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.