble getting out of the pool. I had a vision of myself falling on my face walking up the stairs, but I look and feel strong. That's not to say that I don't have a moment of anxiety when I'm ready to get out of the pool.

Some people look at me a little strangely when I saunter -- as much as I can saunter -- into the pool area. Yesterday, a man who had been watching me brought me a chair when he saw that I was going to get one outside in the bar area. I'm learning to accept such courtesies, with whatever grace I can muster. Today, I could see that one lady was trying to figure out what my problem was, so I went out of my way to tell her. I know how it drives me crazy when I have a puzzle like that to solve.

I wish I could measure the number of degrees I can bend now. It must be close to my 120 goal. I can lie on my side and pull my lower leg fairly close to my body. The best new development is that the knee is not very painful at night so I can sleep for a couple of hours at a time. I think the lack of good sleep was at least partly responsible for my inability to concentrate on any task for longer than a few minutes. I was a little afraid, at some level, that I had suffered some cognitive losses due to MS. I'm happy to report that cognition seems OK! Whew. Dodged the bullet once again.