Day 9 — Recovery Day 8 | Saturday, August 8, 2026

“There you guys are! How you been? Well, I’m doing a lot better. It’s Saturday, August 8th (eight days out of the surgery), and I’ve got to tell you, I turned the corner! This morning when I woke up, my thigh wasn’t as swollen. It’s actually gone down quite a bit, and the pain has receded from the whole quadriceps, the whole upper leg. The pain is now more focused right above the knee in the quadriceps tendon where it attaches to the patella, and the surrounding quad muscle, or whatever I’ve got left after twelve years of it atrophying away. However, that surrounding tissue on top of the knee is where the pain is now. I noticed it the second I got up this morning, and I was thrilled.

Coming down the stairs was nice and easy with no pain. I was using a cane in one hand and the railing in the other. Going up is easy, but coming down this morning was awesome. Then there came the exercises. One of the big ones that’s really starting to make a difference is the heel-toe strike, and I’m able to stand up a lot straighter. I’m still using the walker, but we’ve raised it up. We’re at the second-to-last notch now because I’m trying to keep my posture as tall as possible.

I hit that heel, keep the stride shorter, then roll toward the ball of my foot, then onto the toes, and as I get from the ball to the toes, I get to engage the calf muscle which is something I haven’t done in twelve years. The way you walk toward the outside when your knee hurts. It is kind of waddling like a duck or a penguin (as my dearest friends would call me) using the outside edge of your foot.

You don’t really get to put weight on the inside of your foot meaning the ball and the big toe because your body’s cantering off to the outside (the lateral side of the knee). That’s because putting pressure on the medial side is where all the bone-on-bone pain used to be, so your body just kicks you outward and you never get to engage any of that.

I’m rehabbing this iKnee since I don’t have any bone-on-bone pain anymore, and no knee joint pain at all. I just that quad muscle pain above it. The biggest thing I noticed today is that when I do the heel-toe strike exercise, I get to use my full, flat foot. I’m not off on that outside lateral edge anymore. I roll to the ball of my foot, roll to the toes, use all the toes from the big one on down, and I get to engage that calf muscle. That’s something I’m genuinely excited to feel and do.

Along with the other exercises I’ve told you about, there’s a new one I did today. It’s almost like a lunge stretch with my left leg, my surgical leg, planted down stretching the Achilles. I’m up on the ball and toes supporting myself with both arms on a table-and-couch combination, and I get to lift my other leg completely off the ground. That way my full body weight is on my left iKnee leg. I get to stretch out the foot, the calf, the toes, and feel exactly where the remaining pain is. It’s isolating now to the top of the knee, not the joint itself, but the distal quadriceps right where it connects down toward the knee. Everything is isolating there now, which is very exciting. I’m very happy.

The heel press, where I’m trying to get my extension down to zero, is at -10 now. It feels like I’m hyperextending the knee and putting pressure on the back ligaments, the posterior ligaments which is very painful. It almost puts a pain in your stomach. It hurts so bad, but great progress today. Very happy, very excited, and I can’t wait to talk to you guys tomorrow. Have a good one. Bye-bye.”

– Eric Hansen (iKnee Patient One)

For more information about the iKnee, check out iorthopedicsinc.com.