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!!!!