Final report

Since I'm now playing basketball weekly and doing some running events I figure it is time to wind down this blog. My knee feels pretty good, though I can tell the strength is not returned yet but I am confident it will with time and workouts. My endurance is what I'm trying to build back now, with that 10 months since injury and no working out like normal I get tired as heck.

Later all,

Jack

Played basketball today...

First time out playing hoops since the surgery. Thinks felt pretty good, but I sure noticed not much strength when it came to doing layups and jump shots. I was beat, I mean really tired after 2 games. Usually I play for 3 hrs without much problem, but not today. The knee still has tweeks and sorness but overall not bad. Good to be back to almost normal....6 months, better then I expected.

6 Month report....much better!!

Something happened when I hit that 6 month wall and my knee has really turned a corner. No longer do I have the pain when I stand up after sitting for an hour or more, or driving long distances. For some reason my knee just seemed to jump forward and excel in its rehab.
I saw the doctor a few days ago and he gave me the "go" to start doing more sports, but gradually work into them, not just jump in and start playing in 3-3 tournaments . Running feels pretty good too. I hope to play some light basketball later this week and again next week and see how things go. Woo-hoo!

It has been 5 months now

Last week I ran a 5k, the first real physical thing I've done since the injury. I survived, and didn't walk in any part of the run. Though my time was rather slow (34min/30sec) I did my goal of no walking. I iced immediately after the run using ice from the water bottle tubs. The next day I noticed my knee a bit swollen so I iced again, but no significant pain. I still have pain when I stand up quick after sitting for long spells (such as driving distances, or at my desk at work). I've been biking and plan to do more running but no 5k's yet. I'd guess doing the 5k last weekend was a bit premature, but my knee survived ok.

4+ Months post op now

This week the PT had me start jogging on a tread mill with my brace. Good to finally feel like I'm moving again, but I'm also feeling more pain in my knee when I try to straighten/hyperextend then it was a couple weeks ago. My doc says I need to stretch it more to get the -4 degrees my good leg is (op knee was -2 last checked), but at this point there seems to be a lot of pain when I try to stretch. After sitting for periods of time I'm feeling pain when I get up and walk to where I'm limping a bit, then as I walk it gets better.
The doc feels I'm on schedule to do normal sports (with brace) after 6 months..... I'm hoping so. Going to try to do as much jogging as possible.

June 17, 2010

The PT is having me do some new exercises the past few visits, including the elliptical. I'm still having some swelling above the knee and pain when I stand after sitting for a period of time, but hope it goes away eventually. Ordered my Donjoy extreme armor knee brace that I am suppose to use for any future athletic type things. Sure will be glad when October rolls around. I'm hoping to be done with all this by then.

12 weeks post op!

Not much has really changed over the past few weeks, or so it seems. My flex last measured at 152 and hyperextention at -1. The doc wants my hyperextention to be -4 but personally I really don't care and don't want to go through too much pain to achieve this. The PT has me doing more and more activity with 3lb weights on the legs and the bike is now on resistance 6.
Still swelling going on and I've increased the ice usage but it doesn't seem to do anything?? Just have to be patient I guess.

May 25th.......pain.

Trying to regain a few degrees of hypertension is painful. I also seem to have sudden pain when I stand up after sitting for a period of time, either driving or at my desk. The PT says it most likely is the patellar, but not sure. I missed PT all last week and my workouts sure suffered. My leg was shaky during the leg lifts with weights and felt like I took a backwards turn on my progress. I hope it goes better Thursday.

9 Week report

It feels like the same story now week after week. I keep going to the PT 2 times a week, though they did add a few new things to my list of "to do" items, but the leg lifts (front-side-back) are sure getting to be a pain with leg weights. My extension is still -1 degree and bent is now 148. I have to start working on my leg to get it to -4 in the next 3 weeks. I need to also ice more to get the swelling down. If I can do that it should feel better...

More swelling..

Tuesday I asked my PT if we were going to do steps as per the schedule. After PT that day my knee was a bit more sore then usual and the next couple days the knee was swelling more then it had been. Thursday my PT was scaled back a bit to see if we can get the swelling back down, and she was asking me to ice more often then I have been. Usually I just ice at night, but I'll try to do it more if I can but it is tough with my schedule.

6 Weeks..........

Things are going pretty good. I can walk w/o the brace with minimal limp and can actually jog (but I'm not suppose to yet). I go up/down stairs much better, but need to use the rail still a bit as stepping up w/o that causes a bit of pain.

2 days shy of 6 weeks...

After a weekend of walking a bit too much, my knee swelling has become worse. I need to stay off of it a bit, and ice more to get it back to where it was. Today's flex measurements were -1 flat (hasn't changed in awhile), and 145 degrees bent. Still doing well. So far so good.

My 4 1/2 week visit

Visited with the doc and he says all are well, and a bit ahead of schedule. He wants me to go ahead and get as much movement in my leg as I can and also gives me the ok to walk around w/o the brace locked. He did state I could walk around w/o the brace if I wanted, but make sure the ground is stable. I live in the mtns where it is still snowing in April, and I have 30 steps to walk down to get to my door so I will use the brace for another week to be safe. I will be riding my bike soon on flats...

4 Weeks -

My PT has given me the go to walk now w/o crutches, but with the brace locked. My range of motion was measured today at 135 degrees bent (didn't measure straight). I've been riding the stationary bike regularly at PT and some at my parents place when I'm there. The only issue I have now that I can see is strength. When on my back, holding my leg straight and lifting it will sometimes shake. I have a visit with the doc on Tuesday.

3rd visit to the Physical Therapist

My leg range now measures -2 straight and 123 degrees bent. She had me ride the bike and gave me the go ahead to do this on my own (not a real bike) only up to setting 2 resistance. She also scolded me again about walking on my leg and I'm suppose to keep my brace locked when using crutches, at least for another week. I'm still keeping the ice on trying to rid of the swelling.

My second visit to the physical therapist

I missed my scheduled 'second visit' last week (mis-read the time) so today was my second visit. My measured flex of my leg was 120 degrees and zero straight. My therapist says I don't need to do my stretching/flex exercise for now since I've already reached the one month goal. I'm not sure if this is because it could be dangerous, or she wants my therapy to be drawn out longer? I'm just going to proceed as I have been doing because I seem to be doing well and see no reason to slow down my progression. I've been leaving my brace off at night/bed and my leg has been feeling much better. I still walk around with the brace, most of the time locked.

My first visit to the physical therapist

First, I was scolded a bit for walking into therapy cuz my sheet given by the doc said I was suppose to only have 25% weight first week, 50%second week and so forth. I'll use crutches a bit more for now or as needed, but not all the time.
Testing me, my flex on the leg was 116 degrees bent and +1 straight. I guess I also was suppose to be sleeping with my brace locked, but I wasn't (didn't know??). Even though I seem to be doing things wrong my leg seems to be much better then everyone expects.

The bandage is off and stitches have been pulled. It is now 13 days post-op. I have 2 days/week scheduled with the therapist and I hope to get through this asap.

I'm driving.............

I started driving around 8 days after the surgery. I drove around my parents yard to make sure all felt fine, then decided I can now be more mobile. I've been walking around with the brace locked in the house, but use crutches on longer walks. If I stand up too long the knee will start to throb a bit, but still I don't use any pain meds. I can bend well past 90 degrees but don't start physical therapy until Wed, 3/24.

Problems contacting the doc

Trying to get physical therapy scheduled, and need to replace my knee brace. I've been calling the doc for 4 days and I finally was able to talk to someone about 30 minutes ago. Tomorrow I'll get a brace replacement and paperwork to get my therapy started. I haven't been taking pain pills now for about 1 1/2days but I might just start. The knee is beginning to bother me, maybe because I've been walking around the house on my leg? Doc says to stay off my leg until I get my new brace.

It has been a few days

So far things are not all bad. I was expecting a lot of pain after the nerve block wore off, but so far it is tolerable. I was suppose to start moving my leg after the block wore off but my knee brace broke. At this point I can't lock my brace so I have to be careful and I hope to get it replaced next week. I'm feeling some pain on the front of my knee below the knee cap where the patellar was removed when I lift my leg. I can move my leg around 45 degrees I'd guess, not sure how that stacks up to normal?
I believe I'll be starting physical therapy next week so we will see how that goes. I'm keeping lots of ice on the knee whenever possible too.

The work has been done

I arrived at 9:30am to begin the procedure. The operation started around 11:15am and concluded somewhere around 1pm. I finally left at 3:30pm. They gave me a nerv block so I really can't feel anything in my leg from the hip down to below the knee. That is suppose to last 24-30 hrs so real pain won't arrive until that point. My biggest problem was nausea and even though I was very hungry I couldn't eat anything. I'm not used to taking medicine, or pills so my stomach doesn't handle all these pills well. So far so good... I'm keeping ice on the knee and keeping it elevated as instructed. I'm getting around with crutches which was kind of hard at first because my balance was not great for awhile with all the drugs.



Admittance to the facility, the nurse is giving me the rundown of what is going to happen. She was to put the IV into me and check my vitals, etc.











They gave me some really cool clothes to wear.


















IV inserted, the fun-juice begins to flow.
















Surgery took 1hr 40minutes. I believe I took an hour before I woke up which is what I'm doing in this photo. They still have me hooked up to keep track of my vitals and so forth.


























Got myself dressed, still feeling woozy. Glad it is all done.























My Chariot.















And my ride back to Yakima where I will be hanging out for a couple weeks, or however long it takes for me to get to a point where I can drive and go up/down stairs.

Tomorrow is the day

Got the word to show up tomorrow at 9:30am. Should be fun......

Where to find a new ligament?

Patellar tendon or Hamstring? Reading and reading on the net I get pro's and con's for both methods. I decided to go with the Patellar and after I made my decision I quit reading any further. Both sides have good pro and con and all the reading on this just gives me a headache. 7 days till the surgery.

9 days till the knife

Aprox. 2 months ago I tore my ACL playing basketball. At the time I had no idea this had happened as I thought I just hyper-extended my knee, or maybe tore a meniscus? After letting it rest for 6 weeks I tried to play BBall again but the knee kept popping out of joint whenever I tried to jump, or move sideways quick.
Finally I made my way to the doctor who said it appeared my ACL was gone. An ex ray and MRI confirmed the diagnosis so I'll be going in on March 11 for the surgery.