{"id":1925,"date":"2011-11-01T22:24:47","date_gmt":"2011-11-02T03:24:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shawnbakken.net\/?p=1925"},"modified":"2011-11-02T07:17:14","modified_gmt":"2011-11-02T12:17:14","slug":"scalpel-clamps-scr-wheres-the-screwdriver","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shawnbakken.net\/?p=1925","title":{"rendered":"Scalpel… clamps… scr– Where’s the screwdriver?!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Looking back through the archives, it took me about two weeks before I wrote about what happened the last time<\/a> I had knee surgery. Yes, the last time<\/i> I had it: this was Operation #2. I played soccer for a couple months in there, but I’m off the field for a while again. How long? Well, it’ll be a lot less than last time.<\/p>\n

Now that I think about it, this has been a really long process. If not for insurance reasons, I could have set the surgery date for October 7th. Maybe I’ll go back to all of that in a later entry, but for now, I promised a bunch of people that I’d let them know how surgery went.<\/p>\n

Surgery was scheduled for 11:00, so I got to sleep past 8:00—when I woke up, I was still really tired and thought about resetting my alarm for a couple hours later. It was a long weekend and I was planning on plenty of rest and recovery given my current lack-of-schedule, so why the hell would I wake up so early if I didn’t need to? It took me a moment to remember that yes, I needed to.<\/p>\n

Things started out swimmingly when I got to the front desk to check in and the woman there asked me for two things: my driver’s license and insurance card. The problem was that I followed the instructions to leave all of my valuables at home. Among those valuables: my wallet, which contained my driver’s license and insurance card. Mom and Dad had driven me to the hospital and Mom offered to drive back to the house, but since all of my information was in the system (they got it from my pre-surgery physical two weeks earlier), they let it slide. Off to a great start, right?<\/p>\n

Thankfully, that was pretty much the only hitch of the morning. They brought me back to my room, I put on my gown and long purple “Bair Paws” socks, laid back, got a needle stuck in the back of my hand, talked with my parents for a while… no big deal.<\/p>\n

Actually, I guess there was sort of a hitch in there, but it was a physical hitch: the nurse was having some trouble shaving my knee. She carries a shaver with her and each room has a shaver head attached to a holder on the wall. She snapped them together, turned it on, dragged it up my leg and didn’t accomplish much. (For those who haven’t seen them, my legs are kinda hairy.) It felt like she was tugging on the hair more than cutting it, which wasn’t really pleasant. The next pass, she moved much more slowly and MAGIC! The shaver started working properly! My leg hair was grateful.<\/p>\n

Dr. Lewis came in soon after—the same doctor who did my ACL replacement surgery—for a quick consultation and I told him about some pains I’d been having in my shin recently. I first noticed it when I’d been riding an exercise bike, but it sprung up the day before as well during a long car ride. The spot was about two inches below the kneecap on the left side of my shin. He was feeling around with his thumb while we talked, then found a spot and started pressing down on it. Apparently, that’s where he put the tibial screw when attaching the new ACL. I don’t know if it was coming loose or just sticking out a little and causing irritation, but it’s kind of a moot point, seeing as how the screw is currently located in a sterile plastic bag on a table across the room.<\/p>\n

Soon after that, I was wondering why I could hear so many people making so much noise before my operation started. It was because the operation was over and I was in the recovery room. Things were pretty fuzzy for a while after that and I’ve double-checked with my parents about what happened between unconsciousness and leaving the hospital a few hours later.<\/p>\n

As previously mentioned, the surgery was scheduled for 11:00. Dr. Lewis was talking to my parents in the waiting room by 11:20. Needless to say, everything went smoothly. “Everything” ended up being more than we thought it might be, but MRI scans apparently don’t always show everything that’s going on.<\/p>\n

Just as a quick aside, when I went in for my first consultation with Dr. Lewis in September because of the problems with the back of my knee, he gave me three options: 1) go back to playing soccer and see what happens; 2) get a cortisone shot; or 3) have a scope done and see what we find. I opted for 1 and 3: I played soccer for a couple weeks without any problems, but I’m definitely glad I decided to have surgery as well.<\/p>\n

So here’s a list of what got fixed:<\/p>\n

The tibial screw was in the proper location, but not in the proper place, so to speak, so Dr. Lewis took it out. That’s the area that hurts the most, really. When I stand up and move around, the focal point of the pain is on the left side of my upper shin. That probably means it was a good idea to have it removed.<\/p>\n

I also lost out on the 50\/50 odds he gave me: there was<\/i> a tear in the medial meniscus, so he shaved that down to remove the part that had torn loose.<\/p>\n

The unexpected part (which is probably what led to all this in the first place) was a “pothole” in the cartilage behind my kneecap. It’s not a big divot, but it’s still cartilage that had gone missing, which means that technically, I have arthritis in my right knee.<\/p>\n

Actually, the cartilage hadn’t gone missing. The stuff that used to be in that pothole was in several pieces that were floating freely around my knee, so that’s probably what caused the lump I sometimes<\/i> felt in the back of my knee. Thus, the final part of the operation was to smooth out the edges of the pothole to prevent further tearing and suck out the cartilage “debris”.<\/p>\n

Mom, Dad and I spent about two hours in the recovery room, during which time I felt my knee starting to hurt. Given past experience, I decided it was better to take preemptive action rather than wait until it started hurting really<\/i> bad, so I took one Vicodin out of the bottle they gave me at 1:30. One. That’s been it. I haven’t taken another since then. It doesn’t mean I’m hardcore—far from it—it just means that while my knee has been sore, it hasn’t been sore enough to be medication-worthy.<\/p>\n

Part of that might have to do with spending so much time in the recliner. The three of us drove back to the house and I went straight to the chair. I was supposed to have someone around to monitor me for the next 24 hours and their bedrooms are right down the hall, so it seemed like the most logical place. Plus the bathroom was a lot closer, too.<\/p>\n

That turned out to be… not a non-issue, but not a big deal. We brought my crutches to the hospital and I used one of them to get me up the stairs from the garage to the recliner. I used both to get to and from the bathroom the first time, but that was pretty much for balance and keep myself from tipping in either direction. By the end of the evening, the most important purpose they served was stretching one out far enough to reach the television and rotate it so Mom had a better view.<\/p>\n

As of today, one day after surgery, I don’t need crutches, I don’t need pain meds, I can ride in the front seat of the car (as long as it’s a short ride and I can move the seat all the way back—if not, having my leg stretched out across the entire back seat is a lot more comfortable)… I’m in good shape.<\/p>\n

Tomorrow, I get to take off the bandage that stretches above my knee down to my ankle, remove the dressing and take a shower. I’ll have to put the bandage back on and readjust it at least once a day, but when I get rid of the big lump at the front of the knee, I should be able to wear jeans again. (I got a haircut today and had to wear shorts with warm-up pants over the top so they’d fit.)<\/p>\n

Now I need to set up an appointment with Dr. Lewis in three weeks so we can evaluate how my leg is doing, but considering how well I’m feeling right now, the only question in my mind is when I’ll be allowed to exercise again. Not play soccer again, mind you—I don’t plan on that happening until 2012—but exercising will be good for me. Good for the mind, good for the soul, good for the weight that’s been packing itself on more and more during all the time I’ve spent on the sidelines this year.<\/p>\n

I guess that’s the story up to this point. I’d like to thank everyone for their best wishes and love and support and all that good stuff. I’d also like to thank Dr. Lewis for his excellent work and hope that after my follow-up appointment in three weeks, I’ll never need to see him again. (No offense, Doc.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Looking back through the archives, it took me about two weeks before I wrote about what happened the last time I had knee surgery. Yes, the last time I had it: this was Operation #2. I played soccer for a couple months in there, but I’m off the field for a while again. How long? … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Scalpel… clamps… scr– Where’s the screwdriver?!”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[471,28],"tags":[470,152,466,154,415,413],"class_list":["post-1925","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nablowrimo","category-the-bs-knees","tag-cartilage","tag-knee","tag-knee-surgery","tag-meniscus","tag-post-surgery","tag-surgery"],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1muBs-v3","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shawnbakken.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1925","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shawnbakken.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shawnbakken.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shawnbakken.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shawnbakken.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1925"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.shawnbakken.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1925\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1937,"href":"https:\/\/www.shawnbakken.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1925\/revisions\/1937"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shawnbakken.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1925"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shawnbakken.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1925"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shawnbakken.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1925"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}