underwater treadmill!

well it's nice to be a girl who has cool friends who have cool jobs. one of my friends from growing up, carrie and her husband robb, are athletic trainers at the university of tennessee. carrie said i could come in to use their facilities, including an underwater treadmill. so i went in yesterday and it was awesome. they had me warm up my knee in the hot tub first and then i walked for about 15 minutes or so on the underwater treadmill. my knee didn't do the "catching" thing it had been doing....i think the warming up helped. and as i'm walking, robb says that dr. mathien is there - and then a few minutes later dr. mathien comes out and talks with me about my progress and i get to ask him questions and he can evaluate my gait (the treadmill has glass walls for watching stuff like that).....how cool is that??? i LOVE dr. mathien - he's so real and down to earth. and after walking, i go out to ice and dr. mathien comes by and asks when my next appointment is supposed to be - i told him friday, and he says "well why don't i just evaluate you here and save you a trip?" what?! so awesome!! so he checks my knee out and tells me that he'll make a notation of our "appointment" and i can call to reschedule friday's visit for 2 weeks later. here's the scoop on my progress: dr. mathien seemed pleased with my range of motion and the lack of swelling; he said my gait looked good as well; and he said the "catching" is normal and nothing to worry about - he said that i probably have some adhesions and i just need to work on patella mobs and scar mobs to get it lose; i asked him if i would be able to gradually add weight before 8 weeks, or if it would be after 8 weeks......and he said, "let's talk about the SIZE of your defect - this wasn't a little suzie Q defect, this was a BIG BERTHA defect - and we need to make sure to give it time to really graft in so that it doesn't collapse." my translation: you're crazy if you think you're adding weight before 8 weeks. and actually, he said initially they probably should have said 12 weeks NWB. ugh. but he said we'll x-ray it again in 2 weeks and see how it looks - he said it should look as close to normal as possible. if that looks good and i continue to improve my strength and ROM, then i MIGHT be able to start adding gradual weight with crutches at 8 weeks. so............i'm a little disappointed with that news. i'm completely sick of crutches and being helpless. although i have figured out how to do more with crutches and i'm able to do more around the house and what-not...it just takes about 10X longer. i'm just ready to be on two feet again - but i understand the importance of staying off of it and will just have to suck it up. surely, by august i'll be totally crutch free. :) and until then, i will absolutely be using the facilities at UT again.