6 Days post op - 2nd rehab

Today I am almost a week into my recovery process and it is feeling much better. I saw the doctor yesterday and he showed me some pictures and walked me through some stuff. I asked him some questions and here was the final conclusion. I can now start to bear weight as I am comfortable with. I no longer need the brace but should crutch for 6 weeks. I think he is very conservative with that just because most people I hear get off crutches within 2, so I am going to try after 2 or 3 weeks. I will see him again in May.

I also had my PT appointment today with another pt who was much more knowledgeable which made things work a lot faster and better. One exercise she showed me was to lay on the edge of my bed with my hurt leg on the wall and just let my foot slide down to bend my knee as far as it can go. This one is a bit painful but will improve my flexion a lot. I have been stretching a little bit too so my extension got better today, I was pretty much at 0 degrees. I have 95 degrees flexion, and when I said 100 last week I was mistaken, I meant to say 100 on the other side which meant around 80 degrees worth of flexion. I hope I can get my knee to bend all the way pretty soon.

Another thing I need to work on is quad control and muscle memory. It seems the shock of the surgery has caused my quad to stop working correctly..And because I haven't used it in a few days, the quad memory of the action it takes to take a step is starting to go away, so I need to get that back.

My goals for next week are to be able to do a straight leg lift laying on my back and perhaps walk a bit off of crutches.

2 Days post op - first rehab session

A lot has gone by since my last post in just 2 days. The first day is probably going to be the worst day of this entire recovery process, the femural nerve block wore off and I was on so many painkillers that I was in and out of consciousness for almost 20 hours.

The painkillers were messing with me too much (completely destroyed my appetite) so I just quit them about 24 hours ago. This made standing up a huge problem because the blood would rush down to my knee and this would cause pretty significant pain. I woke up this morning ready to go into rehab, had a slice of toast which was all I could stomach, and saw the therapist. She simply did some measurements of my ROM (range of motion) and I have -5 degrees extension and less than 100 degrees flexion..which isn't all that great but after all it is only day 2. I felt this therapist was a bit young and inexperienced which makes it a good thing I was only going to see her once anyways since I was switching to an PT closer to my campus. So scoping out a PT is just as important as scoping out a surgeon!

I got home and started feeling weak and dizzy because all I have had since 10 hours before my surgery to that point was a few slices of bread and some juice. I still couldn't eat but decided to force feed myself some chicken. It let me get up and walk off my stomach pains a little bit as well as get my knee feeling comfortable to bend and straighten. I think I have gained a couple degrees of flexion since this morning simply by crutching around the room and swinging my bad leg as I go.

Despite being discouraged at how little I am able to do at this point, the rate of recovery is really stunning right now and I can only pray it continues to be so.

5 Hours post op.

Today was the day 1 in my recovery from a torn ACL, surgery day. The registration and all the other logistics was pretty simple and I was in the surgical waiting room within the hour I got there. The doctor came first and answered a few of my questions and then the anesthesiologist. I had no other choice but to take general anesthesia but I asked for a femoral nerve block for later on.

I remember them injecting a sedative into my IV and withing seconds I felt like I was drunk. They wheeled me into the operating room, I was shivering due to the cold, and the next thing I remember was waking up in the recovery room.

Now I am back at a hotel and have my foot elevated to allow for better knee extension. I am on oxycodon so it doesn't hurt as much but there is still a constant dull pain that I know will keep me up all night. The femoral nerve block may also be a big help so I am definitely not looking forward to tomorrow.

The doctor said not to weight bear until my follow up with him in 4 days so I find it weird that all the other ppl I have read about said their doctors told them to weight bear as soon as it was tolerable.

I am ok when I sleep on the bed but as soon as I get up and start crutching around I get really nauscious and want to throw up, the anesthesia hasn't completely worn off though I felt really good when I first woke up in the recovery room.

For now the doctor says work on extensive and allow my leg to hang off the bed some times to work on flexion.

I have my first physical therapy session in 2 days, we'll see how that goes.

Pre-surgery/first update

So I was spending some time reading a bunch of forums about ACL reconstruction and many people seem to have a blog to keep record of their recovery and I thought this seemed kind of cool..something to look back on through the long long weeks of rehab. This will also be posted on the forums to help out others going through the process in the future as I found another person's blog to be extremely helpful and inspiring.

Anyways, this all started when I was playing basketball for IM sports about 6 weeks ago. I don't even remember what happened specifically but I just remember hearing this pop that was intensely loud, considering it came from my knee. And that was that, my ACL was gone. The trainer had no idea what he was doing - I was afraid to let him do anything but give me an ice pack, which he couldn't seem to locate in his trainers bag.

It hurt for a couple of days so I though I would go see an orthopedic surgeon while I was at home who suggested I get an MRI. Sadly my suspicions came true and the film showed nothing in between my femur and tibia.

I started reading up on ACL tears and found out as much information as I can before I went in to see another orthopedic surgeon. I even did a whole bunch of research on my doctor, seems logical to find out as much about a person as you can before letting him cut open your knee. The doctor was extremely helpful and definitely earned my trust by just talking to me. I decided to go with a hamstring graft with a cadaver allograft standing by as a backup incase my hamstring tendon was not thick enough.

My surgery is scheduled for March 24th - 9 days from now. I think I've gotten over the fear as well as the dissapointment from knowing I'll be "limpy" for a good few months. I'm actually a bit excited now to get started, jump into my physical therapy and heal as fast as I possibly can.

Next update will be when I wake up from surgery, expect some grogginess in my writing. I will try and do short, brief, and informative weekly updates if possible.