I am now one day closer to running again without pain. After a month of having the surgery looming, I finally had it and no longer have to worry about it.
Honestly, it was an interesting experience, excluding the fact that I can’t do anything for quite awhile and am in a bit of pain. There weren’t many people in the hospital while I was there, but I still had to do a lot of waiting. The building was really nice as was the room that they put me in. In the new hospital in Williamsburg, all the rooms are private, which I guess is unheard of.
After I checked in, I sat in a waiting room with my parents and then we were called in to a private room, in which I changed into a gown and waited some more. It was about two hours before anything really happened. Sometime after 9, a nurse came in and followed up on a bunch of medical history questions that I had been asked on Friday. She hooked me up to an IV of electrolytes and then I just watched more TV for nearly an hour. The anesthesiologist came in and talked to me for a minute or so, confirming that they were doing microfracture on my left knee and then quickly explained how the anesthetic would be applied. The surgeon came in right after that and again quickly talked to my parents and me about the knee operation. He also took a marker and wrote “Yes” on my left knee. Then it was time.
All the waiting was really making me nervous, so it seemed even worse when a few more hospital staff came into the room with the anesthesiologist to wheel me into the operating room. I realized that I had already taken my last steps, for they wouldn’t let me walk in there on my own. Just as they pushed me out into the hall, the anesthesiologist took a needle of something and shoved it into the IV tube. The staff, along with the anesthesiologist, wheeled me down a long maze of halls until we got into the operating room. They asked me if I was feeling drowsy, but I thought I felt fine. In the operating room, they wheeled the stretcher I was on next to the operating room table and asked me to crawl onto the table. In doing this I realized was feeling a bit tired.
I really don’t remember much about the operating room except that it was big and it was really bright. A few of the staff started talking to me, but I can’t remember what we were saying. I think it was about school. Then, they put a mask on me and we kept conversing, but again, I can’t remember what was said. I don’t remember feeling very tired or anything either.
The next thing I knew was that I was in the recovery room. There was a clock on the wall and it was about 11:30. I knew I left about 10 for the operating room, so I was surprised that it took as long as it did. Though there were at least five or six other beds in the room, there was nobody else in there except for a nurse. The nurse noticed I was awake and told me to close my eyes and go back to sleep. I didn’t want to. I remember saying a few things to her, but I can’t exactly remember what. I remember looking at the computer next to me which had an EKG readout and the nurse said something about my pulse being really low and that it kept setting off an alarm. I could hear it beeping. At some point the surgeon came by and said something about removing a one inch piece from my knee. I felt like I was in the recovery room for about five minutes before being wheeled back into the small room where my parents were, but when I got there and looked at the clock, it was 12:15. That made no sense to me, so I must have passed out again at some point.
The whole anesthetic experience was really weird since I’ve never had gaps in my memory like that. I’ve never lost track of time nor do I usually forget the topic of conversations that I’ve had in the recent past. It was like someone had hit the fast forward button on my memory.
Oddly, I didn’t have any pain when I finally became completely coherent. A new nurse came into the room and told my parents and I everything was done and that the operation went well. The nurse, like the one in the recovery room, also said that my pulse was really low and that it kept setting off the alarm on the EKG. Looking at it, my pulse was in the 40 bpm range, but occasionally went over 50 and turned the alarm off. Then it would go down again and the alarm would start screaming, so she just turned the thing off.
Looking down, I noticed I was in a huge leg brace that covered my entire leg, from ankle to upper thigh. The nurse went over some quick instructions about what to do in the next few days, which included some foot exercises to prevent blood clots. She gave me a sheet with the orthopedist’s appointment number for a follow up appointment that I am supposed to make. I’ve got to go back up to Williamsburg on Thursday for the follow-up and hopefully they will remove the bandages so that I can shower.
After that, I put on some clothes, got into a wheelchair and was taken out to the front where my dad pulled the car around.
I didn’t get to talk to the orthopedist again before leaving, but he had a good conversation with my parents about what went on in the surgery and about what to expect in the short term. He gave them a bunch of pictures from inside my knee. He took out a 1-inch piece of cartilage that had been floating around in there. One of the pictures had it next to a ruler and it looked to be about 2.5cm x 1cm. That was a lot bigger than I expected and I’ve heard that microfracture has lower success rates for larger areas. There were some pictures of the microfracture area, which greatly contrasted from the smooth areas of undamaged cartilage. The tear was really jagged and rough. After looking at the pictures, I’m surprised I was not in more pain over the past several months.
The orthopedist told my parents that I should be able to move my leg to about 30 degrees without any rubbing of the microfracture area against the kneecap. When I go to the next appointment, in addition to removing the bandages, set the brace at more of an angle so I can move around better and hopefully drive. I’m not sure about any kind of range of motion stuff, like spinning on an exercise bike. It seems that others that have had this surgery are able to do range of motion exercises fairly soon (and that it’s important to do so), but it seems different for me, maybe because of the location and size of the injury. I guess each doctor has a different approach. My parents said the orthopedist seemed very optimistic about my recovery and that the tear really wasn’t that bad. It’s kind of hard for me to form an opinion about that until I really start the recovery process.
Yesterday after I got back I just sat in front of the TV and watched the olympics. I convinced my parents to let me eat in the kitchen instead of just sitting on the couch. Getting up to go to the bathroom became a major chore, but I’ve moved around on the crutches a bit more now and it is starting to get easier. I had no pain whatsoever until about 8 last night and then whatever local anesthetic they gave me wore off like flipping a switch. Then it really started to hurt, a lot like it hurt when I last ran, except over a larger area. Taking the prescription painkillers only helped a little and they also made me dizzy.
It was also hard to sleep, which was a combination of the pain and the brace, which kept me from moving around much. At some point in the middle of the night, the pain subsided a fair amount and it’s been a lot better ever since.
It’s hard to just sit here while everyone else is out and about. My sister has been in and out several times since I’ve been here and my mom went out running. At this point it’s difficult just getting a bowl of cereal. I’m glad I came home because I would be in trouble if I were at school by myself. I’m hoping that it will get easier within the next week or so in order for me to go back to school and go to the office. I really hope that I’ll be allowed to do some kind of range of motion type stuff soon to help ease my conscience. The longer I can’t move my knee the more paranoid I’m going to be about it when I finally get the chance to do so. Of course, all the while I’m going to get extremely out of shape which will make any kind of recovery all the more challenging. But, now that the surgery is behind me it’s a lot easier to focus on the things I need to do to get better.
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