Say hello to my little friend

The Steri-Strips on the graft incision below my knee finally curled off this weekend, unveiling the handsome dude to the right.  He doesn’t seem to immediately click with those around him, but I actually like his impish, lopsided grin and have taken to calling him Pacino. Once he fades a bit and the hair grows back, he won’t be so fearsome and might not even be too noticeable. But for now, he seems to live up to the name.

This is especially true right now, thanks to a bit of stupidity on my part. Yesterday, I was at the gym riding the stationary bike. About half way through my 10-minute session, I got kind of bored and started going through handwork for the first two forms of naihanchi (which my school calls ‘niagie’). At one point I lost my seat a bit and, since I wasn’t holding onto the handle bars, I was forced to seesaw my feet into the pedals to keep upright. Something on the outside of my injured knee did not appreciate this. And sure enough, just a short time after, a focused little bit of swelling started to appear in the skin under one of the scope holes, making it look like someone had punched Pacino in the eye. It’s not black and blue, just noticeably swollen. Apparently, I irritated a bursa. Luckily, it doesn’t appear to be anything to get worried about. In fact, except for the bursa, the rest of the swelling was way down today. Still, I do feel a bit foolish and somewhat chastened. It’s just that kata can be so addictive and my PT fix does little to take the edge off my kata craving. I’m going to have to be very careful in the next few months.

Because of the bursa, we took it easy today at PT and didn’t take any flexion measurements. So I’ll save the end-of-the-week report for the four-week mark.