Tomorrow will be seven weeks since I had surgery on my right knee to remove a cyst. The doctor said the recovery would be 4-6 weeks, but seven weeks on, I still feel far from recovered.

Part of this I blame on myself. It wasn’t long after surgery before I was walking pretty normally again, limp-free. At the gym, I started taking on short incline walks to warm up, and even throwing in a few deadlifts. A couple weeks ago, I went on a 5-mile ramble in the country with my friend Jason – I almost had a bounce in my step.

But I think all of these activities were pushing my luck. Last week my knee was feeling sore and tired and swollen. The biggest issue was in bending my knee. I’ve regained almost 100% bend-ability, but it hurts like hell if I bend my knee too far (would it be too much information if said I learned this the hard way when I attempted to squat for a potty break during the aforementioned ramble?).

So last week I decided to stop. I continued my usual physio exercises (very mild), but avoided most other forms of intentional leg movement. I was by no means sedentary – I continued to cook and garden as usual – but I didn’t take any walks.

After just a few day’s rest, I feel a massive improvement. And in truth, looking at these pictures, the knee isn’t as swollen as it seems when I look at it from eye level. But I do feel a strange pressure above the knee.

So, a few things need to happen: I need to keep resting; I need to call my doc and say “wazzup”?; I need to not be down about it, which is easy to do, because I really miss walking and had grand hopes of doing some long hikes this summer in the Brecon Beacons; I need to not let myself go just because of a few setbacks; I need to count small victories, like not needing to wear the tubigrip support thingy anymore when I DO walk around. It IS improving.

I need to also consider updating my wardrobe.