Home, finally!

All went well and right now I am pretty with the program, but I have a feeling that will change shortly so I thought now was a good time for a little recap. I was really nervous and my doctor was running a little behind, so it gave me more time to be nervous. The nurses were awesome and so helpful, which was nice. I met with the anesthesiologist, who promised to give me some "kickapoo joy juice" after I talked to my doctor. We agreed on general anesthesia, and he also offered to give me a femoral nerve block that would numb my whole leg. Yes, please! Dr. Burbank came back and chatted with Mark and my mother-in-law, all while showing them all the lovely ways my knee can move. Finally, the nurse anesthetist, who was one of the nicest people in the world, came to give me the relaxation stuff. I don't remember anything really after that - Mark says I didn't do anything mortifying, so I hope that is the truth. He did say I was telling jokes in a very grandiose manner - imagine that. Here is a picture I don't remember taking - when did they put a little cap on me?

Do not let this woman make any decisions.

I woke up in recovery and they fed me graham crackers and ginger ale, which was wonderful since I hadn't eaten or drank anything since midnight!

Best meal ever. I think I drained their graham cracker supply.

I'm not really in pain but it's hard to get comfy. Mark has gone to the store to fill my pain meds prescription, and once he gets back I will start taking those. As soon as he left, our neighbor came to the back door to bring flowers that were delivered while we were gone, but I am all hooked up to my ice machine thingy and can't reach my crutches. I tried to call out to her, but I also don't have much of a voice from the tube in my throat, so it was a kind of funny, helpless moment. So now, I have gorgeous flowers I can see through the window, but I can't get my hands on them or see who they are from! I hope Mark hurries home so I can take my meds and get my flowers - also, it will be time to put my knee into the CPM machine. THAT will be fun, especially since I can take my brace off and get a little peek at the giant, swollen, leg-like appendage that I can't feel right now.

THANK YOU for all the texts and facebook messages today - they really lifted my spirits, especially when I was nervous and things were running late. I am blessed to have wonderful friends and family.

Getting ready!

Tomorrow is the big day! I am still a little anxious but there is plenty to do in the meantime to keep me busy. And if I was thinking about maybe postponing it (and I was), that thought was eradicated when my knee slipped out cleaning my mat after PureBarre this morning. Fine, fine - I will go!

There are so many things to remember before I go in tomorrow morning. Tonight we will get the couch all ready, as well as the recliner (that might be better to sleep in the first few days). I'll have to take off my nail polish (boo!) so they can check my nailbeds to make sure I'm getting enough oxygen during surgery. No food or drink after midnight tonight - then tomorrow morning, no makeup (again, so they can check my color), no lotion (so that all the little sticky monitors will adhere to my skin), no deodorant.

The surgery is at 9:15, but we will get to the hospital 2 hours early. They'll check me in, and move me to a pre-op area where they will start an IV. Because I confessed to the anesthesia nurse that I am a little anxious, they will probably give me something to relax me at that time as opposed to right before they take me in. I hope so, because otherwise I am going to be tempted to make a run for it.

I will most likely have general anesthesia, and they will harvest a section of my hamstring to make the new ACL. They'll drill tunnels into my tibia and femur to thread the new "ligament" through, and secure it with screws. If he has to replace my PCL like he thinks, they will use a cadaver tendon to do that. The whole thing should take about 2.5 hours. As soon as I am awake, they are going to have me start working to straighten my leg - they are sending me home with a CPM (Continuous Passive Motion) machine that I will start using that day. I'll put my leg into it for several hours while it just bends and straightens it for me. I will have crutches but they want me to start trying to put weight on my leg as soon as I can. The more active I am the better my healing will be - so I am all for that! They'll also send me home with a machine that goes around my knee and will circulate ice around it. This is all pretty high tech - so I am happy that I waited to have my surgery! All of these things will help my comfort as well as my healing, so I feel very lucky to have access to them.

I'll probably be pretty out of it tomorrow but if I can update this I will - it might not make any sense. I will also be busy making Mark wait on me hand and foot while I do the opposite of what he tells me to do. I am sure he can't wait!

48 hours and counting....

And I am ready to go, although I am very anxious! No medicines, no aspirin, and worst of all no Chinese herbs or Valerian to calm me down. I would like to thank my good friend Katie for suggesting that I put lavender oil on my forehead before going to bed - that plus 90 minutes of yin yoga in the afternoon worked wonders on my insomnia!

As a side note, I can't help but laugh everytime we work our hamstrings in class. My poor hammies have no idea what is coming - I feel a little guilty, like I'm fattening up lambs for the slaughter. It's all for the greater good.

How it all began....



What on earth was I thinking? View from the top of the Nastar trail at Stowe.

 So, this morning I was remembering how this whole knee affair began, and it's actually pretty funny when I look back at it. I thought I would share.

I grew up in Ocala, a small town in North Central Florida. As you can imagine, there is no snow there - other than seeing snow in Missouri when I was an infant (which I totally don't remember) I had no snow experience. When I was 14, my dad told us that we were going to Stowe, Vermont for a skiing trip, I was super excited. I had always been pretty athletic and skiing sounded like a lot of fun. It also looked kind of easy.

We went to Stowe in mid-January, and it was a fun, rather uneventful trip. My parents signed us up for skiing lessons, and we spent a couple of days on the bunny slopes under the watchful eye of our instructor. I picked it up fairly easily and was whizzing down the beginner slopes in no time! My dad saw a sign for a skiing race that was open to all ages, and suggested that we enter since we were all learning it so well. Being the competitive group that my siblings and I are, we eagerly agreed. The race was our last full day in Vermont before leaving, and it seemed like the perfect way to end the trip.

The morning of the race dawned, and we headed for the slopes. We checked in with the Nastar (!!) officials and got our numbers pinned to our ski bibs. That should have given me my first clue that I was in over my head. We went over to our usual ski lift, and the operator, seeing our numbers, pointed out that we needed to go to a different ski lift. He pointed towards a lift that seemed to go all the way up into the sky. At that point, my stomach dropped and I realized we were in big trouble - but didn't want to let on and be made fun of by my siblings. If I was going down, I was going down with lots and lots of pride. The picture at the top of this post is one that I found online of the Nastar trail at Stowe, so you can see why I was crying on the inside. Below is a picture of me and my siblings - you can tell I know this won't end well.




My face says it all. From Left: Will, Brian, me, Kim


We rode the giant lift into the sky, and were deposited at the top of the biggest mountain I have ever seen. They organized us into the lineup, and there were other people in between my siblings and me. I finally tearfully confessed to the woman beside me that I was really scared - she pointed out that she was a beginner as well, and had only skied for 3 or 4 years. OMG. As we got closer to the front of the line, I discovered that as an added bonus there were gates to go in and out of. Oh my God, this was a slalom course? It just got worse and worse. I think my brother Brian went first, and just shot straight down, missing all the gates. At least he was alive. I think Kim went next, and even though she went down on her tush the whole way, she was okay. I started to gain hope. Maybe I did have a shot - I was going to do it as legitimately as I could and make sure I did all the gates. Even if I was slow I wouldn't be disqualified.

I got the front of the line, and positioned myself into the little gateway, leaning into the door. It opened and I shot out, quickly positioning my feet into the pie piece that our instructor had taught us. This slowed me down to a crawl, and I felt better. I carefully weaved in and out of each gate, and started to think things weren't so bad. I was doing it and it was awesome! That is when I hit a patch of ice and flew off the side of the mountain.

I don't remember anything about the fall or what happened or how I fell, exactly. Nor do I know how long I was knocked out. I don't think it was very long, because I became aware of people on the ski lift above me calling down and asking if I was okay, and that I had a really bad fall. I looked up the mountain and quite a ways up was my right ski. My first thought was, "There is no way in hell I am going to retrieve that ski and put it on." I looked around and was in a bit of a wild area, just off the ski path. How on earth was I getting off that mountain? My heroes on the ski lift hollered that they were sending help for me, and I relaxed a bit. I definitely needed some help. Nothing really hurt badly, but my left knee just felt funny. I figured that was because a ski was attached to it. My little brother, Will, sailed by and asked me if I was okay - I told him to carry on.
Buck and Andy with the ski patrol arrived, and they cheerfully asked what had happened. I told them I was fine, and when they asked if I was hurt I informed that my knee felt funny but that my father was an excellent doctor and would be able to check me out. They asked for my name and my father's name, and I couldn't tell them either of those. They determined I was in shock and wrapped me in white blankets as they loaded me onto the stretcher. I still think it's hilarious that I couldn't tell them my name, but I still remember that they were named Buck and Andy.

I was nervous as they zipped me down the giant mountain in a toboggan, but we quickly got to the bottom where I was put into some ambulance-looking vehicle from the ski resort. I found out later that when they brought me off the mountain, the blanket had flown over my head and my mother, seeing my little covered body, thought I was dead. Nope, just in shock and ready to go back home. At the hospital, they X-rayed my leg and determined that I had cracked the top of my tibia, right up to my growth plate. For that reason, they didn't pull on it or do tests for my ligaments as they were concerned that if the growth plate was damaged my leg wouldn't grow. Little did they know, I wouldn't grow any more anyways. We would find out when I got out of my ginormous cast that my ACL was torn.

My last night in Stowe was awesome. I was not in pain, thanks to the medicine they gave me, and we attended the awards ceremony at the resort that night. I was awarded a purple heart award, and the resort gave me lots and lots of presents. I couldn't decide if they felt bad for me for my injury or for being so clueless. "Really? This was your 3rd day on skis and you entered a race? Really??" Yes, yes I did.

6 Days and Counting....

So, I am hoping that if I write out all the things floating around my head, maybe I won't wake up at 2am and be so tired tomorrow. I think I am just really anxious, which is probably normal - but more than that I just want to get this show on the road.

I don't think I'm that nervous about the surgery itself - I think I know what to expect with that, but it's the things I don't know that bother me. Like, not knowing when I will be up for driving. I doubt I'll stay on the pain meds for too long, and they say it will be about a week, but how will I fit my brace in the car? What if I just wear myself out and then can't drive home? My doctor's office is pretty far from my house, so I better eat my Wheaties that day. Or maybe just suck it up and ask my hubby to drive me. :)

And then there are the random things to be scared of. Like my dog knocking into me and snapping my new ligament. Or what if I just get out of bed in the middle of the night and forget, and jump on my leg. These are the things that are keeping me up and they are pretty silly! I just am ready to go so I can start recovering - wish me some sweet, sweet zzzzs tonight.

The Verdict Is In!

I went back to the doctor today, and it was a pretty interesting time. He handed me the report from the radiologist on my MRI, which said that my knee showed as normal. He thinks that scar tissue is appearing to be ligament in the MRI, but from the clinical tests he did the ACL doesn't exist. What was interesting was that my PCL, which when he pulls on it seems pretty sturdy, appears to have a tear. It's also kinked, which was very strange. So he is approaching it as needing to replace both of them, but he'll have to get his eyes on the PCL to decide what to do. He is recommending that we use my hamstring for the ACL, and then cadaver for my PCL if he replaces it. I was a little worried that my hamstrings won't hold, because they are ridiculously stretchy - but he said he would check it out and if they looked wimpy he'll use cadaver. I don't have a personal preference either way - since he does this every day I will just let him do his job. :)

SO, all that being said - why waste time? It's also progressively becoming looser, so next Wednesday, April 13th, is D-Day. I've got a lot to do before then - like build as much muscle as I can so that I'll have more to waste away while I am recovering. 3-6 months for a full recovery - and he said for my aerial stuff it will be more like 6 months.

When I think about that it makes me very sad - but I am so limited right now in what I can do it doesn't really matter. So let's do this so I can get better and back to normal.

Getting looser...

So, I get my MRI results on Monday and we will set my surgery date. I am a little nervous but very ready to move forward. I went to Miami for work this week, which was a nice change of scenery. I am a little creeped out that my knee seems to be getting looser - I thought it was my imagination, but after sitting in a chair in meetings all day with my legs crossed, my lower leg popped out from under my knee. So I guess I should learn to cross my ankles or cross my other leg.