Posted by ESPN.com's Paul Kuharsky
TERRE HAUTE, Ind. -- In a four-hour time window today, members of the Indianapolis Colts streamed off I-70 and onto the campus of Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, reporting for camp and preparing for two practices tomorrow.
The biggest story, of course, was about who wasn't here.
Peyton Manning, 10 days removed from surgery to remove the infected bursa sac from his left knee, is in Indianapolis recovering at home. His knee is immobilized and usually raised. It has a drain in it and he's got an IV port in his left arm. The knee is compressed and covered and he's hardly looked at it, so he doesn't know how many stitches he has. Pain medications haven't been necessary since the second day after the operation.
But he sounded in good spirits during a conference call with reporters.
He will remain in Indianapolis until doctors clear him to move to training camp, and no one has a feel for that timetable yet.
Some highlights of his chat:
On the pace of his recovery: "I really haven't been able to do a whole lot, I can do some of my upper body stuff with my right arm, I can do my rotator cuff, I can toss the ball around. I have an IV line in my left arm which kind of prevents me from doing some stuff with my left arm.
"Four to six weeks is the number the doctors came out with. Dealing with this and talking to some other people, other athletes, a few other doctors that I know, this is not an extremely common injury. It's really probably more common I think in carpenters and maybe plumbers, people that are constantly banging on their knees. It's a little bit new, a little bit uncommon, I certainly hope that it's closer to four weeks than it is to six."
On what he can do: "I can watch film, I can read, I can watch TV, I can catch up on the phone with some friends, those are kind of the main things I've been doing. I can get up and walk around occasionally, I pretty much try to use my crutches just to keep pressure off the leg.
I've tried to be a pretty disciplined patient in terms of doing whatever I can to help control thi swelling. . . .I've caught up on all my autograph signing for the offseason, so I'm covered on that as far as auction requests and fan mail."
On time off from throwing: "Actually I tossed it around a little bit last week. You can kind of throw without having to move your leg a little bit. It's not too uncommon, in fact in years past, I probably would have taken a week off from throwing right before camp. Because once tomorrow starts you're really going to be throwing a lot of passes every day. I have rested my arm from that standpoint in order to be fresh and I've actually done it a little bit more the older I've gotten. So that part has not really been a concern. I'm still able to stretch it and I have a trainer that comes over and kind of does my stretching and my mobilization exercises, then I do my rotator cuff stuff."
On the surgery's ultimate affect on his mobility: "Well it's probably the difference of going from a 4.4 to a 4.6. Certainly the impression I got is that once this situation gets resolved and we get the swelling back and we get the range of motion back, hopefully everything should pretty much return to normal. Structurally, you're dealing with a solid knee still as opposed to having a ligament replaced or repaired."
On what's next: "The idea is for the infection to clear itself completely, which at this point we feel like it's almost there if not there. . . .get the swelling to decrease to where the knee gets back to looking like a normal knee, then get the stitches taken out and begin hopefully some range of motion rehab. As far as the timeframe for all those things, I really don't have one."
