I always say the worst part of recovery from surgery, any surgery, is the feeling of helplessness at some point soon after. It may be the overwhelming daily pain that is taxing to your mental fitness or it's the realization that you can no longer do "normal" activities.
Each surgery has been easier to recover from mentally because I know what to expect and I know what my limits are. I learned to embrace what I can do and let go of what I can't.
When my knee really started to deteriorate, the simplest of actions would cause my knee to swell like crazy. Especially if I worked any muscles near the knee too extensively. Just mowing the lawn on a hillside would be all it would take to blow my knee up like a balloon which would take weeks to get the swelling to go back down. So no more mowing lawns for me. At least not on the hill side. No more running. No more rigorous hiking. (I can still hike, but just for limited distances.)
However, I can ride a bike for quite a long time without pain or discomfort. I can swim for long periods of time. I don't actually swim laps. I swim in motions that I know will work that knee but won't cause it to react in a terrible way.
Doing squats or lunges can be dangerous unless I'm holding on to some kind of support. But I tend to stay away from those. I also have very long legs so when I go to a yoga class I am often reprimanded for not spreading my legs wide enough or bending my knee far enough. So I have learned not to attend yoga classes. Instead I do my yoga sessions at home, at my pace, in my way so that I can avoid the criticism. It's not like I'm going to approach the instructor at the beginning of a class to tell them to step off my lack of knee bending. But I do find yoga practice before and after a surgery helps the healing process go by a lot faster.
I have learned to embrace the things I can do and appreciate that I can still walk. I am not in pain. I can do just about anything I want. And I'm not bothered that I can't do the things I once was able to do.
