ACL surgery: Checking in Day 3

Surgery went great!  Dr. Peterson said everything went very well.

It's day 3 and I'm now off crutches and able to put weight on my right leg.  This has given me some freedom to walk around more which is great.  Below is a day by day recap:

Day 1 - Thursday

My surgical appointment was at 6:30am at the Seattle Orthopedic Center in Wallingford.  I had stopped eating since 10PM the night before and stopped drinking liquids since 3AM.  I was promptly checked in, put into a gown, had my heart rate, blood pressure and pulse measured, and greeted by Dr. Peterson who walked me through the next steps.  We both initialed my right knee so there would be no mistakes on operating on the wrong knee.  We both joked about it but I'm sure it's a concern that's frequently brought up.

Here's me (pre-op in the gown), my initials  me and Dr. Peterson with my signed knee:

Will, the anesthesiologist, and Kate, my nurse, both came to greet me as well.  I was luckily given an option to do general anesthesia OR opt for a spinal tap and be awake through the entire process.  It was a pretty easy choice for me.  With spinal anesthesia, I get to stay awake and watch the entire procedure, and I didn't have to be put under (and be afraid that I won't wake up).  Given the option, I took the spinal tap and staying awake option.  The only downside is that the spinal tap takes longer for the legs to come to their senses than waking up from a general.  Ben comforted me and let me know that it was no big deal to stay longer.  Choice made and in I went for the surgery.

The first thing they did was to take the graft by removing 2 strands of tendons from my hamstring.  The assistant showed me a strand of my tendon and then also showed me the graft after it was ready to go in to my knee.  Unfortunately, I couldn't really take pictures with my phone since both my arms were preoccupied (with AV and blood pressure monitors).

Here are the pics from the arthroscopic camera:

	Some pointers on what you're looking at: IMG_007-IMG_012: checking up on my meniscus  that cushions my tibia (below) and femur (above). IMG_014-IMG_016 is my busted ACL and how  it's not working.   Between IMG_016 and IMG_017 is a shaver that  goes around and pretty much shaves of my existing  ACL and it gets sucked out. IMG_017 is the drill about to drill a hole. IMG_021-IMG025: pulling my graft through.   IMG_026: new ACL graft in place!

I wasn't able to get a video but found a really good one on YouTube where you can pretty much get a really good picture of what my surgery was like if you're interested:

At 9:40AM: I was wheeled out into the recovery room where Ben was able to come see me.  At this point, they're just waiting for the spinal anesthesia to wear off so I'm able to support myself with my left leg and get into my car to go.  This is me after surgery under a nice warm blanket.

I hit my 2 milestones:  I was able to regain sense in my left leg and I was able to go to the bathroom.  My right leg wouldn't regain all its senses till hours later since it needed to also wait for the femoral nerve block to wear off.

We finally left the Seattle Orthopedic Center at 11:40AM and headed home.


Here were all the pills I was prescribed:

On doctor's orders, I took all my pills after getting some food in my stomach.  The oxycodon made me feel a little drowsy and allowed me to get some more rest.

I spent the rest of the day with my leg elevated sitting on my couch with the Iceman ice machine on my knee, drinking lots of water and eating as healthy as possible to assist my body with healing.  Except for the trips to the bathroom on the crutches, it was pretty uneventful.

I took one more oxycodon before going to bed to help make sure I was able to sleep through the night and rest.

Day 2 - Friday

I was pleasantly surprised that my knee wasn't hurting as much as I thought it would since the oxy would definitely have worn off by now.  So I decided to stop taking oxy and just deal with a mix of Tylenol and Ibuprofen.  

Again, I spent most of the morning on the couch with my leg lifted and with the ice pack.  The doctor encouraged me to put weight on the right foot as soon as I could.  So I started putting some weight on it and was on one crutch for a little bit and, next thing you know, I wasn't using the crutches at all and was hobbling around the house.  Being more mobile was great!

In the afternoon, I walked around the house and the kitchen and decided to spend a couple of hours cooking.  I made carrot bread with my leftover juicing pulp, made turkey veggie casserole for dinner, and made some more veggie chips with the pulp.  Then I was pooped and got myself back on the couch for more rest and icing.

Rest of the evening was more rest, more icing and small attempts to bend my knee a little and try and get to full extension and some more bend.

This is a comparison of my legs.  Not sure yet how swollen everything is since I can't unwrap this until Sunday.  Can't wait to take a look to see how everything looks!