a pilates studio

In October of 2009 I tore my ACL doing a stupid slow motion turn (less then 5 mph) on my dirt bike.  I elected to have ACL replacement surgery and that began one of the worst nightmares of my life…When I had surgery I contracted MRSA a very dangerous staph infection from the surgery center.  This had to be treated with a lot of intravenous antibiotics and pain meds.  The PIK line that they used to give me the antibiotics for the 7 week period gave me a blood clot of which I ended up being hospitalized for and almost lost my life. 

 

Needless to say while all this was going on my knee was not working, or healing and I was not getting any movement from it as most normal people do by this time period.  Finally by New Years of 2010 I was able to start recovering from the ordeal.  I went to traditional physical therapy and every time I left there I was swollen beyond belief and was in an extreme amount of pain and still my leg wouldn’t bend; finally I went to a different orthopedic surgeon to see if I had any other options.  I was told I needed to have a knee manipulation as the scar tissue had “frozen” around the knee and it needed to be released.  Back to surgery I went and it was a success, they were able to get full knee bend.  Needless to say the knee doesn’t stay that way; you have to constantly work at it to get it to retain a bend. 

 

The Orthopedic sent me back to traditional physical therapy and told me I would be lucky if I got a maximum of ninety degree of bend in my knee.  That would make me permanently disabled and not something I wanted to hear.  My wife was seeing Sandee for Pilates and she told me that she and Sandee discussed my situation and she bought me a month of private lessons with Sandee to see if she could help. 

 

I was a bit skeptical at first but once I met Sandee and knew she was the type of person that could push me harder then I could myself and still joke around at the same time I knew I could work with her.  Sandee helped me get AMAZING results in my knee; it hurt like mad and I did things I never thought I would ever be able to do, but she helped me to get that bend in my knee that I so desperately wanted!  Sandee also suggested that I try sitting on the spin bike and try to rotate through a bent knee.  This was the saving grace for me!  I started with the seat at its highest point and then as my knee started getting bend in it I was gradually able to lower and lower the seat until my knee was able to bend completely!  It was truly amazing!  With continued work and constant knee exercises I am now able to bike almost sixty miles a week!!!  I would never have been able to do this without Sandee as my trainer; her constant motivation helped me get through one of the worst times of my life!  Thank you Sandee!!!