Pleasantly Surprised

Over the last few years, not much has changed involving my expectations about medical professionals. I continue to keep that bar set pretty low since I've been treated pretty poorly at times. I guess that is why I'm always so surprised with Dr. Dye's response to my questions so far via email. As stated in my post yesterday that I sent Dr. Dye an email last night with concerns about my knee pain. I figured I would possibly see a response within a day or two. I left my office tonight having heard nothing from my physical therapist (I still have not heard from Alex) or Dr. Dye and was a little annoyed, but brushed it off. Well, apparently the voice mail on my cell phone was delayed since I noticed around 6:30 PM there was a message saying it was recorded at 4:00 PM although it wasn't there when I left work. Not recognizing the number, I checked it and there was Dr. Dye! I was quite shocked. He actually took the time to call and leave a personal message! Amazing. He sounded concerned and said he would fit me in for an office visit tomorrow instead of next week, but if that wasn't possible he wanted to at least discuss my knee pain over the phone. Very nice.

Today, my knee felt slightly better, but not great. It's so hard to explain what is going on, but it feels like something is "catching" in the front of my knee under my knee cap. I figure it may be the swelling that will most likely persist there for a while as it was the area most affected by the scope. I tried again tonight and I still can't do one of my PT exercises, the straight-leg raise to the back. Before last week, it was fine and didn't hurt at all. Nothing has changed since this exercise was assigned to me from the first PT session. I wrap a 5 lb weight around my leg above my knee and lie on my stomach. The movement is to lift my leg up 3-4 inches from the ground and hold it for 10 seconds, 2 sets of 12-15 reps. The first two weeks it didn't hurt at all and now it does. So odd... it's not as if I increased the weight! Obviously, I'm not doing that one anymore.

I haven't decided whether to see Dr. Dye tomorrow or not. I'll call him in the morning and explain the pain, then see what he says. Maybe he'll want to see how my knee looks or based on our conversation, he'll tell me to take it easy until our set follow-up next Monday. No matter what, I'm glad he responded so quickly. He clearly is serious about his post-surgery patient care.