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!