Post-Op Day 38: The Bend and Snap

Sorry about the self photog. All the kids are playing. My doctor told me to exercise the leg using routine ordinary exercises to gain strength and flexibility. As you, my loyal groupies, know that my great brain can't do anything routine. So I've invented a new move to up the ante. Not surprised the least, this stroke of artistry and genius has brought Hollywood knocking at my door.

For all of you who are fans of the movie Legally Blonde, you'll recall a method that ladies use to attract men, called the "bend and snap" (aka "BAS"). I've altered the move considerably and perform my own version of the bend and snap. It'll probably catch on like wildfire once it is released.

The move consist of holding the knee parallel to the ground and then performing a "karate kid" snap kick, straightening out the knee and then pulling it back as far as I can. In public my BAS garners plenty of attention. The crowd consists of mainly young ladies vying for spots to checkout the eye candy, intermixed with MA (that's martial arts to people in the know) masters who just want to admire my sweet moves. Usually video cams, iphone cameras and the local news are catching the action. This incredibly awe-inspiring move helps strengthen my massive quads and it builds up my pumped hamstring. I'm in talks to star in the new movie Karate Kid 5- Too Legit to Quit. It's based on my life story showcasing an older yet equally juvenile karate loving kid who becomes the master of the universe. Arnold loved my treatment and is quitting politics to be in my film. I'm trading my crutches and staples for a Hollywood star. You see Rusty, it about turning lemon into lemonade. Thus endth the lesson.

My knee is losing the scar tissue which is great. I have more flexibility now although the photo doesn't show my max flex because I was holding the camera and my knee at the same time. Technical difficulties. My knee has felt almost normal the last two days, except I can't really run. Running is normal by the way. Dr. Kim tells me I still have about 3 more weeks before I can really start to rehab the knee.

Post-Op Day 34: 1 month check up - The knee nipple

 

My buddy Sean Parry asked me how my knee nipple was doing. He was referring to the "nipple" like bump on the right side of my knee in the photo. The nipple ("nip") was commonly referred to as the alien in previous posts. Since my infection has left, the alien has shrunk to a persistent nipple sized bump. I think Sean should trademark the name, knee nipple. It'll catch on in the ACL community.

Photo on the left. I know ladies, control yourselves. This is quite the handsome leg. This is what my doctor saw today during my 1-month check up. Actually it's almost 5 weeks but close enough. Granted my knee is bent and the angle is weird but it's a little swollen still. As the knee heals and sheds scar tissue, the knee swells and is painful again. This is normal apparently. Whatever. It still hurts.

Obviously being a doctor isn't all that glamorous if you're looking at these types of things all day. Here's the skinny Alice: 7-14 days I'll be totally healed... at least on the inside. From there on out the only thing holding me back is range of motion and strength. In theory I could surf in 2 weeks if I had the strength and range of motion, which sadly I have neither. The enemy at this point is the swelling. Swelling is good and evil at the same time. Swelling means the body is healing itself. Swelling is bad because it prevents range of motion and you can't build up muscle. Swelling also adds pain as the joint is used. Activity is good for the knee except when it causes too much swelling. The knee nipple and the scar tissue in the front will go away in time as it heals. It's still a waiting game.

Post-Op Day 28: Why did I go to the Zoo?

The San Diego Zoo is world famous, now it's famous for destroying my knee. I thought I needed some "real" exercise and we decided to hit the zoo yesterday. I brought along my brace just in case I would need it. We left in the early afternoon, no reason to kill ourselves. The real reason was that we all woke up at 6 am to get ready for a family picture (with Andrew's stitches face) at 7:30am. We all were dressed and showed and we took the pictures. We had about 10 minutes to take pictures because Rachel could only stay that long. She was taking pictures as a service project for the young women all Saturday. After the quick pics, I came home in a bad, bad mood and went back to bed immediately without passing go. I ended up crashing for 4 hours and woke up a little after noon. Ouch. We all got ready and piled into the car and on the way down to the zoo, we stopped off at Kinkos so Michele could make some copies of the new and improved Relief Society directory. She ran in and order 90 copies. When we jumped back into the car and we were on our way to the zoo, she noticed that the back pages of the copies were uneven, light and dark, on her sample. She called a canceled the order and she decided to make the copies at another place were the copier actually worked. We were losing time so I sped to the zoo.

The zoo was packed. It was about 68-70 degrees and just perfect for zoo time. I couldn't believe how many people were there. It was crazy. Andrew was asleep in the car and wouldn't wake up. Michele and I ended up carrying him, on my bad knee, for the first hour. It was terrible. When Andrew finally warmed up and started to walk by himself, it was Panda time. We waited in line to see the new Panda and it was great because the mom was eating bamboo. She was ripping the bamboo up with her teeth. FYI: Bamboo is so strong that it would destroy a wood chipper. Pandas have incredibly strong jaws and teeth and they can chew it up. At least I thought it was cool info.

We walked all the way up to the new Polar bear exhibit that was redone. A little disappointing. It was basically an advertisement for global warming and making us feel bad for driving our car down to the zoo to see these awesome animals. I was a little put off. Politics shouldn't be at the zoo. To make matters worse, the bears were sleeping way off to the side. By the time I got to the bears, my knee was killing me. So we decided to take a little break with ice cream and cookies to make the pain go away. It didn't. We hiked back around and saw the big elephant exhibit and then walked to the car. By the time I got back to the car my knee was on fire. I can't believe I thought it'd help to walk around for 5 hours on a knee that just had ACL surgery. It hurt ALL night; even doped up on the pain pills. It was really rough. So I'm deciding to take a different approach to rehab. I'm going to do less endurance walking and more relaxing and stretching. I think ice cream, back rubs, foot massages, and chocolate chip cookies would do wonders for my knee. I go in to see Dr. Kim next Monday and we'll see what needs to be done after that as far as physical therapy goes.

Post-Op Day 26: Stitches

For once, it isn't be who's in the hospital; however, it breaks my heart to see Andrew's eye get trashed by the kitchen counter. I was in working on my computer when I heard a commotion. Then I heard Kate scream, "Dad!!" I knew it was bad due the sound of her voice. Something was wrong.


I ran (hobbled quickly) into the kitchen and Andrew has blood all over his face. Michele was calmly stopping the bleeding when I freaked out. Cool under pressure, especially when it comes to blood and pain, I am not. I put Andrew up on the counter and looked at his huge gash right on the eyebrow. I said, "Oh no... Andrew's beautiful face!!" I've always thought that Andrew had a model's face and I was terribly sad to see that he'll have a scar so prominent. Andrew was actually pretty calm but his dad was still shaken up and having trouble coping with the situation.

Michele and I took Andrew down to Scripps hospital in Encinitas. Of course the ER was packed and we had to wait a long time to get in. The staff gave Andrew a teddy bear that seemed to please Andrew immensely. He hugged that bear the whole time. Andrew was able to watch TV while the doctors prepared Andrew's cut for stitches. He was actually very happy.  I was glad I brought a book to read because I knew the wait would be long. The doctors put on a topical numbing cream and Andrew had no problem with the doctor's working around his eye. He was so calm. Andrew must get it from his dad. Michele was up on the bed holding his hand and adjusting the TV so that Andrew could relax. Again, I was so amazed at how well he did for a 3 year old. He would say "please" and "Thank you" to the nurses and doctors and they just loved him. The doctors put a blue sheet over his face and cut out an opening big enough to expose the wound. The doctor took the blue thread and started to sewn up his cut. The wound required 6 stitches. We got out of the ER after about 3 hours and drove home. Andrew actually fell asleep during the end of the procedure. I carried him out to the car. He was so sweet. He had a patch over his stitches and we ended up putting a patch on his bear to match Andrew. Andrew loved wearing his patch. He never cried after he got his stitches and is doing just fine. When I took him to school the next day, all four kids in his speech class ALL were banged up on the face. All but one had Band-Aids and the other kid had scabs on the right side of his face. The teachers were amazed to find all their kids totally worked over. It was quite the sight.

Post-Op Day 24: Two steps forward, One back

I've recovered from my infection. I'm finally able to go outside and experience life again. My knee is indeed healing. I saw Dr. Kim on Monday and he looked at my knee and was impressed how it was coming along. I was shocked because I thought I was behind schedule. He reiterated that he doesn't want any physical therapy until at least 5-6 weeks. The graft doesn't heal completely until the 6th week. So I'm stuck doing knee bends and keeping flexibility. Flexibility is a misleading term. I can straighten my knee with effort and I'm still only around 130 degrees range of motion.

This is two steps forward, one back process. It's fairly discouraging to whimper like baby all night because your knee locks up and is in pain just a day after you're best day ever. Just when I think I'm really turning the corner the knee throbs all day. I'm having a "throb" day today. Food tastes like ash, the sun has no warmth on my face, and I have no desire to do anything when I'm in pain.

We got Andrew a new game because we just can't play Lego Indiana Jones anymore. So, we got him Lego Star Wars. It turns out it a lot like the Lego Indiana so we're burnt out on Star Wars already. Andrew has taken the Star Wars exposure to a new level. He goes everywhere with his light saber and gun. When he plays Indiana Jones, he'll sport a huge sword that must be terribly uncomfortable.

We'll, I'm just in the hurry and wait mode. My next appointment is the last monday in April. At least I'm mobile and I can leave the house. That's progress I guess. It's tough because I saw Dave Halgren on Monday and he was telling me how good the surfing has been. Ouch. I'm dying to go in the water. Patience my precious.

Post-Op Day 20: Alien

Have you seen the movie Alien? It's been a while but from what I can remember, there's a scene where a person is lying on a hospital bed and there's a huge lump in the guy's chest. The lump starts to get bigger and bigger and move around a little. Just when the scary music hits the climax, this disgusting alien creature comes flying out of the guy's chest.

I believe there's an alien host in my knee. Previously the alien tried to get out when the incision ripped and stuff came flying out. It was pretty gross. In the meantime, the alien has shrunk in size due to the antibiotics, but nevertheless very present. If you can see right below the knee cap are two baby aliens. They aren't as visible but they hurt none the less. Word on the street is that the aliens in my leg are what's left of the scar tissue. Let's talk about scar tissue shall we.

Scar tissue is the body's natural reaction to trauma. When you're bleeding real bad, you get a scab. When you're bleeding on the inside, you get an internal scab. That scab when it hardens is called scar tissue. It's just a bunch of cells and blood that are covering the trauma. So why do I have an alien sticking out from my knee? The places where the instruments and scopes went into my leg have a lot of scar tissue. This could have been prevented. If you rub and break up the scar tissue as it forms, the body will wash it away. The problem is that I had ice on my leg 24 hours a day for 2 weeks. I didn't touch those incision areas at all. So all the blood and cells just formed base camps around the "holes". In time they built a huge fortress of tissue that is hard and dense. When I got an infection in my incisions, it only added to the scar tissue. The infection finally burst open the side incision on Tuesday. So, I could have prevented the build up of scar tissue by rubbing and breaking down the "scabs" as they formed. Now I've got aliens sleeping in my knee.

So what do I do? Well, to achieve great ROM, I need to get the front scar tissue rubbed away. From what I understand, I have to rub and breakdown the terribly hard and dense tissue from the outside in. It hurts to rub it but that's what has to happen. I'm mad that I didn't know that I needed to be breaking down the scar tissue all along. I blame the doctor's office for a lack of preparation. I also heard from the substitute surgeon filling in for Dr. Kim that physical therapy will help get rid of the scar tissue as well. He said I should be in physical therapy.

Good news. My infection is not in the knee. The infection is limited to the scar tissue and surface incisions. I've been put in isolation here at home to avoid any and all infection that might make it worse. I should be able to go back outside early this week. I'm still on the "Chemo" antibiotics and they are really tearing me down. I can't wait to stop taking them.

Post-Op Day 17: Master of the Masters

If you are going to be a hypochondriac and sit around all day, you might as well enjoy it with Freddie Couples and the boys. The 2010 Masters has started and I'm so excited. I watched ALL of the coverage both online and on ESPN. Freddie is coming off several wins on the champions tour and is on fire. He ripped it up. Tigger is back and that was the big story. He played really well. I was amazed. I thought he'd come out and lay a huge egg. It actually makes me mad that Tigger can come out after not playing for 6 months and post a 4 under first round. That's just wrong. I'm also pulling for Phil. I hope it's Phil and Freddie battling on Sunday.


This morning I woke up with a stiff knee and the infection on the side incision was pretty big, red and under a lot of pressure. I quickly tried to straighten my knee out and then I did a few knee bends to get the knee loose. On the second knee bend, my incision burst on the top side and the muck and fluid came out like water from a fire hose. It was gross yet fantastic because it relieved a ton of pressure. It felt so good to have it drain.


I have an appointment tomorrow with Dr. Tooma who is filling in for Dr. Kim. It took us a few hours to get the appt. The office "chick" who answers the phones and schedules the appointments is a disaster. She has ZERO people skills. She fights with you on the phone when you tell her that the doctor asked to see me on Friday. She argues to the point of hanging up. A little later she calls back telling us that it's mandatory that I see a different doctor on Friday. Duh!!! She's a real piece of ^#@$ (by the way ^#@$ means "work"). I'm seeing Dr. Kim on Monday but apparently they need to keep a tight eye on this infection. I'm mad because I'll miss the morning portion of the Masters. Argh!

Post-Op Day 16: I'm in the lucky .4%

To the tune of Aerosmith, "I'm back... I'm in the hospital again!"

 I'm so lucky. I'm one of the .4% of ACL surgery patients who get an infected knee. Yep, you heard me sailor. My bleeping blapping knee has what is deemed a deep infection. Here's how it happened.

Roughly Sunday - Monday, I'm finding my knee feels good although there is almost a growth like bump under my knee and to the side, right where my incisions are located. I thought it was scar tissue building up. Last night, my knee was very hot, very tender, red and then some ooze crap came out of the side incision while I was massaging my knee. The knee drained out a bunch of liquid and then blood. It felt good to release the pressure. I thought I was releasing fluid from the scar tissue. I was a little concerned because I was feeling rather poor like I was sick so I did a little looking around on the web for what this might be. I ran across information describing the most serious complication for ACL surgeries - infections. When I first read the symptoms I couldn't believe that the description was EXACTLY what I had going. Then I became nervous as I read on and then went into almost a full anxiety panic attack.

Worst case with a deep infection is death. Yep... death. That got my attention rather quickly. Death isn't what I signed up for when I chose surgery. Then I read a little more. If the infection doesn't kill you, the doctor may be required to remove the $@#& ACL graft, wait 3 months and then DO THE OPERATION AGAIN!!! Argh!! I almost passed out just thinking about this option.

Usually what happens is that the infected shlep is doped up on Chemo-like antibiotics and then the knee is drained and cleaned out like a dirty water bottle. I couldn't believe what I was reading. I took a dose of Big V and went to bed. It knocked me out.

I woke up this morning and called my doctor's office. Dr. Kim is on vacation so I was referred to Dr. Tooma. With the help of Michele and about 5 phone calls we got an appointment at 3:30. About 10 minutes later, the office calls back and alarmingly tells me to go to the emergency room immediately. If my knee is infected there's no time to waste. I jump in the car and go to the ER at Rancho Springs. I wait the usual 2 hours along with the typical crowd that frequent the DMV or bus stop. I finally get in and they tell me I need x-rays and that I need to get a powerful antibiotic via IV started asap.

I hate needles. I'm using the word hate people. I hate needles, hospitals and anything with blood. Well today was pure Hell on my phobias. They tried to put in an IV about 4 times and couldn't find a vein to hold it. Blood was going all over. I was luckily laying down on the verge of passing out as I'd look up and see blood and the nurse telling me she was unsuccessful again and would have to find a new place to stick me. Finally she found a good vein on my left arm that held up. I got x-rays to examine the new knee graft and then the IV started. The nurse tells me this is like Chemo for infections. The drug cocktail is very powerful and must be administered over 3 hours. Luckily I remembered to bring a book. I polished off a few hundred pages during the ordeal. However, about an hour into the IV drip, my vision went blurry and I within seconds I couldn't read my book. I got up and flagged down the nurse and she hit the emergency stop button. She got a little excited and started to ask what I'm allergic to that might have been overlooked. It was then that my stomach was really growling and I mentioned that I haven't eaten anything in about 24 hours. She sighed a huge relief and said that I need to eat something or this IV was going to be a bad dance partner for the next 2 hours. She was able to find me a rather nice sandwich and goodies that I woofed down like a starving inmate in solitary confinement. I finished my book and waited for the IV to finish. Dr. Tooma wasn't able to come down to see me so I'll be seeing him on Friday. Plus, there's nothing he can do until the antibiotic starts to work.

I was discharged with some prescriptions that will definitely put hair on my chest or strip all hair off my body like a seal. This stuff is wicked. I've been confined to house arrest for 7 days. I can't leave the house, have visitors or do anything but lay down with my leg elevated. Argh!! So basically they want me to slowly slip into madness - stir crazy.

I have a new phobia - getting old. While I was in the ER for 6 hours, I saw the DMV people in tremendous pain being hauled in and out of the main treatment area like cattle. One such lucky guest was put in my 4 x 6 cube with me, separated by a thin white sheet, and in some bad shape. He's 84 and had a heart attack from what I understood. He was in the ER last week for something because everyone knew him by name. Earlier I had a baby with some ridiculously horrible breathing issues. I felt just terrible for the parents until the doctor rallied on them for smoking in the car and in the house because it was a huge reason for their babies health issues. Let's see, there was a 400 lbs lady who couldn't breathe just one cube over and a car wreck victim across the way. It was enough to make me pass out for 10 life times. I don't know how these doctors and nurses do it.

Remind me to never get old or sick. This has given me new fervor to make sure I go surfing when I'm old and about to give up the ghost. I don't want to linger. I want to get pounded by a wave and then slip away. I'll take going in my sleep any day. The idea of going through so much pain is not my idea of living. Oh great, the Arizona Diamondbacks just hit another homerun on the Padres. Come on Padres! You just can't give up the long ball like that. The only consolation is that the Dodgers lost to the Pirates. Baseball is back baby!!! Maybe I can live in pain if I have a good sport subscription. Speaking of sports, I'm glad I'm under house arrest during the Masters. Go Phil!!!!

Post-Op Day 15: Duke gives me love

In case you are a total sports idiot, Duke finally won a national champion last night! It's been a while for Duke fans. I was literally on the edge of my CPM and in spirit I was jumping up and down. Like me dad said, that game was almost too close for my taste. I'm just so glad they won.

I almost had a major accident as I paused the game to go to the little boys room during the last time out with only a few seconds left. I decided that I was too nervous to hold it because I'd been sucking down vitamin water all night. I tried to wait but I found that I could just wait around to watch Zoubek shoot those foul shots. While I was heading off to the bathroom, I was watching the TV screen and I tripped over my ice machine and landed very weird. To my amazement I actually was able to do the "quick step" with my bad leg and regain balance without injury. I'm just glad I didn't fall back and re-tear the knee again doing something dumb. I just can't imagine the embarrassment of saying, "Yea, I re-tore my ACL in the 2 week of rehab because I tripped over my ice machine while watching the national championship game... while it was paused."

For Duke fans, I have to include these photos. What a year. I knew when I saw Duke play at the first of the year that this year was going to be the year to go all the way. I didn't even recognize Zoubek at the start of the season. He had gained 50 lbs of pure muscle and was a beast down in the middle. He was the key to victory. The final four, especially, the refs called the game like it was a cage match, gorilla basketball. You had to take someone's head off to get a foul. Zoubek and also Nolan Smith were so tough. Smith took some serious punishment and kept on going. Singler was simply on fire. 2010 National Champions - Duke Blue Devils!!!!! 

Post-Op Day 14: Butler's ACL rupture

I read that West Virginia's Butler tore his ACL and sprained his MCL in Saturday's game vs Duke. I watched the game and when I saw Butler fall down and grab his knee and show so much agony and pain on his face, I said that he ripped his ACL. There was little doubt in my mind that when he couldn't walk on the leg and he was grabbing at only his knee, he was cooked. The incident made me a little sick to my stomach and I had to look away once I realized what happened. It's still too soon to be watching someone else rip their ACL. I know how much pain he's in RIGHT now. He's got a long rehab process as well. What's tough about his injury as with mine, is that I also sprained my MCL. That little sucker has caused a lot of pain.

I went all night without a pain pill. To be honest, I got up around 4 am and groggily fumbled around for the pain pills but apparently I couldn't find them. I had a terrible dream that kept waking me up that added to the restless night. The knee still has range, but it gets swollen very quickly. I'm going to try to do my exercises without pain pills and ice. I'm trying to see if I can get the ROM without the numbing effect of the ice machine. I'll report later.

Let's get back to what's important. Duke as the national champion. I picked Duke to go all the way. I've picked them to go all the way almost every year but this year I was actually correct. I'm pretty excited to say the least. People love to hate Duke but that's also why I like them. I was introduced to Duke basketball through my dad, who went to school at Duke in the sixties and played football. Our family has always been huge fans. To add to the sweetness of this years Duke success is the horrible and disappointing season that the North Carolina Tar Heels experienced. It was almost good enough to have UNC end up almost last in the conference and demoted to the NIT. To have Duke going for the national championship is just beautiful. My friend Kevin Hanson in Arizona is a huge UNC fan and I've had the chance to gloat numerous times this season. I received a classic text message from him shortly after Saturday's game. It had only two words - Go Butler! I'll be on the phone with him several times this evening to rub it in as Duke trashes Butler's dreams. Go DUKE!!!!!

Post-Op Day 13: Happy Easter

The Easter bunny came to our house with 15,000 of his closest relatives. Our dining room table was overrun with bunnies. There's no doubt bunnies multiple at an alarming rate especially with an American Express card. Between Valentines and Easter, there's no shortage of candy. Easter has always been one of my favorite holidays as a kid. My fondest memories are of all the creative and usual places my dad would hide eggs. He used his masters in electrical engineering to calculate the best and most suitable places to hide eggs in plain sight. One of his favorite places to hid eggs was in toys especially cars. I remember when we were in Loveland, CO when he disguised an egg as a driver of a plastic toy car. It was good stuff. Occasionally he'd lose track of an egg; however, unfortunately the egg never lost track of us. It would be discovered when the stink was so bad we couldn't stand it. This smell of rotten eggs was a contributing factor to my phobia of eating eggs during childhood. I just couldn't understand why people would eat food that smelt like pooh, feces, excrement, dung, crap-po-la. Do anyone fancy a large helping of turd?

We are going to Michele's sister's home for Easter. The kids are looking forward to the easter egg hunt. We watched the morning session of conference - always good stuff.

Blah, blah, blah. I'm bored so enough talking about the side show and let's get back to the main event - me. It's interesting how people love to talk about themselves and I've discovered that it's a horrendous addiction and that I love it. I expatiate about every ridiculous mind-numbing detail to anyone and everyone. "Hi, I'm Chad and I've had ACL surgery. Let me tell you my life story. Are you ready?" People realize that I'm a psycho and quickly shun me like a leper. What's alarming is that it doesn't seem to discourage me. I just start up with the nearest person who can fog a mirror. This self-centered disease is exacerbated when you're in pain. Don't you realize I'm in pain? Can you appreciate how bad I must feel? It's all about me. It's all about my "injury". There's no topic of interest that is nearly as exciting as talking about every stupid detail of how I'm dealing with the emotional and physical stress of this ACL surgery. Here's the reality check - NO ONE cares. People will ask about how you're doing but if you answer with anything except for "Doing great", people instantly feign illness just to get away from you. People don't like to hear about people with problems. They like to talk about other people in pain or misery but hate talking to the actual people in pain. I'm predicting that I might not physically survive the rehab because someone is going to kill me for talking about myself too much. It's a joke. I try to make small talk but find my mind wandering to what I can say next about myself. This has to stop.

As a blog entry to fulfill my goal of documenting my surgery and not to talk about myself, I'll proceed to talk about the state of the knee, for scientific purposes. Just kidding, I've been waiting all day to talk about me. Let's get to it.

FYI: I slept like I was wired on caffeine after a long road trip. It was terrible. The caffeine was actually a new pain in my knee I had all night and to make it 100% miserable, I couldn't find my pain medication. To be specific, the pain has moved to just to the right of my knee cap and also just below and to the left of the knee cap. It's probably scar tissue that is healing. Granted I have molasses hardening in my knee, it seems to get more stiff each day though I'm really working the range of motion. I'm beginning to wonder if I need to be doing something else or taking anti-inflammatory meds or doing more exercise, less exercise, etc. I'm just not sure why my knee is hurting in specific places. What makes matters worse is that I don't know if this is natural or usual. Is this the pain left over as the swelling goes down? Is this a new pain induced by my exercises? I need answers people. I'm going in for my next post-op appointment with Dr. Kim next Monday. He's been on a working vacation so I can't do anything until I see him. I'm beginning to question if I'll be able to recover in 3-4 months even with heavy rehab. I'm thinking that time is the only healer.

Post-Op Day 12: Molasses and Rehab

Molasses - thick brown uncrystallized juice from raw sugar during the refining progress.

Obviously my legs are sweet and widely attractive. There's hard hitting scientific evidence proving my legs are sugary sweet. As my knee recovers or in other words as the knee is being refined and toned, molasses has obviously formed within the joints causing slow movement and restricting motion. There's no other way to explain it. If I were to dig into my knee I wouldn't find blood, but sweet molasses.

Sure I can get the knee moving and my ROM is over 110 degrees, but my knee quickly hardens like curing cement. It takes plenty of ice, silent swearing and pain to get the knee going again. Just when I think I'm really making progress, it seems as my knee takes a turn for the worse. My good knee just works so well. It's incredible how easily it moves and swings with a HUGE range of motion. It's strong, taut and balanced. My recovering knee is still quite painful, slow, ugly yet full of sweet nectar.

Rehab. I'm beginning to understand how come rehab is so long. I not only need to get the ROM back but to get rid of the pain and restore the muscles and coordination is going to take some work. When you exercise your muscles, you end up limiting the ROM. It's a tug-o-war getting the knee back in shape.

Tonight I went to my stake center for the priesthood session. Yes I was able to sit for the session although when I got up to leave my knee was almost locked. It took some time to get the blood flowing and straighten out the knee. I thought President Uchtdorf was talking to me about patience. He was talking about spiritual patience but I applied it to my rehab. Hopefully I'll have the necessary patience to not just wait out the recovery time but to actively enjoy the experience and learn something. I can also take the time to think about what I really want to do. Obviously I won't be spending time doing my fun activities like surfing and golf. Speaking of golf, I'm itching to play but obviously it's not an option. Argh!!! 

Post-Op Day 11: Soreness

Today has been fairly pain free unless I go off my meds for a while. I've been trying to ween myself off the pain pills for a while but it's been difficult due to my low pain tolerance. Today I actually spent all day without any pain medication until bedtime. I tried to sleep but the knee was very sore.

What's interesting is that pain really isn't the issue now. It's soreness. The knee is just plain sore. It's difficult to move the knee and either direction I bend the knee it is done slow and deliberate. The swelling has really gone down and I can walk fairly well with a noticeable limp of course.

No muscles. My leg muscles are deteriorating further. My hamstring is a joke. I laid down on my stomach and tried to do a few leg curls. It's a weird feeling to feel you leg move a little bit and then totally stop, completely give out and I just can't curl it anymore with any amount of effort. This was a surprise to me. I thought if I really gave it my all I could get to a point where the pain would be too much and I'd have to stop. I didn't even get to the "horrible" pain part. I just can't contract the hamstring enough to curl the leg.

When extending the leg or contracting it passively or manually, the knee is tight. I really thought it would "loosen" up at this point. It is looser up to a point but still very tight. I can't straighten the leg without leverage and manual effort. I can't bend the knee hardly at all except when using passive resistance like the CPM or I do leg bends.... very carefully.

Post-Op Day 10: CLB - Chicken Leg Brigade

I'm very proud that I'm at 110 degrees ROM. This is something that was unthinkable last week. I can't just jump on the CPM and do 110 degrees cold turkey. I takes me a few minutes to get the knee going. But I've done all I can with the CPM. I'm still cracking on this beast all day today to get the knee good and loose.

Yesterday afternoon was the official start of spring break for our schools. I decided that since I'm down for the count and everyone else is going on vacations and doing other entertaining activities, that we'd do a movie marathon of Star Wars - shown above pictured with the CPM. I knew that Andrew would be so excited. We watched the first show and Andrew watched the whole movie with a death grip on his "light saber" he got from Disneyland a while ago. After the movie was over, Andrew jumped up and displayed his Jedi knight moves. In his excitement, he used his sweet movies and light sabered Snowball the dog. It was hilarious.

I was just outside for about 30 minutes away from my beloved ice machine eating a sandwich and getting some sun. Idle time is never truly idle. During the sun bath, I was working my knee doing extensions and sadly noticed the state of my left leg. The only way to describe my left leg is that of a meth addict (bruises) that hasn't had any physical activity in 15 years. The skinniness of the leg is alarming. I didn't realize how fast the muscle tissue simply dissolves.

My mind was transported back to a simpler but not necessarily happier time when I was a kid. I knew I was skinny, but I thought that because I was so good at sports it would make up for it with the ladies. Couple my athletic abilities with a nice deep brown tan that I picked up every year while playing a million hours of tennis and I was a ladies man, at least on paper. 

One day I was at my best friend's (even still today) house and I met his girlfriend who was later labeled the "Psycho". We'll call her Kristi for legal purposes. Kristi was really cute. I was wearing my favorite baby blue "OP" (Ocean Pacific) shorts and my latest tennis tournament shirt that I loved to wear to make sure people knew I was a player - ala Bjorn Borg. The first thing that Kristi said to me, and I mean the first utterance was, "Hey peanut-butter stick legs!" I was blown away by such boldness and lack of common courtesy but was equally shocked at the outright audacity to criticize my perfectly sculpted legs. What made matters worse is that she was cute and that she called my peanut-butter stick legs all day. She never once used my real name. 

This Kristi, however crass and brutal, opened my eyes that day. Perchance my legs weren't the ideal manly legs I always thought they were. After further research it was confirmed that people, all people, thought my legs were pretty much abnormally skinny. Ouch... Seeing my skinny left leg brought back memories of looking down and saying to myself, "Good heavens... you've got sticks for legs." 

In more recent memory, the mid 90s, I was a co-founder of a certain secret society aptly named the CLB - Chicken Leg Brigade. The CLB was founded upon one obvious and specific theme which was to celebrate and promote skinny legs. The CLB had the original 4 founding members, Don Debate, Ted Davis, Jonathan Cook and myself. The organization was organized while we all were playing golf one day and Don Debate observed that all four of us had exceptionally skinny legs, almost chicken like. After a few failed attempts to properly label our group, Don came up with CLB. Our Lindon, Utah home proudly has CLB 98' written into the cement on our driveway.

So all ye of skinny thighs, calfs and legs unite under the shelter of CLB. Come and bask in our warmth. You shall find comfort, guidance and support for your chicken legs. I'll always be a proud card-carrying member of the CLB. Currently now with my ACL surgery, I'm the mascot, the eye candy, for the CLB movement. Viva CLB!!!!

Post-Op Day 9: Promised Land

110 degrees. I've finally reached 110 degrees of ROM (range of motion). That's the goal. Of course this is a passive feat, meaning that the CPM is able to bend my knee but I cannot do it on my own. My muscles are wimpy and have lost much mass. What's also nice is that I can straighten my leg out completely, though it hurts a lot.

What's surprising at this stage in the game is just how stiff the knee is. Almost any knee movement feels like my knee is surrounded in pea gravel or very thick honey. There is no swinging movement like my good knee exhibits. I've always had skinny legs, some would say "girl" legs, but after this surgery my left leg would be on the same scale as a runway model. That's not good for a guy by the way.

I've been sitting around all day working my leg. Nothing too exciting except Andrew and I finished the Indiana Jones game after a few hours of gaming. The problem is that Andrew wants to go through it again. He literally has spurned all of his amassed vocabulary and decided to keep only those morsels that really give meaning to his life: Indiana Jones, candy, gum, "That's cool". He's a focused gaming beast. I can't wait to see him turn this type of focus into something useful. He'll be incredible.

Post-Op Day 8: Plateau

Interesting day indeed. Fairly uneventful but completely frustrating. I thought I could keep up my furious rehab progress and see daily improvements. I just couldn't get my knee to bend beyond 95 degrees no matter how much I iced it.

Yesterday... I might have done some things that have contributed to my poor performance. Yesterday morning about 7:30am I heard a strange noise, like that of running water, so I thought was someone taking a shower. After a couple of minutes it suddenly hit me that my sprinkler valve on the side of the house was spraying water all over. I've had SO much trouble with my sprinkling system. I had just put on a new cap on the valve filter on Friday and that cap busted open. Argh! In my anger, I decided that I needed to fix the sprinklers that day or risk having all my plants dying. My knee felt okay to be on my feet for an hour, no big deal.

It was a big deal. It took my 2 hours because I had to fix 3 valves. My knee was KILLING me all night and into the morning. Even big V was struggling to keep the pesky pain away. So, all day my knee has been a little swollen and thus no results. I'm just lucky I haven't digressed.

To make matters worse, I went to the library around 4:30 pm, with Andrew (that adds about 3X the effort) to get 2 books I'd reserved. By the way, our library is so great. I can reserve books across all the libraries in San Diego. They have this self-checkout system that is so slick. You swipe your library card and set the books near this book reading sensor and the system instantly checks out the books and prints your receipt. It takes about 15 seconds. Good to see our tax dollars at work finally. Back to the story. So I found my reserved books and Andrew was screaming for a book for him. I'm not stupid. I'm not new to working with 3 year olds. If I had given in to "finding" Andrew a book, I would have burnt at least 2 hours looking at every book in the library until some inspiration from heaven would barrel down and enlighten Andrew to finally choose a book. But sometimes inspiration doesn't come. Then I must resort to making a decision for him and carry him kicking and screaming to the car. He's 3. What can you do? Reason with him?

On the way, I stopped by Ralphs for some liquid refreshment, aka Gatorade and Vitamin water. Little did I know that Michele had already stocked up some while running errands that morning. My bad. My knee was hurting but I knew I needed to refuel so I dared to run the gauntlet of the supermarket with Andrew. I was pleasantly surprised to see that Ralphs had a nice sale on their drinks. I got PowerAid bottles for 40 cents and Gatorade for 80 cents. Like my sister, I love a good deal. I got some extras and tried to get to the check stand before Andrew latched onto anything that he couldn't live without. I was literally standing in a freshly opened lane (I love it when the checker selects you, the chosen one, out of all the people in line to come over to a new open lane. I am special.) taking out my first Gatorade when Andrew bolted from sight. I knew it was a bad situation due to the speed and ferocity of the little man's sprint. I quickly unloaded a 1/4 of the items and then looked over the magazine hedge to spy on Andrew like a solider looking down at enemy activity from behind a stone wall. Oh NO!!! Andrew had the Hotwheels cars. Mayday, mayday, code blue.... we have an immediate and substantial situation on checkout 4. The next 15 minutes was like a scene from "Black Hawk Down". Mayhem, screaming, crying and pleading with plenty of cat and mouse. I decided to play the very slow disabled cat with my HUGE knee brace. Andrew just wouldn't give up the car. I'd take it away and then he run and find another. Pretty ugly. Finally he came back with a virtually white flag of peace... ironically clad in orange... yes it was a bag of Cheese Puffs. We made a compromise that if Andrew would give up the car, he'd get Cheese Puffs later. Obviously Andrew's negotiation skills are far superior to mine. He'll make a fine future Secretary of State.

I'm back home, swollen knee and all watching Andrew feast on Cheese Puffs and having a fine time playing... you guessed it - Indiana Jones. We only played 2 hours today, our new low. Looks like Andrew maybe sick of the game. I can only hope.

Post-Op Day 7: Almost a week

I went to Dr. Kim's office for a follow-up. Beforehand, I gathered up my crutches and knee brace and prepared myself to get the staples out. I was very excited to get them out because they kept snagging on everything driving me nuts. Plus my swelling had gone down A LOT and the staples were just hanging there flopping around. I gathered the car keys and my wallet and we were ready to go... Oh wait, no wallet. I haven't seen or used my wallet since Thursday when I came home from the first follow up in a stupor of pain meds. I literally have NO idea where it is. Drugs are a killer on the memory by the way. Purple Haze baby. We've looked around in the usual and unusual places for quite some time and just can't find it. The wallet is here somewhere. I even looked to see if the cards had been used by someone who might have picked it up. Nothing but a fuzzy purple haze.

Needless to say we went to the doctor's office sans ID. Michele and Andrew drove with me to make sure I didn't do anything dumb while operating a car. The nurse was great and painlessly removed all the staples. With a sense of mastery, I turned in my crutches like a toddler handing his dad his training wheels. "Look how far I've progressed. I shan't be needing these again. Take them away because obviously I'm way too superior to be seen with such." I showed off how much I could do with my new knee (yes I stood on one leg) and the nurse did the best she could to act like she cared by giving me ample praise for such mediocre. For me, the feat was unbelievable. Last week I couldn't fathom ever walking again and now I'm on one leg people. One leg. In my fantasy mind I just sort of expected a reaction like, "Let's get channel 10 news in here. I've never seen a patient do what you've done in only a week. Incredible. This isn't science. It's a miracle." In reality she's seen a thousand patients do the same thing. Yawn.

I can walk pretty well with a very noticeable limp. Though I casted off my crutches this morning for good, it seems I have a new crutch. Ice, Ice baby. When I ween myself off the ice machine for more than an hour, my knee really starts to hurt and the range of motion goes way down. The pain goes up and the patience goes to zero and then irritability overtakes me like I'm the Incredible Hulk turning huge and green. "Why won't this car door close?" Then I savagely beat the car door shut 10 times to just to show the door who's boss.

The nurse didn't really offer me any insight on the pains around my knee, mainly where the hamstring attaches to the tibia. She just said that it's normal to have pain and that I should continue to use my CPM to extend my range of motion for the next 2 weeks. So basically she didn't know and she read me the Sunday school answer.

Two weeks. Who wants to take bets that I self-check into a mental institution by this Thursday? Wait, Thursday is a sure lock so how about Wednesday? This idleness is the worst thing I've ever experienced. I hate it. I asked the nurse how to fast track the rehab. She smiled not in a totally condescending way but rather letting me know she was way ahead of me. There's no way to speed up the healing. For the first 6 weeks there's absolutely nothing you can do to get the knee better. Too much exercise, even simple easy exercise is bad. The internal wounds need to heal. The bone has to graft itself over the screws so that the new ACL will hold. The hamstring has to repair itself. Too much exercise and such will pull the screws out. Not good. Once that 6 week mark is hit, you have to get the muscles and the rest of the functions to work properly. The muscles, hamstrings and quads are just simply exercised with resistance and weights. The other portions have to do with balance, weight transfer and flexibility.

0-6 weeks: Increase flexibility and range of motion to about 140 degrees or to basically be able to rest the ankle against the thigh. Light exercises like leg lifts and extensions just to get minimal muscles and usage. That's it. It's a waiting game.

6 weeks - 4 months - Daily work outs of the muscles and knee functions. Gradual at first scaling to full normal strength. By 3 months, you should be physically healed sans the muscling. You should be careful not to go postal on the knee and twist it all over the place until the muscles are back. More than half of what holds the knee together are those muscles. Tendons can only do so much.

I've been reading about athletes who get back into competitive play in 3 months. I'm just an athlete trying to have fun so I should be able to get back into action in 3 months assuming all else goes to plan. I'm not going to push too hard until the 6 weeks is up, but then I'm going to go full bore. I want to surf and golf again very soon. Patience is a virtue that I'd wish would hurry the crap up because I need a heavy dose RIGHT NOW!

Post-Op Day 6: Captain Jack

I'm a wild man. I'm pretty much a hard-core bad momma in surf shorts. Women love me, men fear me.  It's a blessing and a curse. During this whole knee surgery I've had a tough time dealing with... well the ugliness factor. No one likes ugly. My knee has been constantly described as ugly, hamburger and mine shrapnel. I have staples and stitches all over my knee. Not pretty. So let's turn this frown upside. I blinged up my newly acquired piercings with a touch of Captain Jack Sparrow inspired by my endless movie viewing. I took some pirate loops and Captain Jack beads and worked my magic. These staples come out tomorrow so let's party 'til it's 1999. Here's me acting like a tough guy - quite contrary to the blog title and real life attributes. Needless to say, my wife wasn't too thrilled about the idea and grudgingly obliged to snap these photos. Seems as if the pirate's "Argh!!!" growl is getting on her nerves but of course Andrew is in hog heaven. He has his sword and pirate hat out and is loving having a new partner in "Argh!" We sword fight a lot and he cuts off my hands, arms and legs then moves in for the death blow while making all the appropriate vocal background noises, "Whatcha! Huah!" It's good stuff. Since this is bugging certain people, I'm thinking that these whole pirate thing has legs. I'm going pirate all day.

Though ruggedly handsome with a devilish whit, I possess a great brain. It's pretty special. While sitting in my own filth for almost a week, for I was unable to take a shower due to the stitches and staples, I decided to escalate my stink problem to my great brain to figure out a cure. Sure I could take a sponge bath but who are we kidding, that really doesn't work. It just moves the stink to a different place. There's lotions and perfumes but that only masks the stench. No... I needed a shower because I stunk like a skunk. (Have you ever noticed how animals names often mimic a noticeable attribute? Stunk and skunk, Ssssnake.) So I put my great brain to work. In literally tens of seconds, the answer came to me. I can shower if the knee stays dry. Boom! The great brain delivers. So how do I keep the knee dry? By putting something flexible yet waterproof over the knee. What could do the trick? A common kitchen staple in every house - plastic wrap. I wrapped the knee in plastic wrap and taped the two ends. I slipped into the shower and the heavens opened and I literally heard harps and beautiful music raining down from above. That was the best shower I've ever had bar none. The wrapped knee never saw a drop of water. I not only showered, but shaved and applied appropriate lotions and perfumes to bring me back to civilization. It feels SO good to be clean again.

There was a price to pay for the shower. No the knee didn't get wet, but the heat from the shower and the time away from my beloved friend, the ice machine, was brutal on my knee. It quickly puffed up like a balloon and then mister pain and his friends were dancing on my knee. No fun. So I'm preparing Camp Chad for some scripture reading and spiritual enlightenment on this fine Sabbath day buttressed by watching my Duke Blue Devils win today and go to the final four.

Post-Op Day 5: The Ugly Knee is feeling better

By looking at the trashed knee to the left you might think I'm crazy for saying that I feel much better today. I slept a full 8.5 hours, a new record post-operation.

Let's get to the performance stats: 80 degrees of knee range achieved last night. Looking to get to 90 degrees today. More balance and greater weight applied to the knee. Reduction in swelling around the knee. I can actually make out a knee cap. The staples are loose and from what I know they are ready to come out. What's fun is when the staples catch on the ace wrap when the CPM is working my knee. I can't wait for the staples to be removed! The nausea I've been experiencing may not be necessarily from what I'm eating. When upright and walking around my head really hurts, almost migraine like. I take the pain meds and the headache goes away but I'm knocked out and floating in the air like Peter Pan. I love Peter Pan. Beats Peter Pain.

Usually my calf is taut, toned and terribly handsome. The cat calls from the ladies are sometimes embarrassing but always present. My perfect beautiful calf has been taking out behind the woodshed and beaten black and blue. I'm assuming that during the operation the doctors have to clamp down on the leg pretty hard while they drill and screw my knee together. That or they are quite jealous and decided to take me down a notch. Though quite ugly, the calf actually hurts quite a bit. You don't realize the "lesser" pains of this surgery until your knee starts to heal. There are other lessor pains but the there is currently a big pain.

The biggest pain in the knee is actually the hamstring, but it isn't where you think. Usually when people think of hamstring they think the back of the femur. That area is sore too but not as much as the front of the tibia. On the picture to the right, there's a huge incision that has 3 staples. This is where the hamstring was harvested. When you contract the hamstring, the tendon pulls on the front of the tibia right where the incision is. The hamstring needs to heal and only time will heal it. The problem is that when you move the knee and that hamstring becomes taut, the pain is surprisingly strong.

Wow, I must say that my knee is probably the least attractive thing I've ever seen. Look away people, I'm hideous.

Though ugly and whining like a mule, I've had visitors. Some visitors yesterday came bearing soup and crackers. Blaine and Aaron came over with soup and good company. It was a very nice gesture.

Anyway, the visit allowed me to break away from the 5-6 hours of Lego Indiana Jones that Andrew forces me to play with him. Notice the huge smile on Andrew's face. Usually he is happy camper and he squeals like a girl when he plays Indiana Jones. But there are times when Andrew turns into a mean gamer and he screams and yells, "Oh shoot!!!" or "Oh Man!!!" or occasionally when he pretty frustrated he'll break out the "Oh Crap!" which will bring down a stern reprimand from Mom... directed to his dad. I tried to break the lovely stretch of 4 straight days of Indiana Jones with my new Forza Motorsport game that Weston and Jadon brought me. Andrew loves cars, but it's too advanced for Andrew. He just crashes the car into the wall and gets mad. Soon he gets fed up and and walks over and ejects the game. I immediately react and tell him, "Put the Forza game back in the XBox!" He just looks at me like, "Oh yea... what can you do about it?" He knows that all the screaming I do is easily triumphed by the fact that he's mobile. He's not cocky or obstinate about his disobedience. It's just a matter of fact. "Hello, you can't move around and let's see... I want to play Indiana Jones." He's no dummy. I can't just get up and run him down. I'm hooked up to the machines. To the victor goes the spoils, dad... and you lost. More Indiana Jones, dad???

Post-Op Day 4

Did I just pee myself last night? I've been reading about the bladder numbness that can occur with anesthesia and I woke up and my foot and leg were wet. Turns out it was water condensation on the water tubes that are attached to my new ice machine. The tubs are exposed for a number inches and the humid air condenses on the cold tube. This ice machine is the Ferrari of ice machines. It cools the water itself without the need to add ice and it is always cold at 43 degrees.

I've decided that I must be pregnant. I wake up every morning with severe morning sickness. I'm so nauseated it's debilitating. I believe it's the anti-bacterial pills combined with the powerful pain meds. I got about 4-5 hours of sleep yesterday. I just couldn't sleep with so much pain. I decided to take my knee off the CPM and try sleeping normal with a huge pillow between my legs while still keeping the ice machine going. I slept pretty well once I got situated and I'll do it again tonight. Pain and sleep just don't mix well. If I dope up on Big V to help me sleep, I end up getting an upset stomach. Dr. Kim said that the nausea was usually from being dehydrated. I've been drinking fluids like crazy and I have to "go" all the time now so I'm not sure my nausea stems from dehydration.

I got to 60 degrees of knee bending last night. I'm currently up to 70 degrees of motion right now. Not too bad considering just yesterday morning I was at 40-45 degrees. Dr. Kim instilled some confidence that  I needed to push myself. I'm going in to remove the staples and stitches on Monday. I can't wait because the main incision with the multiple staples is right on the tibia and it always hurts.

Another major milestone is that I can indeed walk on my knee without crutches. Contrary to my mindset as late as yesterday morning, I can walk on the knee. The almost comical thing about walking on the new knee is that it feels like I'm using an artificial limb. I have NO control over the knee and there's little stability. The reason for this sensation is that the knee has "broadcasted" out to the connecting tissue that "I'm HURT. Don't use me and stay on the down low for a while until I can heal". My muscles and nerves are not working correctly and thus instability. As you can see to the left, I can do a leg lift without passing out. It's still painful and the staples aren't helping at all. I can do several leg lifts without assistance. I can feel the hamstring in the front of my tibia straining and struggling with each lift. The only way to get the hamstring back is to use it.

I was almost laughing last night as I walked/shuffled around the house at how much my life has changed since Feb 27th. Almost one month ago I was in the best shape of my life, surfing every day and skiing the best I've skied in years. I told my dad that while skiing in Utah at Deer Valley just weeks before the accident that I haven't skied so well for a long time. My endurance was really strong and I was pulling "heli's" all over. I felt so good. On my birthday,  Feb 24th I went for the SoCal special and skied Mountain High in the morning and then surfed Grandview in the afternoon - just 3 days before the accident. 

Now I'm stoked if I can hobble around sporting a massive 6 inch strut. I've become Bill Murray in "What about Bob". Baby steps to the bathroom. Baby steps to the kitchen. Baby steps up the stairs. Baby steps back to Camp Chad on the couch. Don't take for granted what you have right this second. By grateful for it might be gone in an instant.

ACL Surgery Lesson- My knee got screwed

Enquiring minds want to know. Literally tens of people are sitting on the edge of their computer chairs to finally learn what is an ACL and how is it fixed. Thus starts the lesson.

The ACL is a blood carrying ligament that attaches to the back of the femur to the front of the tibia. This ligament keeps the tibia from sliding right into the knee cap during activity.

Skiing is brutal on the ACL because often you fall backwards in a rock hard ski boot half way up your tibia and said boot is mechanically clamped onto a monster lever called a ski. You don't have to be a genius at physics to realize that if that lever and the solidly attached ski boot decide to move forward while the full weight of your awkward and out of control body falls backwards, that ACL becomes 100% taut and crying in pain. Usually the ski boot will release from the large ski and relieve the pain being applied to the ACL. When the ski boot doesn't release you've got serious trouble. That's why ski racers have knees like jello. Ask Lindsey how her knees are doing. When the ACL tears, all the blood it carries spills out into the tissue. That's how doctor's know if you ripped the ACL if you have a soft mellon sized knee.

So to fix the snapped ACL, the doctors resort to fairly crude methods - drills, screws and staples - stuff that would get any common Home Depot addict frosty. Philips or standard? Makita? The doctor takes a harvested strain of the hamstring and literally screw the reconstructed ACL to the front of the tibia and back of the femur. The hamstring grows back in time so no loss there. No wonder I'm in so much pain. My knee has been screwed. From what I understand the hamstring is a strong piece of molasses and it can handle a ton of abuse. So the knee is totally fixed after surgery. The internal healing and the swelling is the only thing keeping me from surfing. There must be a faster way to rehab. If all these overweight people can lose 150 lbs in 4 hours, I should be able to get this knee back in action in a week. Right?

Post-Op Day 3 - First Check Up

Going in to see Dr. Kim today. The first day out of the house since the surgery. Dr. Kim pictured with me bewildered that I'm still alive.

Last night was better than the night before. I actually was able to sleep for about 7 hours. I'm sleeping on the couch with my ice machine running full blast and the CPM machine going at 30 degrees incline. Yesterday I was at 40-45 degrees but it was too painful to sleep with that range of motion. When the knee is idle doing nothing, it gets surprisingly stiff fairly quickly. The next time the knee is moved or I start up the CPM is not fun at all. Feels like I'm breaking little strings as my knee gets back into motion.

By the way, the numbness in my good leg is gone as well as the numb bladder control. Yeehaw.

Big V. Let's talk about the pain medication Norco/Hydrocodone/Vicodin. This stuff is wicked. I'll be honest, the first two days I really didn't appreciate what the Big V does until about 2:30am last night. I woke up in quite a bit of pain. I'm prostrate on my back with my butt on a large pillow and another pillow under my back and the knee is in the CPM doing its thing. The knee is always at heart level or higher. I have always had trouble sleeping on my back because I get vertigo. So this whole leg strapped to this CPM setup is doing a number on my mind. I find myself experiencing vertigo each time I go to sleep. Back to Big V. I took a drink of Gatorade and decided that though I couldn't eat anything (I couldn't get up to get any food), I'm going for the V. I took 1 pill, waited about 15 minutes and the next thing I knew it was 6 am and I was out cold. The only reason I woke up was because I was hot. I find that the V makes me hot, temperature wise people, temperature. I wonder if that's a side effect. I slept well to about 6:40 am and then I decided to jump on the blog and write for a while. Good night over all.

I'm going to Dr. Kim's office today for my first post-op appointment. He's going to change my ice machine to a better one and rewrap my bandages which are barely intact. Not sure what happened but the knee wrap wasn't done that well from the hospital.

Dr. Kim is a stud. Michele drove me up to his office in Temecula. We were late leaving the house but we made it there in record time. Turns out Michele likes the gas pedal! Right honey? So in the car I apologize about 50 times for being such a baby and whining all the time. Seriously I'm completely sick of myself whining about the pain, the knee, the rehab. Shut up Chad. The problem is that I can't help it. That's how I communicate with what's going on with me. I let it all out. Terrible excuse. I'm Chad and I'm wimpy. So, I popped a Big V pill during the car ride and from what I can recall I was almost passed out the whole way to the office. We arrived to Dr. Kim's office and waited for about 10-15 minutes (again time sort of stood still for me) and my name was called.

I stumbled up on my crutches and was struggling a bit as I entered the hallway to the patient room when Dr. Kim saw me. He scolded me for not putting weight on my severely destroyed and hacked up knee. I stopped and looked at him like he had 4 heads. Put weight on my knee? Are you kidding me? Are you totally mad? Turns out my knee is as stable as it will ever be and the trick is to get the rest of the tissue and muscles to heal up and get in shape. So I tried to put some pressure on the knee and the pain was almost 4 letter word pain. The photo to the right tells the story. I slowly hobbled in and got on the patient table. Dr. Kim also told me that I needed to be at 60 degrees on my CPM asap. I'm at 45 degrees and I thought that was painful! He said I need to push it and get to 100 degrees by next week. Yea right. I'll try to get there - doctor's orders, right?

Dr. Kim took off the badges and inspected the knee. I had thought that orthoscopic surgery was minimal and only 1 incision about an inch longer was made. Wrong big time.

There were several inch long incisions and they are all held together with staples. Seriously staples. There's no plastic surgery I take it with the ACL operation. Just bands of steel holding together flesh. The knee was fairly swollen as you can see. We took some pictures of the knee for the blog and Dr. Kim even posed for a photo. He wrapped up the knee and put on the new and improved ice machine wrap and we were done. He said the operation went well and that my knee was fixed. All I have to do is rehab the leg and get it back in shape. That's all???

I have some allergies to wheat and seafood. Around the wounds and other areas of my leg, I was having a fairly bad reaction to something. There was some discoloration and some blisters especially around the incisions. From the time I got home from the operation I knew that something was bad because I was having an allergic reaction usually reserved when I eat shellfish or seafood. I couldn't figure out why I was breaking out. I thought that stress was causing my auto-immune system to go haywire. On the way home from the doctor's office, it hit me so hard as to why I was having such an allergic reaction. Iodine. Iodine is very heavy in shellfish and seafood. Iodine is also used to treat wounds and as an anti-bacteria solution especially during and after surgery. After I came home, I undressed the bandages and cleaned off my whole knee and especially the wounds from all iodine and applied some prescription anti-bacteria cream instead. That should do the trick. From now on I'm going to remember that iodine is indeed a medicine and I need to list that as something I'm allergic to.

Now I'm just chilling on the couch getting ready to play Forza Motorsport 3 that I got from the two coolest high schoolers/varsity scouters, Weston and Jadon. I already pounded my Jamba Juice. Thanks guys. Getting ready to watch some NCAA action this evening.

I have my knee hooked up to the new ice machine and it works really well. I'm going to push to 60 degrees by tonight. We'll see. I'm still pretty wimpy.

A few photos for the few who dare. Yes those are steel staples holding the hamburger together.

Weston and Jadon's surprise visit

This afternoon, Weston Joyce and Jadon Neuendorf came by for a post-op visit. I've been trying to blame them for this accident to most everyone who's heard the story. Someone besides me needs to be reasonable for this disaster. The reasoning goes like this: Weston and Jadon are too much fun and are too good of athletes to do the normal scouting stuff. They snowboard like Shawn White so I decided to take the "reckin' crew" up to Big Bear and show them how to really rip the snow. How often do you end up having scouts that are so good at everything, especially skiing. This was a chance of a lifetime.

During the incredible ski day these two boys were ripping up the mountain from top to bottom so I HAD to take it up a notch. If the boys had been terrible snowboarders I would have never been placed in this situation because I would have been on the bunny hill all day and been 100% safe. So to make a long story short, I ended up reckin' my knee on a jump at the base of lift 4 at Big Bear. I obviously am not at fault and I put all the blame onto Weston and Jadon, who just need to be lame greenie snowboarders and all this nonsense could have been avoided.

The boys came by to see me with gifts in hands. They knew I'd be laid up for a while so they gave me the gift of speed, Forza Motorsport 3. If I can't go fast and have fun in reality I'll be able to virtually do it on my XBox 360. They also gave me a Jamba Juice that was devoured rather quickly. Great gift and I'm obviously going to be playing this game a lot in the next month.

Seriously, it was a very nice thing to do. I am not too manly to say that I love these boys and I see so much potential in them it's scary. You'll be reading great things about these two... and I'm not just saying this because I got a great XBox game. Michele commented on how incredibly mature and respectful these two boys are. I hope Andrew can be as cool yet mature as the reckin' crew. Hopefully from here on out the only reckin' will be the waves and the snow. No more knees please...

The toughest part of the visit was when Weston and Jadon proceeded to update me on how great the surfing is this week. I miss surfing so much right now as the weather gets warmer. They went early morning and after school today. The waves were huge and the water was warmer. These two are not only great snowboarders but competition surfers. Competition surfers people. They are REALLY good. They must have learned it from their fathers who are great surfers too. When I get healthy again the first item on the scout agenda is to have another surf overnighter. Oh yea!!!