The appointment went well today. Dr. Stone greeted me by saying, “So you’re ready?". “You tell me”, I responded, and then I proceeded to give him a rundown of all of what I thought to be the relevant data. “I’m still a couple of degrees from full extension, about 5-10 short in flexion, and my quad sets are good, not great, but especially with a bit of a bend in my knee I think…” “No”, he calmly interrupted, “I mean are you mentally ready.” Oh that. “Yes”, I said. “I’m ready”.
A surprisingly uninvolved physical exam and some x-rays followed and then I was given multiple lists of instructions. Don’t eat or drink anything after midnight tonight. Fill all of the post-op prescriptions. Get extra ice. Wash the knee with antibacterial soap tomorrow morning. Wear baggy pants. And a dozen other details. The only instruction Dr. Stone gave me directly, and the only one not on a written list, was “Just chill out”. Oh, and he wants me to start by taking a sleeping pill tonight. Apparently, relaxed patients do better.
Thing is, the harder you try to relax, the less relaxed you really are.
An interesting side note, one of the people whose support I could have really used through all of this has been, oh, let’s just say, less supportive than I had hoped. I’ve talked with this person a couple of times and the person has asked some questions that I had already answered in the blog. “Have you read the blog?”, I asked. “I’m pretty busy. I don’t have time to be reading someone’s ACL blog” was the answer. This person went on to say that they know lots of people who have had knee surgery and they just go in and get it done and that’s it. The clear implication being that I am making far too big a deal about all of this.
I do realize that some people are in fact very busy, and that perhaps this blog is not the most intriguing reading available. Surely it’s not destined for the best seller list. But ignoring that self-evident fact, the entirely legitimate question on the table is this: Am I making too big a deal of this whole thing? Should I just go and get it done and finish rehab and then bring it up, if at all, in an “Oh, by the way, I had to have knee surgery earlier this year” kind of way? Over the past week I really have tried to honestly re-evaluate my perspective on this (yet again) to determine the actual severity of the situation. Here are a few objective details that I came up with:1.) Hyperextension of the knee is extremely painful and can be catastrophically destructive.
2.) Reconstructive surgery is even more painful and destructive, and although it is reasonably successful most of the time, just like any surgery there is a long list of potential complications.
3.) Rehab is challenging at the very least and full function and strength, if obtained at all, are at least twelve months from surgery. I have read that full strength of the allograft is obtained in 12-18 months.
So there is it. Seems pretty serious to me. Even in the best case scenario, I’ll be limping to some degree for the better part of a goddamn year. I never would have imagined how physically demanding it is to limp everywhere you go, but I can assure you, it is exhausting. Maybe the blog is a bit self-indulgent but there are still some people seem to appreciate it. I know that the ACL diary I found (included in the ACL links section) has been very helpful for me. And maybe in some small way this blog will be helpful for someone else some day.
In the meantime, here’s a thought if you do tear your ACL… It’s a big fucking deal and no one will be able to convince you otherwise. Some people may try, but consider that it may just be their backwards way of supporting you by downplaying the significance of the whole mess. Be optimistic and be positive and be strong. But do not do so by trying to underestimate the impact that the injury, the surgery, and the rehabilitation process will have on your life and the lives of those around you. That approach would be painfully counterproductive. There are quite a few ACL diary websites on the 'net, and one that I read weeks ago finished something like this: “And so I was finally approaching normal again and finally I was getting beyond the injury that consumed and defined much of my life for the last twelve months.”
And so shall it be for me someday soon as well.
1 comment:
I'm really enjoying reading your blog. I'm about a week post-op from an allograft ACL reconstruction and it's nice to read someone's experience.
I think it's ridiculous that your friend acted like you were making too big a deal out of it. It's a huge deal! It's incredibly painful, frustrating and comes with a long recovery time to boot.
(I know you'll likely never see this, as I'm commenting years after the fact, but I wanted to put it out there anyway.)
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