Success!

Summary: The surgery yesterday went great!

It was at the surgical center at my doctor's office and not the hospital, so it was smaller and more relaxed. I loved the nurse that did all my prep work.

He started my IV and was looking all over for a good vein. I warned him that he wouldn't have a lot of luck. That led into a conversation about "the bigger the man, the bigger the baby."

The anesthesiologist came to talk with me and I made sure that I wasn't getting a block.

I told him all about my issue with the last block and he was quite interested, saying that it's very rare for that to happen. He seemed to think that it was caused from the tourniquet (yes, I had to look up how to spell that) that they put around my thigh during surgery. That maybe a vein stayed pinched. Sounds logical to me.

I was able to see my doctor before the surgery this time.

Actually I did the last time too except I didn't remember any of it because it was after the anesthesiologist did his work on me.

He was running a little late, so he actually came in to see me with his jacket still on, looking like any Joe Shmoe off the street.

He reviewed with Micah and I everything that he planned on doing and signed my leg.
Did I ever mention he's the best?

I then went to the operating room and all the nurses introduced themselves and they moved me to the table. Then my anesthesiologist rushed in saying "I wanted to give her something before she had to go through all this." I guess he thought I'd be nervous wreck being in there.

I told him, "It's ok. I'm cool."

And that's the last thing I remember.

I woke up feeling sooooo tired and nauseous. Why can't they let me sleep?!

I had some pretzels and ginger ale and within 20 minutes I was up on crutches.

A therapist came and spent about 5 minutes with me, bending my knee to around 130 degrees!

I was about 95 before the surgery.

Quad strength diminishes very quickly with a surgery, but I was able to hold my leg up.

Micah said that after the surgery my doctor came out to talk with him. The doc told him that during surgery the first thing he did was bend my knee and he hit that "wall" that I was always hitting at around 95 degrees.

I had been concerned that he was going to bend it all the way to my butt with no problem and that he would determine that it was all a psychological issue.

Thankfully that was not the case.

With a lot of pressure he said it popped and cracked and crunched.

Scar tissue.

He broke it up by pushing it through that "wall."

Next he went in with the scope into the same two small incisions from before.

He cleaned out all the scar tissue and then checked the ligament that he added in the last surgery to make sure that it wasn't too tight and adding to the problem.

He said that the ligament looked great. (YAY!)

After stitching me up he bent the leg again, going all the way to my butt without any problems.

When we left the surgical center I got into Micah's truck and noticed that it was actually easier to get into then it was before the surgery. Because the leg was bending so easily.

A couple hours after we got home the "Roger's Cocktail" that he injected into my knee for numbing (in replace of the full leg block) started to wear off.

I was feeling a little pain just in time for the CPM machine to arrive. I'll talk about that and put up some pictures in the next post.

Later in the afternoon the nausea got the best of me.

But as usual, I felt a lot better afterwards.

Poor Micah was in the bathroom waiting to get into the shower when it all went down.

That evening I noticed that there was really no pain in the knee.

It was all in the quads. I guess since it hasn't bent that far since December.

They are on fire! I have no idea how I'm going to make it through physical therapy today. Maybe I'll take some oxycodone before I go. Oh yeah, he prescribed me oxy. I only took it twice so far and made it through the night without it. :)