Surgery Report

I figured a few of you were wondering, so I figured I'd type up my surgery report.

We woke up, dropped the kids at my friend's house, and got to the hospital by 6:45am. We got up to the pre-op area, and we were shortly called back. Let me say, I HATE hospital gowns and I hate not wearing underwear...LOL! Several people came through and asked me the same questions 50 million times. (How annoying!)

They brought me up to the OR pre-op & recovery room. They told me my husband couldn't come back because there were children patients in the room. I didn't even get to say goodbye or anything to my husband! She left the room and my eyes welled up with tears. A couple minutes later she came back with my husband! What a relief.

I was freaking out.

Luckily, the girl doing the IV's got it on her first try. I have had several IVs over the years, and it has taken an average of 3 sticks in the past to get one started! That calmed me down a bit.

Then my surgeon came in, signed my left knee indicating the surgery site, and answered the couple questions I had.

Then the anesthesiologist came in, confirmed and explained the procedure for spinal anesthesia, and then put some happy medicine in my IV to help relax me. It stopped my eyes from tearing up...LOL.

Soon, I said goodbye to my husband and they took me into the OR where I shifted to another table and was given my spinal. I remember my surgeon testing my knee a bit and saying there was no doubt my ACL was torn.

The anesthesiologist said he was giving me some medicine that would make me sleepy. I remember how bad it burned going in my IV and them giving me something to reduce that pain. That is ALL I remembered!!!!! When he said it would make me sleepy, I thought he meant it would make me Vicodin or Benadryl sleepy. Nope, it knocked me out!!!

Next thing I knew, I was woken up in recovery. I felt great! I was SOOOOOOOOO relieved that I was not sick to my stomach. I puked in recovery after my surgery in June! I vaguely remember my surgeon coming in an saying everything went great, but it took longer than expected. (It took 3 hours I think.) I chatted with the nurses and was brought back down to the first pre-op area.

I was in some pain and was offered my Vicodin prescription or a shot of Morphine. I opted for Vicodin because Morphine makes me itch SO bad. After some nasty saltine crackers, and after I had the feeling back in my legs, I tried going to the bathroom.

You see, after a spinal, you have to pee before they will let you leave...LOL! I got to the bathroom fine, and was bearing some weight on my knee. It felt ok. I could not pee for the life of me! The feeling had come back everywhere but 'down below,' if you know what I mean. What sucked, is I had feeling in my bladder and it was ready to burst, but I could not pee!!!!

I FINALLY was able to go with 15 minutes to spare. At the 6 hour post-surgery mark, they would have had to put a catheter in me and admit me to the ward. I did not want that to happen! Whew!!!!

I was released to go home. What a pain in the ass it is getting into the van with a knee immobilizer on!!! I climbed the two flights of stairs to my bedroom and got into bed.

Vicodin helped me sleep. The first 12 hours home were pretty painful. I rated the pain a '10' at one point and was shivering from the pain. I was pretty freaked out at that point.

I am now about 2 days, 3 hours out from surgery and feeling much better. I am still avoiding the stairs, but it isn't as hard to get to the bathroom now. Pain gets up to a '6' or '7' but the Vicodin and Motrin takes it down to a 3 or so. I may even attempt to go to my son's first T-Ball game tomorrow. We shall see!!!

I am a bit frustrated, though. I had spoken with my surgeon and told him I wanted to start physical therapy ASAP after surgery to get back to running ASAP. My first PT appointment isn't scheduled until the 19th which is 18 days post-op!!! Also, I have to wear this brace until I follow up with my surgeon on the 12th. My sister was bending her knee right away after surgery so it worries me keeping it straight for so long. To top it all off, I am supposed to ice my knee 4 times a day for 30 minutes. I am not supposed to take off the bandages underneath my brace for 5 days. I cannot feel the ice through the bandages so it is doing no good.

I am going to see if I can talk to my surgeon on Monday to get some answers and see if there is anything I can do at home while waiting for my appointments. If anyone has any feedback on this from experience, I'd love to hear what you went through!!!

Ok, enough of my book for now :)

I lied. One more thing. I keep waking up thinking I need to go running only to not be able to bend my knee...LOL.

Ok, that's it. :)

---------

11pm - I took a chance. We went ahead and took the bandages off my knee even though I was supposed to wait 3 more days. OMG it is SOOOOOOOOOOO swollen. There isn't much discoloration or anything at this point. It looks like I have NO stitches and only steri-strips holding my seams together. That is good because hopefully it will mean less visible scars. I was happy to see that it looked really good other than the swelling. I had no idea my knee could get THAT fat...LOL.

We rewrapped it with less padding so that I can effectively ice my knee. It really felt good to ice it. I think it was a good decision to rewrap it and hopefully the ice will help with the swelling. :)