...Now for the Hard Part

January 27, 2013  Or, "The Honeymoon is Over." And honestly, I mean that in the best way. It is actually a pretty good analogy. After the honeymoon there is the hard work of marriage; learning to communicate well, to build one another up, to serve, talking about common goals and arriving at them together, learning what works and what doesn't work; sometimes there is pain, sometimes there is joy. It requires patience, diligence and faith.

Not unlike bringing a test socket from the trial phase to the final phase. This is the hard part. Each new prosthesis I have ever had made requires adjustments, testing, discomfort, adjustments, testing, ....until finally it is right. And every time, they get it right. But it requires patience on my part to persevere when there is discomfort, diligence to communicate the problem, and faith that we will get it right in the end. Communication is crucial. I have to be able to communicate well to my practitioner what I am feeling in the socket, at my knee, at my ankle, walking on the different surfaces.

I used the Echelon foot for several hours on Friday after my appointment and then all day on Saturday. My knee joint was very sore when I took off the prosthesis Saturday night. Usually, if my knee is sore at night it feels better after resting through the night. It was more painful Sunday morning. My husband Duane and I decided that it would be better for me to use the old prosthesis for a day, then apply the Venture foot to the new prosthesis to try on Monday. That will give me a fair comparison after using the Venture foot all day. If my knee is comparatively sore with the Venture foot, then there may be an alignment adjustment needed. Either way, I'll call Dennis Monday for suggestions and to see if he agrees with our assessment. I have no discomfort at all resulting from pressure or friction, so that is really great news. In the past, that has always been a problem when trying out a new prosthesis. At the end of the day on Sunday, my knee feels fine again, so we need to do some detective work to determine the cause of the knee pain.