2 weeks

It has been 2 week since my knee surgery and I must say I have come a long long way. The first few days after the surgery were surprisingly easy with all those pain medicines. The best thing about pain medication is that you don't feel the pain and you get to sleep all day :-) but, the worst thing is that you end up being constipated; imagine not pooping for 3 days..! I was warned about this and asked to eat lot of food with fibre, I convieniently forgot about the whole thing and for once _shit_ didn't happen. I was already getting a little tired of the oral pain medicines for I couldn't get any work done so, decided to stop. I slowly stopped taking the pain medicines by extending the interval between each dose. By the 4th day I had completely stopped taking all PMs. Luckily all the pain I had was well within my bearable pain spectrum. I removed the pain pump 2 days after the surgery and that night I was running temperature. I called up doc and he said it was normal and said I would need help only if the temperature was over 101 degerees and the pain was un-bearable. In my case the high point was 99.6 degrees and virtually no pain. I continued to manage the fever with tylenol; the fever kept coming and going for the next 3 days. This period was the most annoying period for the fever forced me to lie down and sleep; couldn't get any work done again.


6th day after surgery I had an appointment with the doc. There was so much blood stain over the dressing that I was a little scared. The doc. removed the dressing and was quite happy at what he saw. Everything looked good and they also removed the stiches. I could see a staight line cut from the bottom of the knee cap running down ~6cms. There was another 1cm cut, an inch from top of the knee cap, I guess that was for the arthoscopic procedure. The doc.'s assistant dressed the thing back again with some steri-strips and a ACE bandage. The doc. handed over a physical therapy referal and asked me come back after 3 weeks. The fact that the doc. was happy about the progress brought back a lot of confidence to me.


Physical therapy...now, for all those out there who intend to or have already torn their ACL: __"there is no way you can avoid PT"__. Post operative rehabilitation is one of the most important things in ACL reconstruction cases and PT is the major chunk of the rehabilation process. I started my PT exactly 10 days after surgery. Even before PT, I was asked to bend my knee as often and far as I could. The issue with cut wound or any kind of tissue rupture is the growth of excess scar tissue. Early movement at the knee prevents excess scar tissue growth. I would also recommend anyone who has to undergo such a procedure to google and educate themselves as to what the surgery is all about and what are the post-op. dos and don'ts. I have completed 3 PT session till now and with every session I can see my knee improving. I was able to bend my leg at the knee to about 60 degrees during the first PT visit now I can do about 85 degrees.

I know, I still have a long way to go ! I am just waiting for that day when I can let go the crutches and the stupid brace. Work in coming along pretty well, I am really starting to like the concept of telecommuting, there are some downsides to it, though. Next post after my 2nd doc. visit.