Physiotherapy for Osteochondral Knee Fracture

Hello everyone,

I've signed up to this forum because I've never had an injury like this before and I'm hoping to get some reassurance that online research and chats with medical professionals haven't been able to fully provide. In around mid-April I suffered an osteochondral fracture in my knee following a nasty fall that twisted my right leg. Initially I was told I had not fractured anything and it was most likely a torn ligament, because the fractured bone had gone underneath my patella and did not show up on the initial x-rays they took. As such, for around two or three weeks I was just using the brace and crutches given to me by the hospital, assuming that it would just get better. I had a second x-ray and an MRI scan during that time, which had been ordered by a specialist consultant. I met with him at the start of May and that's when I found out I had fractured it and also that it would require surgery to fix. I had the surgery on May 16th and have been in recovery since.

I just started physiotherapy this week and without having any personal frame of reference for regaining mobility after an injury, I have to admit it's a little scary to be struggling as much as I am with basic physical movements. I have five exercises to do a few times a day:

1) Lying on my back, wrapping a band around my foot and using it to gently bring my injured knee in and bend it as far as it will go (5 second hold, repeat 5 times)
2) Lying on my back, bending my ankles so my feet point upwards and pushing my knee down into the bed (10 second hold, repeat 10 times)
3) Lying on my back, bending my good leg and keeping my injured one straight, attempting to lift my injured leg up into the air (5 second hold, repeat 10 times)
4) Sitting up, bending both knees slightly, leaning forward keeping my back straight, hands on injured knee (5 second hold, repeat 5 times)
5) Sitting up, keeping injured knee straight, attempting to lift injured leg up into the air (5 second hold, repeat 10 times)

1, 2 and 4 are naturally a little uncomfortable, but all feel achievable. 3 and 5 feel impossible. If my leg is straight, it will not lift at all, especially when lying on my back. If I'm sitting up, I can lift the leg off the ground by myself, but only if I allow the knee to bend to the left. As a first-timer, it's honestly frightening to feel that a part of my body that I use all the time is almost totally unable to do something that simple. I know well that the entire point of attending physio is to regain this range of motion, but it still worries me that I'm starting out feeling so limited. I haven't been able to find much information at all about what recovery is like for an osteochondral fracture, so I just don't know what's normal and what isn't. My consultant and physio have both been kind and clear about what I need to do, but neither have been especially reassuring, so I mainly just feel a bit worried about how well I'll be able to recover from all this.

If you've taken the time to read through all this, thank you! I know that I'm mainly just worried about my injury and that I'm very much speaking from inexperience here. It would just be nice to see if people have any knowledge to share about recovering from this kind of injury, or even some personal experiences.

Best wishes,

Daniel