Brandon’s Knee Surgery and Recovery Part 1

Well the day of my ACL repair surgery (January 26^th, 2012) finally came and passed.  After waiting for over 8 weeks, I was definitely ready.  I got lucky with an early check-in at 6:45 a.m. and had my IV inserted without any problems.  The problems started for both Emily and I when the anesthesiologist started discussing/prepping for the insertion of my nerve block catheter.  This I WAS NOT prepared for.  Both Emily and I became queasy, and the nurse had to pull an extra bed into the room for Emily to lie down on.  After I was able to man-up, and with the help of some drugs and local anesthetic, the catheter was inserted into my right groin.  The nerve block catheter amounted to a line in my leg attached to a ball of bupivacaine that I had to carry around for 2 days.  After this I was wheeled into surgery and remember nothing else until I awoke in the recovery room over 3 hours later.  Apparently all went well, and my ACL was repaired using a portion of my hamstring tendon.  There was also some minor damage to my meniscus that was fixed.  Upon awakening I was informed that Emily became queasy again and vomited in a wheelchair in the hallway.  She was told that she couldn’t drive me home so we frantically tried to get one of our good friends to drive us both home on short notice.   Eventually Emily was able to regain her senses and drive me home around 3:30.

I remember very little about the rest of Thursday thanks to the fentanyl, oxycodone, and bupivacaine.  Friday sucked, I do remember that.  The pain was A LOT worse than I had imagined.  Emily was a saint and waited on me hand and foot.  Saturday also sucked since I had to remove the nerve block catheter myself.  Using a little instruction booklet, I ripped the tape from my pubic hair and gave the catheter a little tug.  The little tug turned into a good hard pull and the 6 inches of catheter was finally removed.  All I really remember about the next few days was the extreme pain and discomfort I was in.  On Tuesday Emily took me back to Sports Medicine to get my dressings changed.  I was able to see my scars for the first time and they actually didn’t look as bad as I expected.  Today is Saturday, and I finally feel like I’m making a little progress.  I have a lot less pain and am starting to put about 5% of my weight on my leg with crutches.  I’m scheduled to go back to work on Thursday, so we’ll see how that goes.  Overall I’m a little disappointed in how slow the recovery process has been, and I’m not sure if I would willingly go through this process again.  I see the surgeon again on Valentines Day, so hopefully I have a more positive update after that.  I guess I got the best Valentines Day present I could have hoped for from Emily, her unconditional love and support.