Two weeks and counting

It's been almost three weeks since my knee surgery. I'm walking around more or less normally. For the most part, I don't have to think about how I step, but going up and down stairs is still a challenge and running is still painful. (Not that I've gone running, but the phone rang when I was outside so I ran to get it.) As I do more stuff, sometimes the knee makes its' presence known, which makes it feel like I'm backsliding. I just have to remind myself that I'm doing a lot more now. I did my first 'mostly in lab' day on Thursday. By the end of the day it felt really good to get off my feet.
I'm off of the vicodin. I was taking one pill at night up until two weeks after the surgery. The first few nights were hard. I'd wake up with a vague feeling of discomfort. The knee didn't exactly hurt, but the leg was achy and I couldn't quite get comfortable. I'm over that, I think. We'll see what happens once I start exercising.
I had my post-op appointment last Monday. Everything is healing up well, but the doctor saw a lot of arthritis in the knee. He advised me not to play soccer. I'm going to miss it a lot, but it's not worth it. I know my other knee is actually the worse one, arthritis-wise. I can still run, if I want. Most of the damage was on the outside of the knee, and running mainly impacts the inside. I'm glad I didn't get told to stop walking/hiking. I can start exercising in a day or two. I'm very glad about that. My legs look like jello now. I'm visiting Sheila in 3 weeks. We had initially planed on backpacking but with only two weeks to get in shape, that was probably unrealistic. The doctor said the knee will take about three months to heal completely, and during that time there will be times when it will twinge or hurt, and not to get too worried about it if it's just an occasional thing.
We had our monthly girls' night out happy hour on Thursday. This one featured $2 drinks and an amusing encounter with some of T's buddies at the bar. Debbie was there. She had lots of tales of soccer drama. That's drama of the 'adults acting completely immature' sort. Granted, Debbie seems to attract more than her share of it, for reasons that I can't quite figure out. Nonetheless, it did help to make me feel a little bit better about not being able to play soccer. I don't miss that aspect of it. It's probably worth a blog of its' own sometime, but if you've played rec league sports or witnessed obnoxious parents at kids' sports, you may know what I mea