almost 11 weeks

I have a checkup this week with the surgeon on Thursday morning, it'll be 11 week post surgery.  I'm not exactly sure what this checkup will entail, but I don't think I will have another one until the 6 month post-op timepoint.

Rehab has been going pretty well.  I've been incorporating new exercises into my routine.  As of the week before Christmas, I began using the elliptical machines! I started with just 5 minutes of elliptical and continued doing the 20 minutes on the exercise bike.  Slowly, I increased to 10, then 15 and now finally up to 20 minutes on the elliptical! I took my time getting up to 20 minutes on the elliptical because the first couple times I was on the machine, I could tell my form went down the tubes pretty quickly.  I thought it'd be best to have 10 min of *quality* elliptical work vs upping the time, but risking possible injury.  I think the plan is now to switch between 20 min elliptical + knee exercises and 20 min exercise bike + knee exercises.

I'm down to having PT just once a week in an effort to conserve the appointments I have left.  My insurance only covers 20 PT appointments in a year.  I'm hoping the appointments I have will last until I start jumping and running...

On a separate but related note, I've started 2011 at 180 pounds.  This is about 10 pounds more than when I started 2010 at.  I've never been a stickler for numbers when it comes to my weight, meaning I often determine how I feel about my weight by how I feel and not what the scale reads.  I'm at a point where if I had to put a number on how much weight I want to lose, I'd say 30 pounds, but really, all I want is to feel better about myself.  I've been unable, or apprehensive, about doing a lot of the exercising I like to do in the time leading up to my surgery, as well as in the time since my surgery.  I don't want to overwork my knee, but I do want to push myself to burn the calories to drop the pounds.  Also, I'm limited in the exercises I can do - no running and no jumping.

Healthy eating and some hard work is what's in store for this new year!

Six weeks out

I'm baaaack - with the semester wrapping up and trying to fit in all my rehab exercises, I've been super busy! I've made quite a bit of progress that I'm excited to share!

FIRST, I have regained my range of motion! Complete flexion with complete (straight) extension.  I'm still missing a little bit of hyperextension, but my physical therapist is happy with straight extension and says that the hyperextension will most-likely come with time, though if it never comes, it is fine too.

SECOND, I've signed up with my local Snap Fitness and have been going there to do my knee exercises and ride their exercise bikes.  I have a road bike and a trainer, but my orthopedic surgeon and PT both agreed that they didn't want me using my clipless (and by clipless, I mean clip in :) pedals.  Too much potential torque on my knee.  So I sucked it up and signed up at Snap for a couple month membership.  I've been quite happy with Snap so far, it is never too busy, and it's open 24 hours! Hopefully I can start using their ellipticals and treadmills sooner rather than later! :)

THIRD, This third point isn't really 'progress' per se, but I found out at PT this week that ACL grafts are at their weakest 8 weeks after surgery.  I'm coming up on 8 weeks pretty soon, and I was just getting to the point where my knee has been feeling really good.  Good like having to remind myself I can't jump off a curb, or I can't jump up from the couch and run to my room to grab a book or my backpack.  I was happy that I was moving around without a second thought of hurting my knee, but then I was hit with that news from my PT.  Even though my knee is feeling great, it is actually going to be at its weakest in a week and a half.  That's scary stuff.  I'm going to have to be extra careful and protect my knee for just a bit longer.

Alright, finals week is here! I'm off to lab for some work, studying and hopefully some gym time!

PT is A-OK

I'm SO happy to be at PT! :) Lucky for Nancy (and me) I liked her at my appointment on Friday, so I could cancel my waiting list position with the other physical therapist and stick with her.

My appointment on Friday was great.  I had to go through the whole story of my knee, for the millionth time, for Nancy, and she laughed at my list I'd made of activities I wanted to accomplish (see previous post).  After some discussion, we decided that 'Swim/Bike/Run' could be grouped with all of number 3 as 'sports', and she added 'climb stairs' to my list.  Her reasoning was that it was going to take awhile to get to the 'sports' on my list and she wanted to add something to my list we could actually make some progress on sooner rather than later.  I told her I was cool with that, as long as she realized that I wanted to *eventually* get back to doing everything else on the list :) Friday's appointment was all an evaluation, getting some baseline numbers and checking to see what I *could* do and what I needed to be able to do.  Nancy eventually got out the range of motion (ROM) measure-er and I found out the number I'd been waiting for, 119 degrees! I think I've mentioned it before, but during my last surgery it took me quite awhile to get past 90 degrees.  Rehab this time around is going pretty darn well. :)

I had my second PT appointment today and was pleasantly surprised that I'd made some progress over the weekend.  I'd gone out of town and 'babysat' my 12 and 14 year old cousins and didn't do as much icing or exercises as I'd done in past weekends.  However, I was still able to gain a couple degrees of motion, I moved up to 125 degrees! My 'good leg' was measured at a max bending of 135 degrees (I think), so that's the target number that I'm hoping to match after rehab.  Also, when my good leg is straight with a towel rolled up under my ankle, allowing for some natural hyperextension, my knee gets to -5 degrees, so 5 degrees past horizontal.  My repaired knee was measured at +2 degrees, so not quite completely horizontal (yet) :) Today I learned a couple new exercises for strengthening and got to RIDE AN EXERCISE BIKE for 5 minutes at the end of my PT session!! Wahoo!!!!!! I was also given the go ahead to jump on the bike to loosen up before subsequent PT appointments.  I've got to learn to ice my knee more when I'm at home and keep reminding myself to do my exercises, but overall I'm pretty happy with my progress!

Thanks for reading!!!

PT starts tomorrow!

I have been waiting for tomorrow since last Friday! Tomorrow is PT daaaaaaay! :)

If you can't tell, I'm pretty excited.  I've been making some good progress on my own.  I can walk around the house and the lab without crutches, and if I'm going outside or down the hall, I've been using just one crutch.  My pain hasn't been too bad either, I haven't been taking any pain meds regularly, which is pretty good! Buuut, I'm ready for someone else to tell me some new exercises I should be doing and to push me a little.  I'm used to having a coach and being told to do stuff, I like it that way :)

The plan for PT is that I have three 30 minute appointments per week for 2 months.  I did do some PT work with a therapist at the end of last summer before I was convinced I needed to have this surgery, and I liked him a lot.  My surgeon also seemed to think pretty highly of him, but after my appointment last Friday when I got the go ahead and make a PT appointment, I was told there was a 2 week wait to get in to see the guy I'd worked with before! I found another place on campus to go to that had just a week wait, so that's where I'm going tomorrow.  I kept my other appointment with the other therapist juuust in case I don't like the PT I'm going to tomorrow :)

The appointment for tomorrow is just an 'evaluation' appointment, so I hope to have a nice conversation with Nancy (my PT) about when I can expect to be able to do certain things.  I actually got some paperwork in the mail I have to fill out and among the papers is one called 'The Patient-Specific Functional Scale'.  It says I'm supposed to 'identify up to three important activities (their bolding and underlining, not mine! :) that you are unable to do or are having difficulty with as a result of your current problem/diagnosis/surgery'.

WHAT?!?!?!
ONLY THREE?!?!
ARE THEY CRAZY???

After I stopped hyperventilating and calmed down a bit, I filled in the three spaces as follows:

1.  Walk without limping
2.  Run/Bike/Swim
3.  Softball/Volleyball/Golf/RockClimbing

Do ya think that'll fly?? :) Hopefully Nancy doesn't get too mad about all my slashes :)

Back at it

Yesterday was one week after surgery and I went to class and work and to a talk for a labmate! I was gone from about 8:30am til 2:30pm and was exhausted when I got home.  It's amazing how much work it was to crutch across the street to class.  I'll definitely be happy once I can ditch the crutches :)

I drove my car for the first time today (which was great!), but it was to drive my Mom back to the airport to send her home to Wisconsin :( She was ridiculously helpful in the week that she was here.  When we were planning and talking about how long she'd come over for, I thought there was no way I'd need her to be here for a week, but boy was I wrong! I can't say how helpful and wonderful it was to have her here.  I'm feeling much more up to tackling things on my own now, but that wasn't the case just a couple days ago.  It's impressive just how much progress you can make in just a day or two.

I realized while answering the question of 'How's it going?' for the umpteenth time today, that I really don't know how it's going.  I'm a scientist, therefore I like numbers and data.  I haven't been to the physical therapist yet, so I don't have any idea about my range of motion (ROM) in number form.  Last time I had knee surgery, every time I went to the PT they took measurements of my ROM in degrees, and I'd work hard just to get another degree or two of bend in my knee.  Right now, I know I can bend my knee past 90 degrees already (which actually took me a substantial amount of time last time, I think because of the patellar tendon they harvested from the front of my knee), but I don't know how far I can actually go, or how it compares to other patients that are 1 week out from ACL surgery with an allograft.  Because of this, I'm really looking forward to my Dr. appointment on Friday.  Hopefully I'll get my stitches out and I'll get some PT appointments set up.  I'm ready for it, I'm ready for some rehab! :)

5 days post surgery

I had initially planned on updating this blog every day, but I soon realized that my days are...very...boring... :)

My roommates both took off out of town this Halloween weekend, which was actually quite nice.  Casey took her Great Dane with her and Randy was off home to Virginia, so it was just Mom and me and Lambeau :) We took it easy and Mom cooked up a storm! She made monkey bread, breakfast pizza, spaghetti bake and chicken dumpling soup - it was all deeeelicious! :)

Other excitement for the weekend included showering (it doesn't sound very exciting, but really, it was!), getting out to a friend's house for 1/2 of the Michigan State football game (my first outing post-surgery!), and - due to a Lions football blackout since they didn't sell out the stadium - Mom and I got to watch the Packers from the comfort of the couch on regular TV (this doesn't happen very often, so it was definitely great timing on that!).

Today has also a pretty big day.  Mom and I ran some errands to Wal-mart and Target in preparation for me going to class tomorrow.  I'll have to sit through an hour of class and also an hour presentation of a labmate.  I think I'm ready for it! I was out and walking around for about an hour and didn't get too tired (or cranky) :) Mom is leaving on Wednesday already, so I've got to 2 days to get self-sufficient! :)

My next doctor appointment is Friday, I'll be able to get stitches out then and hopefully start scheduling some physical therapy appointments!

Thanks again for all of the support! You guys all rock :)

Surgery Day and Day 1 Post-Op

So much has happened in the last day! First I need to thank EVERYBODY for their messages and support - I appreciate each and every one!!

Yesterday started out REEEEALLY early.  After a long night of not really sleeping (something to do with having surgery looming, sharing a bed with my mom, and my dog upset that he was not also sharing the bed), Mom and I were up at 4:40am to get showered and ready for the hospital.  We showed up right on time - 6am!

The packed waiting room at 6am

I got all checked in and headed back to my room.  I got a couple great warm blankets and they started me on some fluids.  That way, once all the paperwork was in place, they could easily dump in the antibiotics and send in the good stuff.

Waiting for the good stuff

I got to talk to a prep nurse, anesthesiologist, nurse anesthetist, orthopedic resident and finally, the surgeon, and I'm pretty sure every single one of them asked me my birth date and which knee they were going to be working on (better safe than sorry!).  I also got to mark a big 'S' on my left knee for 'surgery knee' and when Dr. Schorfhaar came in, he marked his initials on my left knee too.  There was to be no mistaking which knee was to be operated on!
I could tell my mom was pretty nervous (as was I).  But, I had the luxury of having met my surgeon several times previously, whereas my mom had no idea who was going to walk through the curtain and who would actually be cutting open her little girl in just a matter of minutes.  Luckily, when Dr. Schorfhaar popped into the room, I could tell my mom liked him.  He signed his initials like I mentioned and gave the go ahead to drop the good stuff in the lines.  I had to give up my glasses and with a hug and a kiss for my mom, I was whisked to the OR.  Soon, a mask was covering my face and I was breathing deep - it was on like Donkey Kong.

The next thing I knew, I was waking up and the nurses were asking how the pain was.  They changed around some drug levels and I was feeling pretty comfortable, so I got wheeled into the recovery room where I was treated to more warm blankets, apple juice and graham crackers!

I love me some post-surgery apple juice

I was still feeling a little loopy, but soon enough I got loaded up in the car and made the ever important trip to the pharmacy to pick up my painkillers.  The night of surgery day was pretty low key.  I kept up with my pain meds and my mom made sure my ice box stayed full.

This was my spot for most of the night.

Mom and I both got more sleep the night after surgery.  I think Lambeau (my puppy) was a little more understanding about not getting a spot on the bed :)

Today, first day post-op, was much like yesterday.  Lots of lying around, keeping ice on my knee and painkillers in my system.  I did have a doc appointment today where I saw Dr. Schorfhaar briefly - he said things were looking good, I could do some straight leg lifts and quad fires and was told to keep doing those in the next week or so before moving on to other rehab.  I was also told crutches for at least a week (which I can definitely handle).  Here's a (graphic) pic of my knee from when I got my bandages changed today.

Some lovely bruising and stitches.

I'll leave you with one final picture.  My roommate Randy got home from the vet clinic with something for me after my surgery.  I love my roommates :)

Time for more meds!