Pre Op Done!

I had my pre-op appointment this morning.  It was pretty uneventful.  

I was fitted for my literal crotch to ankle, knee brace.  It's the worst $700 contraption I have ever met. But, thank you insurance for covering the device that will both torture me and help me to heal properly.

I got instructions on how to wash my body.  You know, in case I have been doing it wrong the last 33 years of my life.

They called in all of my prescriptions, and gave me a general once over to make sure I am well enough to survive a surgery. (I am, Yay!) And of course let me know about all the glorious things that could go wrong including my death.  If you never hear from me again, that's prob what happened.

I am still ultra paranoid that I will somehow end up losing my leg... but fingers crossed I survive with my limbs intact, and I as rather fond of my legs.

T-Minus 13 days until Zombie Knee.

Knee Update

I have 20 days until my surgery.

My knee is for the most part okay.  The swelling is all gone, as is most of the pain.  So long as I wear my knee brace its almost fully functional.  As of a couple days ago I am able to completely straighten it.  I still can't put my heel to my butt, and I doubt I will be able to without surgery.  If I could, I could grapple... but alas, no.  

Most unfortunately though, everyone cares, and no one will even let me try! Because I might hurt myself or some such nonsense.  Pfft.

Without my brace my knee buckles fairly regularly, and lateral movements are real not great. It is, if nothing else, manageable for 20 more days.  Then it will be way worse! But for good reason.

I am going to get these, and only wear the right leg every time I grapple nogi. 

Zombie Knee Tights

How not to make yourself feel better.

If you need surgery, and would like to make yourself feel worse, you should deff watch your surgical procedure on YouTube.

Surgical Consult

I had my surgical consult today.  It went well, as far as, this is an appointment in which a man tells me I have ruined my knee and need surgery goes.  

And it is, as I feared, worst case scenario.  Both my ACL and meniscus need to be completely reconstructed.  After he broke the news he asked me how much he wanted me to sugar coat what that meant..  I said not at all, and in hindsight, I maybe should have let him sugar coat it.  I probably would have cried less.

I have been a gigantic baby about this knee injury.  I think it is just coming at a bad time.  Not that there is ever a good time to cripple yourself, but I decided to do it in the middle of a really big life change so it is complicating that, and also forcing me to put a lot of things on hold I have already put off for way too long.  It's insanely frustrating.

Anyway, back to the subject at hand.

After he explained in detail how they go about fixing my knee, he explained that he thinks using a cadaver graft is the way to go.  Cadaver graft will be henceforth know as zombie knee.  He feels as though harvesting a replacement part from my body will only create a weak spot somewhere else, and being that I am an athlete and harder on my body that the average lady, he doesn't want to potentially create problems where I would otherwise not have them.

Zombie Knee

The only thing that kind of sucks about the zombie knee is that, that kind of surgery can only be done at a hospital and not the surgical center where he would normally do an ACL repair.  That is a problem because I could get in next week at the surgical center, and the next available slot at the hospital is November 2nd.

However, he said my knee is so inflamed and angry that he wouldn't be comfortable doing the surgery for another two weeks anyway.  So, in realty it means I am going to have to wait 3 weeks longer than I would otherwise I have to wait.  Boo.

Then he went on to explain that this surgery has an extremely painful recovery, six months of rehab, and because of how shredded my meniscus is, I will not be able to walk for the first 6 weeks after it is repaired.


I will not be able to WALK for SIX weeks.

No walking.  Six weeks.

I can't even wrap my head around that.

I don't know how I am supposed to function without being able to walk.  Nor can I imagine how fat I am going to get.  Ugh.

My pre op appointment is October 19th at 10am.