end of 1st month

Let's gooooooooo. This week has been interesting, but in a good ish way. I'll get to that eventually. Anyway, on Monday I was walking to the DC (my dining area) and slipped in the mud and bent my knee past what it usually bends. This was probably the second worst pain of my life, behind when I actually tore my acl. My leg was twitching slightly and I couldn't move my knee at all. Immediately I was worried that I tore my graft or did some other kind of damage, but I didn't twist it in any way, just bent it back. It was really sore in the back of my knee the rest of Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, I lost a lot of range of motion, and the knee felt weak when standing on it. I asked one of my teachers, who is the head athletic trainer, and my therapist today if they thought I did any real damage and they said they don't think so as the graft is really strong the first few weeks after surgery, then it weakens. So, to sum this story up, I was really worried, but I don't think I hurt anything. I've been working on getting my extension back that I lost from the fall and it's already back to "normal," or where it was pre fall. And now for some very good news: that sharp pain that was in the back of my knee when trying to work on flexion is now gone. Because of the fall? I guess so. But whatever, I'm just glad that it's gone and now I can work on getting my flexion back. Now there's still pain, but it feels just like it did before surgery, like it's stretching the joint in a good way and I can make progress. And some more good news: I was curious as to how much flexion I had after doing some of my rehab exercises, and I'm past 90 degrees with only mild pain. Seeing as how getting to 90 degrees was extremely painful the last time I tried to bend my knee, I'm pretty happy. So even though it was horribly painful, I guess the whole thing turned out for good in the long run. Hopefully now I can work on my extension and flexion now with no difficulties and make some progress.

I look back at where I was exactly one month ago from today, and I've made tons of progress. Back then I nearly passed out going 5 feet to the bathroom and now I can walk around and do light rehab and have my normal life somewhat back. I know I have a lot of work ahead of me, but I'm gonna work hard and get back to normal and hopefully be playing sports again (not all out) by the end of summer. Anyway, thanks for following my progress! Check back again on Sunday when I'll post with all the progress I've made.

4 week review

Another week down of recovering from acl recovery. I'm seeing improvement in a lot of areas, except for flexion. I saw my doctor on Tuesday and he said my knee looks really good because it is very close to straight. I told him my worries about the pain when I bend it, but he said not to worry about it because flexion will come back much easier than extension. So he gave me an exercise to do where I lay on a bed or table and lay my feet over the edge and put a weighted towel on my heel to force my knee to bend. It works really well because when I do that for 10 minutes, my bad knee is as straight as my good knee. And I got pictures of some x-rays of my knee. You can see the staples in my bone. Anyway, here's a list of the good and bad, like I did last week.

Good:
- No more trouble with sleeping at all. That is back to normal, thank goodness
- Done with all pain pills since I don't have any pain ever
- Scar is looking pretty sweet
- Hair is growing back from where the nurse shaved for surgery
- Extension is coming back and is almost back to normal
- I can walk around with no pain and I can walk almost normal
- Going up stairs isn't a problem at all, going down is another story

Bad:
- Hard to go down stairs, still have to take it one step at a time
- Still a significant amount of swelling
- I lost so much muscle and my leg is very noticeably smaller than my good leg
- Still have that sharp pain in the back of my knee when trying flexion
- Can't bike yet, which I should be able to do by now, but can't because I don't have great ROM
- I get fidgety when sitting for long periods of time

I think my progress is going slower than most people's, which is really frustrating because I want to get better so badly and it's really tough being patient. And I don't feel like myself when I can't exercise at all. When the doctor tells me it's ok to bike again, I'm gonna be so happy to have one form of exercise back.

That's all for this post. I'm gonna do one on Thursday, the 14th, for my official one month post surgery blog post, so you should probably read it.

3 week review

After three weeks, I feel like I'm miles from where I was on March 14. Here's a list of all the things that are noteworthy:
- no pain, thus no pain pills all week
- ugly yellow bruising is all gone
- can walk around just fine with zero pain and can stand for long periods of time without the knee swelling or starting to hurt, which makes showering much easier
- can stand on just one leg on my bad knee for minutes without falling over or it hurting
- the swelling is down, as you'll see in the pictures below
- because swelling is down, you can start to see some definition around my knee cap and quad
- took the white bandage off, so the wound is open but it is almost fully healed
- almost have all of my extension back, only a few degrees away after warming it up for a couple minutes

Even though there is a lot of good, there is still some bad:
- flexion is not coming back very easily, and I am still having that same sharp pain in the back of my knee when bending it
- knee is really stiff in the morning
- having trouble falling asleep at night
- still some swelling
- I lost a lot of muscle mass and tone, so I have a lot to gain back
- overall, having acl surgery = big hassle in everyday life

So I think I'm coming along nicely, but I want progress to go faster, which I know is something that can't be rushed. It's going to be tough to be patient, that's for sure. I go to the doctor on Tuesday for my second post op visit. He wants it straight by then, so I'm really hoping it is as straight as my good knee by then.

I think that's about it for this week's review. Check back next Sunday!

P.S. - go Butler

Pictures





Right after I took off the white bandage

2 week review

2 weeks down, 22 to go until I'm back to normal. Looking back on last Tuesday, my second day out of surgery and my first day home, and comparing how I was to how I am now, I can see obvious huge improvements. I've gone from being stuck in a bed all day long, only getting off to go to the bathroom with crutches which caused major, almost unbearable pain in my knee and not even being able to sit up straight because it caused too much pain, to being able to walk around with no brace around the house and no crutches with little to no pain and being able to get out of the house and wear a brace when out and about. I can tolerate being in a standing position for a long time, but I need little breaks of sitting so my knee doesn't hurt too bad. I can also go up stairs almost normally with almost no pain. Going down stairs is going to take a while to be normal but that's no big deal. So basically, my ability to be independent and take care of myself has been restored which feels really good. I don't have to depend on others to get me food or a drink or help me because my knee was in too much pain. Tomorrow I go back to school and I think I'll be fine walking around to classes and sitting through class. I was in Chicago this weekend and did a lot of walking and my knee didn't hurt too bad. Now I'm focusing on icing frequently to get the swelling down so I can have more ease in restoring range of motion. I feel like the toughest time is behind me which makes me feel relieved. I just gotta stay strong and keep working hard at rehab and do my exercises outside of rehab.

This is the end of me posting every day. I'll post on Sunday nights from now on with a week recap and any significant improvements I've made. Thanks for reading!

post op day 12

Hey everyone who reads my blog, I forgot to post yesterday again. I think now that I can get up and walk around and do other things in my house besides sit on my laptop, I don't think about posting on my blog until I'm in bed. And by that point there's no way I'm gonna go all the way downstairs to get my laptop. But I'm gonna keep trying to post every night until Sunday night, then I'm gonna go to once a week because not that much stuff happens to deserve a new post every single day.

So as they have been the last 2 weeks, my days are pretty similar. But on Thursday I went to see my doctor, doctor Wilson, for a checkup so he could see how my knee is healing. The first thing he said when he walked in was, "That looks bad." Apparently, he REALLY wants my knee completely straight. But aside from that, he said my incision is healing nicely and the swelling is about where it should be ten days after surgery. So he gave me an exercise to do with another person where the other person presses down on my quad and pulls up on my heel, forcing my leg to straighten. It hurts a lot, but I can tell it's a good pain and it works really well. I feel like doing that every day for a couple weeks will get it straight. Oh and I got fitted for a sports brace, so soon enough I'll be able to ditch the big bulky brace and wear the new one. I'm pumped. Back to my normal routine at home, I continued doing my exercises 3-4 times a day as well as using the CPM machine for half hour spurts just to get my knee warmed up for the exercises. Those are going pretty well, except for flexion. It hurts in a bad way, not the way it hurts when I'm doing the straightening exercise. It hurts like in a nerve pain, but I can't feel any pressure in my knee area at all so I'm not sure what's wrong or if it's even working at all. My other exercises, straight leg lifts and partial squats, aren't bad at all. Then I ice often during the day to work on getting the swelling down, which is still very noticeable. If that goes down, getting range of motion back will be much easier. Then today I went to therapy and received three new exercises: calf raises and stretching, one that involves putting my leg on the wall and trying to bend it that way, and one where I lay on my stomach and let gravity work on making my leg straight. I told Mary, my therapist, my worries about bending my leg and she said it's most likely something with the swelling. So unless the swelling subsides a lot and it still hurts, she said not to worry about it. As far as pain, I have none unless I walk around for 5-10 minutes. Then I just need to sit down for a minute so the pain goes down a little. I can put full weight on my knee and I am totally off pain pills. I'm only taking a muscle relaxer now. I think that's it for stuff about my knee.

I'd like to give a couple shout outs. One to 3 people that I know for sure are reading my blog: Jordan, Katherine, and Lydia. Your readership means a lot to me. And the other to the Butler basketball team. Keep kicking butt in the tourney.

Well, I think I'm finally done with this post. Check back tomorrow night!

post op day 10

Hey everyone, sorry I didn't post yesterday. I completely forgot about it until I was in bed and by that point I was too lazy. I'm sure my 3 followers (if that many) were very disappointed that there was nothing new to read yesterday.

But anyway, I feel like I am making some solid progress now. Yesterday and today were pretty much the same. I bum around at my house and do my exercises and the CPM machine and ice all day. Doing the exercises is really starting to help because I can walk around without a crutch for a couple minutes before I have to sit down because it's too painful to be in a standing position. I can tell the swelling is down because I can see some definition around my knee again and the bruising is already going away. My only worry so far is flexion, because I don't feel like I am making any progress in that and it is still very painful to bend my knee around the 90 degree range. Hopefully in the next couple days that will change. Tomorrow morning I go to the doctor so he can see how I'm doing after surgery and make sure everything looks okay. I really hope he takes off the white strip that's still covering the incision because that's getting annoying. And another goal is to sleep straight through the night because I keep waking up 2 or 3 times for no reason.

That's all the new news for today. I'll post again tomorrow and tell you what the doc said.

post op day 8 - first PT session

I finally did something new today. I got out of the house to go to my first physical therapy session. I'm happy to finally have someone look at me and tell me what to do because then I feel like I'm making progress. Basically all that happened is she asked me a bunch of questions on how I'm doing, when my knee hurts, what I've been doing since surgery in terms of exercises, and what my goal is for rehab. She measured my degree of bend to be 90 degrees, which is great, but it was quite a struggle to get there. My good leg is at 145 so I've got some work to do. I also can slightly hyper-extend my good knee, but she said my bad knee is perfectly straight, I just can't get it to hyper-extend like my good knee because I don't have enough muscle/I have to reteach my quad muscles to fire, or fully contract. Then she told me to keep icing it often but take breaks and gave me 4 exercises to do that are different from what I've been doing. So at this point, I feel pretty encouraged because she also said that I'm doing very well for being only 8 days out of surgery. I just have to be diligent about my exercises because slacking is only going to hurt me. Speaking of which, I should probably do those right now. Gotta go.

Here's a picture I took this morning of the bruising (the yellow part)