Arthroscopic Knee Surgery: 12 Days Later
Time has really flown by this past week! My knee is looking and feeling a lot better since my last post. I can sit pretty normally in a chair, and under the right circumstances, I can even get up and sit down without using my arms. I am walking much better, though how well depends on how much I’ve been doing already. Since the surgery was on my right knee, I’ve still not driven since the surgery. As you can imagine, I’m very ready for things to get back to normal. To help out with that, I have my first physical therapy appointment in the morning.
Of course, I’ve been doing some exercises, though not quite as regularly as I should be. And they definitely help. I’ve found that the simple exercise of tightening my quadricep and pressing my knee towards the floor (while laying on my back), makes a huge difference, not only in straightening my leg, but also in how far and how easy I am able to bend my leg. I am extremely hopeful that PT will get things rolling along much faster. That said, I am looking forward to tomorrow with a little trepidation—I know it’s going to hurt, but I also know that PT can be a no pain, no gain endeavor. I’m very eager to get back to being active.
I very carefully tried to ride my bike this morning, but I couldn’t quite get the right pedal all the way around, at least not without standing on the pedals, so I’ll try again in a couple of days. Instead, I took our dog for a walk around the block (1/2 mile). The walk felt pretty good, and I think I’ll do it again later this afternoon.
I’ll leave you with a couple of pictures, to show how things are progressing. The first picture is from Friday, February 6th—3 days after surgery, and right after taking the bandages off for the first time. The second picture is from today, February 15th—12 days after surgery.
| Day 3 | Day 12 |
 |  |
A couple of things immediately jump out, at least to me: 1) The swelling has gone way down, and 2) Not only has there been quite a bit of atrophy in my right leg, there’s also been some in my left leg, too.
I’ll write my next post after PT tomorrow—wish me luck!
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Arthroscopic Knee Surgery: Post Op Days 2-4
After finishing up my last post, I took a vicodin and headed to bed. It took a few minutes to get settled into bed, but I was quickly out. I didn't wake up again until 6 AM (normal workday time to get up), even though all alarms were turned off. Fortunately I was able to get right back to sleep, and didn’t get up again until 11 AM.
When I finally did get up, I was just a wee bit groggy—aftereffects of the anesthesia, perhaps? My knee felt good. Sure, it was a little stiff, and the slightest bit sore when I first got up, but that quickly went away. I spent most of Wednesday on the couch, with the knee propped up, and the Iceman cooler running. I was even able to get some work done, and went for a short walk (okay, it was really more of a hobble).
Day 3 post op was much like day 2, except I didn’t sleep as well, I ditched the crutches, and I spent more time working while sitting at a desk. So maybe day 3 and day 2 weren’t all that similar. The knee continued feeling better, I went another day without pain medicine, and I ran the Iceman most of the day. By the end of day 3, my knee was a little sore and a little stiff from sitting in a chair for so much of the day, but nothing too bad.
Just as with the night before, I didn’t sleep well between day 3 and 4. It’s really hard to get comfortable when half of your leg is tightly wrapped in bandages. Nevertheless, I was up bright and early on the morning of day 4 because this was finally the day to take of the bandages! This is really only important for two reasons: 1) I could now shower, and 2) I could finally scratch that itch that had been driving me crazy! These were two things I was very eager to do.
One by one, I took the layers of bandages off. First, it was off with the ace bandages. Next came two layers of gauze, and a large gauze pad, until finally there was a lone yellow rectangular bandage covering the incisions. While the rest of the layers had come off quickly, this last yellow bandage was being quite stubborn, having decided to stick to the sutures. Finally, after several minutes, I was finally free and clear of any and all bandages! Of course that only lasted a minute or two, because I had to cover the three incisions with band-aids. But now I could shower! And scratch that itch!
With the bandages off, I was finally able to get a look at my knee. It looked pretty much as I had expected—bruised and swollen. Moving around without the bandages took a little getting used to, since I no longer had the support and stability that they provided. And without the bandages providing compression on my knee, it was slightly sore for most of the day. Of course that could also have been due to sitting in a chair working all day. By the end of the day, I was tired and just a little tempted to take something to help me sleep better, but I didn’t.
I’ll leave you with one last picture—a side-by-side comparison of my knees, so that you can see just how swollen the right knee is. Due to the swelling on the inside part of my leg, slightly above the knee, it almost looks like I’ve got two left legs. This picture was take Friday morning, after removing the bandages, but before taking a shower (notice the orange tint still on my leg).
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Arthroscopic Knee Surgery: Post Op Day 1
It seems that I had little to be nervous about. Today’s surgery was fairly uneventful. Here’s what I recall from the day:
We were up promptly at 4 AM, and right on schedule, we were out the door at 5 AM—on our way to the hospital. I think it took us 15 minutes to make what would normally be a 30-40 drive in traffic (just one of the benefits of having such an early surgery). And it was just a couple of more minutes before we were inside and at the registration desk.
Check-in at the registration desk took just a couple of minutes, and then we were on our way to Day-Surgery. Once in Day-Surgery, we were taken immediately back to a room, were I got into a hospital gown, and began the wait. Various people came in and asked questions, recorded vital signs, and kept us informed on what was going to happen. Julie and I passed the time with some Sudoku, and TV. Aside from having to be in a gown and nothing else, it was a comfortable wait. Finally, between 6:30-6:45 AM, I was taken up to the holding area to meet with the anesthesiologist.
Once in the holding area, I met the nurse working with the anesthesiologist, the anesthesiologist, the operating room nurse, and finally the doctor stuck his head in to mark up my right knee. The anesthesia nurse did most of the work in the holding area, hooking up my IV, and giving me a nice cocktail to take the edge off. The only trouble was very minor—the nurse was not able to get the IV to thread in the back of my hand, and had to put it in my forearm—not a big deal. With the cocktail, it was off to the OR.
Within about 30 seconds of starting the trip to the OR, I began to feel the cocktail. It was not quite a drunk feeling, but more like a nice buzz. Once in the OR, I moved over to the operating table, got an oxygen mask, and had various monitors connected to me. Within a few minutes, I noticed an weird smell in the oxygen mask. The anesthesia nurse mentioned that I’d be smelling something, and that she was giving my the rest of the anesthesia. The next thing I knew, I was waking up as I was being wheeled into recovery.
Once in recovery, and a little more aware of what was going on, I immediately felt pain on the outside of the knee. Since the MRI showed a medial meniscus tear, I was expecting pain on the inside, not the outside—I felt nothing on the inside of the knee. At the first chance, I asked the recovery nurse if she could tell me what ended up being done…she mentioned so loose cartilage and tissue on the outside of the knee that had been trimmed/removed. She didn’t mention anything about the inside of the knee, but her answer certainly explained the pain I was feeling. Recovery was pretty uneventful—I just waited until the cleared me to go back to a day-surgery room…I think the total time in recovery was just over one hour.
Back in day-surgery, I was finally able to see Julie, and have a little something to drink and eat! I also received some vicodin. After 60-90 minutes, we were heading home!
Since getting home, I’ve been resting, with a lot of TV and a little napping along the way. So far, so good—I was even able to go for short walk (using crutches, of course) late in the afternoon. I will provide more details about what the doctor actually did in my next post. For now it is time for bed!
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Arthroscopic Knee Surgery: Pre Op
Well, here we are…less than 10 hours until surgery, and 7 hours until we’re on our way to the hospital (surgery is at 7:30 AM, we’ve got to be there at 5:30 AM), and the only thing I’m nervous about is getting to the hospital on time. I am all about getting in there and getting it done—let’s move on already!
This past Friday I went down to the hospital for registration and pre op lab work. It went about as expected, though they only needed blood and urine, not an EKG and chest x-ray. Evidently I am in excellent health, aside from my knee, and they only need those last two items when you’re not in excellent health. My blood pressure was something like 104/64 (I hear that’s pretty good), and my pulse was 65 (a little high compared to just a couple of months ago, when it regularly registered in the low to mid-50s). I also got an estimate of the out-of-pocket expense for us—not cheap!
I should be ready to come home by early afternoon, and Julie will let people know how things went (check here, Facebook, email, or voice mail). I’ll login and provide a more in-depth update once I’m not so groggy.
I’m off to bed!
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