On January 11th, I went under the knife to replace my ACL as well as clean up a tear in my meniscus. Now, here we are, 46 days later (well, on Wednesday) and I am cleared to go back to work. I've gone to the gym and have lifted this past week, so I'm pretty confident that things are getting back to normal. I'm back in NH for good, obviously... so I have to find a new Physical Therapist in the area, but the surgeon had said I don't have to go 2-3 times a week anymore and that once every week or 2 will suffice. I just need to have someone track my progress and let me know when I can start treadmilling/running/squating/deadlifting, etc..
I don't know what else to write except that I've been hitting the gym every day for my knee. At least using the bike, but I try to do most of the exercises that the CT Physical Therapist taught me. But we'll see what the PT up here says!
Tuesday, February 26, 2013
Sunday, February 10, 2013
This post is better then the Grammy's
4 weeks and 2 days ago marks the day I had ACL replacement surgery with additional work done to my medial meniscus on my left knee. I had read many horror stories about what could potentially happen... how there could be something that happens and I feel pain in my leg for the rest of my life. Now, I felt comfortable with my surgeon, he was very relaxed and is someone who had does this sort of thing more times then I could probably imagine. It was old hat to him and that, more then anything really put me to ease about getting my knee hacked up. But the actual road to recovery was where I really started to get nervous. I had several different people giving me several different answers to the same questions:
-When should I expect to be off crutches?
-When should I start PT?
-When can I start using a bike? Treadmill? Running?
Everything was different which pretty much meant to me that I had to make my own answers. I was off 2 crutches really fast and I was able to walk on my own (sort of) in like a week and a half/2 weeks. I started driving about 2.5/3 weeks later and a month after the fact, it's probably tough to tell I had any sort of surgery at all. I still walk with a slight limp, but that was expected and I'm used to it after the last 6 months. That's going to be my first real feeling of getting over this injury... just being able to walk normally!
Physical Therapy is a God send. That was the one thing that the surgeon and everyone post-op hammered into my thick skull: GET PHYSICAL THERAPY. They trained themselves on how to get me back to normal. And they know. Even with the simple shit they make me do; it's always hammered home that it means something in the long run. This past Wednesday they put me on a bike and it was a huge motivator because shit, 3 weeks before that I could barely move my leg. It sucked that for the first week or so, I was hampered with insurance issues, but I've been doing my home exercises like it was my job and it pays off.
Over the next 2 weeks I'm going to be moving myself back into my apartment in New Hampshire as I finish up Physical Therapy. I'm looking forward to being able to get back into the gym and the first day I can do a squat and a deadlift I will probably break facebook. My next follow-up with the surgeon is 2/25 and from there I guess will determine when I can get back to work. So until then...
bigbadbowes@gmail.com
-When should I expect to be off crutches?
-When should I start PT?
-When can I start using a bike? Treadmill? Running?
Everything was different which pretty much meant to me that I had to make my own answers. I was off 2 crutches really fast and I was able to walk on my own (sort of) in like a week and a half/2 weeks. I started driving about 2.5/3 weeks later and a month after the fact, it's probably tough to tell I had any sort of surgery at all. I still walk with a slight limp, but that was expected and I'm used to it after the last 6 months. That's going to be my first real feeling of getting over this injury... just being able to walk normally!
Physical Therapy is a God send. That was the one thing that the surgeon and everyone post-op hammered into my thick skull: GET PHYSICAL THERAPY. They trained themselves on how to get me back to normal. And they know. Even with the simple shit they make me do; it's always hammered home that it means something in the long run. This past Wednesday they put me on a bike and it was a huge motivator because shit, 3 weeks before that I could barely move my leg. It sucked that for the first week or so, I was hampered with insurance issues, but I've been doing my home exercises like it was my job and it pays off.
Over the next 2 weeks I'm going to be moving myself back into my apartment in New Hampshire as I finish up Physical Therapy. I'm looking forward to being able to get back into the gym and the first day I can do a squat and a deadlift I will probably break facebook. My next follow-up with the surgeon is 2/25 and from there I guess will determine when I can get back to work. So until then...
bigbadbowes@gmail.com
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