So the night before the surgery was unnerving. I couldn’t really sleep and ended up surfing the internet until 2:30AM. My surgery was scheduled for 10:00AM and I had to be there by 8:30AM for prep.
When I woke up I wasn’t feeling so hot. A combination of nervous nausea and lack of sleep wasn’t agreeing with me at all. I also hadn’t had anything to eat or drink for almost 24 hours prior and my throat was dry as could be. I took a shower and we hit the road.
Arriving on time, my guts were increasingly angry. I was feeling some serious abdominal pressure, but couldn’t do anything to relieve it. We checked in with the outpatient surgery center and I traded in my sweat clothes for a sexy open back surgery shirt thing.
My guts were getting seriously angry and I mustered up the courage to walk over to the restroom in center… and mooned everyone. I dropped a quick deuce and that helped, but my guts still felt pyucky. I went back to my little stretcher area and watched TV for a few minutes. Nurse Vicky came by to set up my IV. She went in through the top of my hand, and popped a valve in the process. People that have nice veins on the surface are easy to stick and the valves in the blood vessels (that keep blood flowing in one direction) are easy to spot… they look like little round balls or bubbles in the vein. My veins aren’t like that. She hit the valve just under the skin and pushed right through it. I noticed a “pop” sensation as she did. It didn’t hurt more than usual and Vicky was good enough at her job to be able to push through the valve without having to restick me. My IV at that point was basically Gatorade. After a few minutes they added an antibiotic to the IV solution.
Since things were boring, they allowed my wife to come back and hang out with me. She was more nervous than I was. I had it easy since I’d be asleep the whole time… she had to wait around and fret. She’s tough though.
My surgeon came back and we chatted for a few minutes. He reconfirmed all the stuff we’d gone over. Then he signed my knee. I guess that’s procedure. A bit later an OR nurse came by to shave my knee area. I now have hairy thighs and calves, but a bald knee. Strange.
After that Chris, the anesthesiologist came by to go over his duties with me. I had the most questions for him since everything I’d read about on line was variable around the anesthesia parts. He went over his part very, very quickly and had me sign forms and was off after take a quick question. He was the only person I dealt with in my entire time with the hospital that seemed in a hurry or not willing to bend over backwards for me. He had a nurse with him that did stick around and talk with us more, and that was cool. Also, don’t think for a second that Chris wasn’t good at what he does. He was very skilled and his services were greatly appreciated. Greatly.
Then came the time. Time to go. The wife was sent to the waiting area and I was sent to the OR. I’d read that sometimes they give you a sedative before taking you into the OR to relax you… and if you ever have surgery, request one. I got pretty spooked in the OR… looking around, seeing various cutting tools and what not. There was a huge 60 inch plasma TV in there for use with the arthroscope’s TV camera. But I started getting nervous. My guts weren’t feeling well and I was scaring myself with bad internet stories. So I did what I do best… told a joke. I said,” If I wake up with breast implants, I’m going to be very mad at all of you.”
Laughs.
Chris told me he was going to start putting some medicine in my IV and I might feel some tingling in my hand. He said to tell him when I felt something. About 30 seconds later, the ceiling and those big surgical lights got all wavy. My hand felt like it disappeared. Then I told him that my head started to feel a little light.
Fast forward.
When I woke up in the recovery area I was shaking violently. I remember being cold and in pain. Chris had just removed the breathing tube from my throat and my throat was feeling miserable. I never actually felt the tube go in or come out, but he was standing there with it in his hand cleaning up, so I assume it had just been removed. Nurses were running around piling blankets on me.
Nurse Brenda was my nurse and she was working on getting my medication levels right in the IV. The shaking finally stopped, but it would end up taking four doses of morphine to get the leg pain down. I asked for another one, but she was concerned about my shallow breathing and told me if I could get my breathing rate up, she’d hit it again. That became an ongoing problem for me. Apparently I came out of the anesthesia very quickly and was mentally alert and unhappy with the leg pain. I don’t recall that, but that’s what I was told.
My surgeon came by to visit with me and tell me how things went. I don’t remember what he said, but he told my wife the same thing so this is what she told me. The surgery was a success. He’d been in there for about 90 minutes. The meniscus tear was very small and he was able to remove the damaged tissue and leave a good amount of cartledge in the knee. My ACL was in perfect shape. The arthritis in me knee was a direct result of the knee dislocation and not due to a defect or degenerative condition. With that in mind, it’s very unlikely that I will develop any long term problems from the injury or from any arthritis down the road. That was all good news, but there was some bad news too. I had deep bone bruises on my knee cap and leg bones around the knee. A bone bruise is like a skin bruise… blood vessels burst open from a severe impact and blood pools and clots beneath the skin. That’s what I have too, but it’s in the bones. That has been the source of 80% of my pain since the actual injury. There is nothing that can be done to help them… they go away on their own like a skin bruise… but bone bruises can take months to go away. It’s just something I’ll have to deal with for a while longer. There was also some frayed tissue in there that he cleaned up. The process was very successful. He did have to create a third incision point in my knee to do more investigation on the bruises as they were a surprise. They didn’t show up on the MRI or X-Rays. Basically, they filled me knee up with lots of saline and put cameras and cutting tools in there to look around and fix things. I have a few stitches and my knee is the size of a cantelope and is in the old straight leg immobilizer.
Because my breathing was shallow and my pain wasn’t under control, I had to stay an extra hour in the recovery room. I got moved into a regular room and my wife was allowed to join me. She was happy to see me, but was also more informed about what had been happening than I was. Nurse Tony gave me a soda and some crackers and I wolfed them down fast. He gave me another soda, but told me to take it easy… since I was highly likely to throw up. Not me. I was just thirsty. Test one was to be able to drink on my own. Test two was to sit up in a chair for 15 minutes on my own. I got up from my little stretcher bed and hobbled into a chair. That’s when I noticed the blankets under me were all brown stained. Great… that explained why my guts felt fine… I’d pooped all over the place. Not really, it was that yellow-brown dye/cleaner that they rub all over you before surgery. No bowel explosion for me.
The chair was comfy, but I got in a wheelchair and head for the car. I spent the rest of the day doped up and stupid… in and out of sleep. I woke up for good around 3:00AM and started getting mental clarity again.
Today has been ok for the most part. The knee is still very tender, but it’s better than yesterday. I have a new pile of pills for pain and antibiotics. I’ve got some pretty cool pictures of the inside of me knee. They’re all pretty tame, except the bruise photo… that one’s kinda nasty.
Tomorrow I can take the bandages off. I can wash the wound then as well. Monday I meet with the surgeon to go over things.
All this coherent though has made me tired… I’m going to take a nap.