I got a sweet birthday gift a couple months ago when my orthopedic surgeon called to move up my surgery date. Of course that meant I only had a week to sort out all the pre-op stuff I needed to do. Blood tests, meetings with anesthesiologists, notifying friends and family, downloading movies and TV shows to watch during recovery. There’s a lot to do.
I ended up going with a private doctor because the public system was just too slow and conservative. One too many doctors told me that everything was fine, even after repeated relapses. There is only so many times you can go back out onto the field knowing you have a bum knee.
It was a nice clean fancy looking hospital. The elevators were one of the cooler functions. When you approached the bank of elevators, you keyed in on a number pad what floor you wanted, and the system told you which elevator to take. Once inside the elevator there were no floor numbers. Cool tech.
Other than that all I really remember was being very hungry and thirsty. Pre-op fasting is harder than I remembered.
The surgery itself went smoothly. I woke up that night with a drainage hose coming out of my knee. Way cool. By the next morning they were encouraging me to leave ASAP.
I assume it was partially an issue of better doctors, but also the drainage, but some how even though this was a more invasive surgery that my previous arthroscopic ones I came out of it with less pain and less swelling.
A week and a half on crutches, a couple weeks of walking really slowly, and now, two and a half months later, I’m walking like a normal person.
I still have some pain, especially when I try to move too quickly. I sometimes feel my knee slip when I turn, and I haven’t started running yet. All that should go away with time and physical therapy.
[Embarrassing physical therapy related story: My PT asked me if it was ok to set me up with the daughter of a friend of hers. I said ok, I can be adventurous… The next week she gives me this phone number. I call the woman up, and leave a message saying how I got her number. We play a short game of phone tag, and then she texts me saying she has no idea who my PT is or who I am. Turns out my PT got the number of this woman off of her mother, but the mother didn’t tell her. I apologized for bothering her. People do strange things…]
