Day 41

Something has gone wrong. And it has done so rather suddenly and severely.

As of yesterday I was doing reasonably well, albeit behind relative to the published recovery schedules. Over the past week I had been seeing improvements with strength and flexion. Last night, I wrapped, elevated, and iced my knee. Afterwards I slowly pressed it into full extension and as I stood, partially supported by the edge of the couch, I was pleased to see that the slightly hyper-extended angle of my left leg was finally matched by my right. I carefully felt for and found the solid stop of the new ACL. Encouraging progress to say the least.

But early today the light at the end of the tunnel quickly faded as sharp pains began shooting through my leg. The origin was difficult to determine although it seemed to be firing from a nerve running across the back of my hip and landing somewhere inside my knee. I took a hot shower, which helped some, and an hour later I was back at the chiropractor. The adjustments helped with the upper element of the pain but left me with a new awareness of the problem in my knee. I had to stop six times over the 30-yard walk through the parking lot back to my truck. When I got home I was on my way from the driveway to the front door when I finally summoned for my recently retired crutches as my wife and 3-year old by chance saw me standing outside on the sidewalk.

I ran through yesterday's events in my head in search of some possible indication of cause as I surfed the internet for "ACL reconstruction failure". Over the course of the next few hours, filled with intermittent, sharp pains shooting from within my knee, I began to suspect that the more likely source was not the ACL, but rather the newly sutured meniscus. I tore the meniscus in my other knee a few years ago, the result of an unscheduled road bike dismount. That tear thankfully healed without surgery but I still have some well seared memories of the pain. It was very much like this now feels - sharp, specific, and plenty severe enough to stop me in my tracks.

Obviously I don't yet know what this all means. My recovery is at the very least on hold. Tomorrow I head back to the Stone Clinic for previously scheduled physical therapy. Hopefully I can find some answers there. I suspect that they will tell me to just wait this out for a while to see if it somehow begins to resolve on its own. If it doesn't, there will probably be another MRI in my future.

To suggest that I was not emotionally prepared for this recovery detour would be a tremendous understatement. I realize that I have an excess of what would in smaller doses be a healthy paranoia about this injury and I am trying to maintain an accurate perspective here. Still, I find that I am becoming somewhat overwhelmed with the uncertainty of this entire ordeal once again.