11th Update – Return to Work

5th Sep, Wed – 11 Sep 07, Tue. D99 – D105. The 15th week.

Returned to work yesterday. Driving to work was ok, although it was a long journey and the traffic was quite heavy. Climbing the 3 flights of stairs to my office, however, required considerable efforts. My thoughtful colleagues saw me driving in and helped me with my ‘heavy’ laptop bag. It’s great to be back at work! Since I’ve been regularly accessing my office emails and the organisation’s intranet from home via VPN, I’m quite up to date with the happenings in my workplace, so there aren’t much backlog of work to clear or delayed decisions to make. My colleagues did a great job, covering my duties and keeping the Plant running well, freeing me from worries and allowing me to recover with peace of mind. I must really thank all of them. Spent some times uploading updated archived files and renewing expired passwords. We have a small gym here, at the same floor level, so there is no problem continuing with my daily exercise and workouts during lunchtime.

At the 12th physiotherapy session at NUH last Saturday, I tried out on another 2 gym equipment. The first workout was on a leg curl machine, where I have to bend my lower leg downwards against a 5 kg load to strengthen the hamstring muscles. The next workout was on the horizontal leg press where I place my right foot against a plate and flex my ankle against a load, to tone my calf muscles. My muscles still ache with the effect of that day’s exertion. The unassisted knee flexion has, in the meantime, improved to 130°. The forced bending of the knee has also improved to some 138°. The max load bearing that the right leg could bear has reached 90%, which means I could now limp several steps for a short distance, without the crutch. The physio, however, advised me to continue to use one crutch so as not to place undue stress on the right knee and also for climbing stairs.