Six Months today since surgery

I am now resting watching catchup for the Barbarians against Argentina, remembering my days of refereeing, after my normal 2 plus mile dog walk in the morning and then collecting a running machine for Catharine and me to continue to improve our fitness.

Back in September racing on my yacht.

As for my left knee all I can say is that it is great thanks to Nordorthopaedics and to Jen at Anglesey Injury Clinic. I now find myself trotting downstairs and generally pain free; although the right knee is not aligned at all well with the cartilage in the natural part of the partial knee replacement from 2015 having completely failed. With the strength now in my left knee I feel it is sufficient to delay my decision for the replacement of the partial right knee for a while.

Having made that decision I was a little concerned when I twisted on the right knee this morning and I got shooting pains for a while! Hopefully this won't require a change of tactic!

A selfie of my knee at a comfortable angle today

It is very difficult to remember how things feel as your body acclimatises to its new situation but I now feel sufficiently energised to get things done which I seem to have ignored for the last 3 years. The clicking which was very noticeable after surgery has now pretty much disappeared and almost all the swelling above the knee has gone. I have now got pretty good flexion with the knee and I can kneel down although my brain still says no!

Jen has been helping me to get various muscle sets back to functioning and to retrain my walking gait stopping me from hitching my left hip when swinging the leg forward and last week I restarted pilates with one of her groups. The biggest problem I had was the retraining of my gluteus maximus which had been giving me constant pain from the lower back down to the ankle, that too has now all gone.

When I first got back to the UK I used to catch my foot on the bed covers and have significant issues with getting in and out of bed. This problem of a pull sideways on the knee has now subsided; again I am not sure when this went away but probably over the last two months.

With the yacht now being out of the water for maintenance over the winter I have to climb up ladders to get onboard and I now successfully use the car as an access to the transom ladder to get up onto the swim deck; this I would not have been able to do before the operation that is for sure..

With my regular morning walks with the dogs I have to climb and descend the face of some sand dunes, before the operation I had to reverse down and could not walk up the loose sand but that too has all changed.

I am so lucky to have been able to get to Lithuania to have the treatment at Nordorthopaedics even though my claim for this expense to Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board under EU56 has been refused even after waiting over 4 years to have the operation. My thanks go to all involved in this process.

View of Cymyran Beach