One of the biggest surprises for me after my knee replacement was the fatigue.
Sure, there was pain.
Yes, there was stiffness.
But the fatigue? That one caught me completely off guard.
I don’t know why I wasn’t prepared for it, but that bone-deep tiredness that hits after doing something that feels like nothing was not on my radar at all. Taking a shower was the first wake-up call. I’d wash my hair, dry it, and immediately want to sit down.
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I was talking to a client today, and she asked how long it took me to get to 120 degrees after my knee replacement. She’s sitting at 115 right now, feeling like she hit a wall, and I could hear that mix of frustration and fear in her voice.
It reminded me exactly what this part of recovery feels like.
So, I told her the same thing I want you to hear:
You’re not stuck.
You’re in a phase. I call it the learning phase.
Have you ever felt amazing one day after PT… and then totally paid for it the next?
Yeah, me too.
It’s like you finally start to feel like yourself again—you get up, do a few loads of laundry, run some errands, maybe even make dinner—and then bam. The next day your knee’s angry, your body’s wiped out, and you’re sitting there wondering what you did wrong.
Here’s the truth: you didn’t mess up. You’re healing.
And those moments that make you stop? They’re not punishments. They’re pivots.
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Have you ever seen A Bug’s Life? It’s an animated Disney/Pixar film, and there’s this one scene where a leaf falls onto an ant trail. The lead ant freezes. He panics because the path he was following suddenly disappears. Then another ant calmly says, “It’s okay, I’ll help you,” and walks him around the leaf so he can keep going.
Well, in your knee replacement recovery, I’m gonna be that calm ant—the one who says, “It’s OK, I’ll help you with that.” I want to reassure you that what you’re experiencing is completely normal and actually a healthy part of your body’s healing process.
You go to sleep on surgery day, wake up with a new knee, and suddenly your brain can’t find the path it once knew. You know how to walk, lift your leg, or get up from the floor—but your body just doesn’t respond. It’s like a leaf dropped over your old movement pattern, and your brain can’t see the trail anymore.
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What if your biggest setback isn’t your knee — it’s your thoughts about your recovery?
That realization changed everything for me.
I remember the day it hit me. I was about six weeks out from my second knee replacement and realized I still wasn’t consistently hitting zero on my extension. Some days I’d get to 3 degrees, maybe 5 — but never zero. And that tiny number became a massive mental storm.
My calf hurt constantly. My foot and ankle were cranky. But the calf pain? It was brutal.
And I remember thinking something must be wrong. Something dire.
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