Journey To The Center of My Kneecap
Here is the story of my knee surgery yesterday. It's long, and has a lot of gross/awesome pictures.
Yesterday, I woke up at 7:30 am, showered, shaved, and put on some clean clothes. I got in my car, which I'd washed, vacuumed and waxed the day before in anticipation of its month and a half long hibernation, and drove with my dad out to the West Anaheim Medical Center. I parked, checked in, and got taken back to the Ambulatory Care Unit, where I was weighed and had my temperature and blood pressure taken. Then, I had to put on one of those oh-so-stylish medical gowns and laid down on a gurney.
Two nurses came in to start a sugar/saline IV. The first time they tried it hurt like a bitch. Generally, the procedure for starting an IV is running it into the vein, but not directly through it. So, a huge bump raised itself on my wrist as they pulled out the needle, and my blood did that cool spurting thing you see in movies. Then, they straightened out my left arm, and put the needle in there. There was some debate as to whether or not they had managed to hit the vein, but fortunately, they figured out that my veins are so big that it had gone in perfectly with a minimum of bleeding back into the IV.
Then began the waiting. There were three people ahead of me for surgery, and the guy in the room next to me had "a lot of variables" for his shoulder surgery. So, my dad came in and read with me while I watched TV. I've noticed that when it comes to daytime TV, whenever the producers run out of ideas for a particular show, they do the token "troubled kid who doesn't know it yet, but he's going to boot camp at the end of the show" episode. There was a hilarious high-speed chase that actually went right by the hospital (and later, my house) that involved some crazy guy dangling a purple bathrobe out of the window of his car as he drove at 100 mph down the 405. He ended up driving right to a donut shop, where he went inside and ended up getting pepper sprayed by the cops. I can appreciate the irony of 20 cop cars and a SWAT team taking a guy down at a donut shop.
After what should have been an hour wait (but was closer to three and a half), they wheeled me back to the pre-op center. I had to put on this goofy looking blue hat, slippers, and the anestheseologist came into talk to me. She told me they would administer the anesthetic through my IV, and that it tended to burn a little bit before it took effect. Also, they would be sticking a tube partially down my throat to breathe for me, and that before I woke up, they'd be giving me another shot of anesthetic to the groin. I wasn't too thrilled with the prospect of a large, sharp needle being stuck so close to a (ahem) vital organ, but I figured if they fucked up, there'd be at least a decent shot at a malpractice suit. Anyhow, I was wheeled into the operating room, and the anesthesiologist told me they were going to give me the anesthetic. Beneath my oxygen mask, I asked how long it would take before I would feel effects, then the anesthesiologist just said, "Yes, that's nice." She then stuck the shot directly into my IV, and I felt a strange, cold, burning sensation spread all over my body. My vision blurred, and my last thought before the lights went out was that I could actually feel my eyes rolling back in my head.
I woke up in the recovery room with two nurses hovering over me. I was shaking violently, and I heard one of them yell for blankets and Demerol. Another shot went in the IV bag, and I suddenly felt a whole lot warmer. They took my blood pressure again (for what seemed like the 10,000th time) and it turned out it was 194/78- which is really high. Later, I found out that it was my body reacting to trauma, and that my body was trying to tell my brain that I was fucked up and in a lot of pain. Fortunately, the drugs and the nerve block they installed in my leg did a good job of duping my brain into thinking that everything was cool, but my body still kept up with some slight shaking and elevated blood pressure. As a result, I had to stay in the recovery room for two hours. Thanks to the anesthesia, it was about an hour and a half before I thought to look down at my leg, and this is basically what I saw:
The clear sack with red liquid is exactly what you think it is. The tube runs into the cuts made from surgery, and drains the blood that continually leaks from them. It has to be emptied every few hours or so, just enough for it to fill up with a few ounces of blood.
That's the blood bag being emptied.
The blue tube running out of my leg is part of a portable cooling unit that is filled with ice every few hours. It pumps cool water all around my knee, and is helping to keep the swelling down. The clear cylinder is my pain pump- when I first got it, it was filled with Lidocaine (a local anesthetic), but now, it's quickly running low. Every few hours, the pump would press down a little bit more, injecting Lidocaine directly into my knee as so to numb it and keep the pain down. It's effective, especially when supplemented with Percocet. The brace itself is large, bulky, and is designed to immobilize my leg. I have to wear this thing for a month straight, save for when I'm doing physical therapy. Even when I'm asleep or showering.
Anyhow, after my blood pressure stabilized a bit, I was wheeled back to the Ambulatory Care Unit, where my dad was waiting. After not having anything to eat or drink for nearly 24 hours, I was absolutely famished, so they brought me a Pepsi and some graham crackers. I chowed down, ignoring the irritation in my throat from where they stuck the tube. In retrospect, I should have probably insisted on drinking water, because the sugary Pepsi just caused me to crash in about an hour. There were a few criteria for release- the nurses wanted to make sure my blood pressure was stable (still), I had to be able to piss (an indication that the anesthetic was wearing off) and I had to show them I could walk on crutches. The first and the last part was easy, but let's just say that trying to piss when you're coming down from anesthesia is like handing a midget a firehose and sending them to a five-alarm apartment fire- it's awkard and fucking tough. Anyhow, after I did those things , the IV was pulled from my arm and a bandage tied over the wound, and I was discharged. They wheeled me out to the parking lot, and my dad went to go get the car.
Things kind of went downhill as soon as I sat down. I was dehydrated, I started to shake again, and I felt like I was going to either pass out or throw up in the car.
I barely made it to the couch, but fortunately, my dad had a big glass of ice water ready for me. I had a few sips, and started to feel better again. Then, the anesthesia really wore off. I broke out in a sweat, I started to shake again, and I felt like I was going to throw up. I managed to get down a piece of bread and chased it with a Percocet, and after about an hour, the pain started to go away. I was able to settle down a bit more and eat some more bread, and I ended up watching the Lord of the Rings with my dad.
It wasn't until today that I found out exactly what the surgeon had done. I knew that my ACL needed replacement, but whether or not my meniscus was repairable was up for debate. The following pictures were taken with the arthoscopic scope camera they used to scope my knee.
In the first picture, the one on the right is my meniscus. As can be seen, the meniscus is fairly shredded. Rather than try to fix it, the surgeon simply cut it out. I am now missing part of the cartilage on my right knee.
This is my ACL. It's pretty screwed up as well, but fortunately, this graft should have taken care of it:
What you can see there is the patellar tendon that they sliced from my kneecap and grafted where my ACL used to be. If you look closely, you can see the tiny metal screws that are going to hold that new ACL to the bone for the rest of my life.
Sleeping was pretty easy. I took two more Percocet and just kind of floated away into some pleasant dreams- I dreamt I was snorkeling in a kelp forest with a bunch of brightly colored octopi. Anyhow, painkiller dreams aside, I managed to get seven solid hours of sleep, which is a really good sign for my recovery. The pain actually hasn't been that bad, it's been utterly manageable with the Percocet, and the occasional Relafen for swelling. I'm up crutching around the house, and I may go for a "walk" around the block later.
Earlier in the day, Home Health came by to remove my pain pump and the blood drain. The nurse, Marc, also changed my bandage. I'm warning you, the next few pictures are kind of gross, so don't look if you're offended.
This is what my leg looks like right now when you peel back the bandages. The big scar right on top of my kneecap is where the surgeon did a "ligament harvest" and removed part of my patellar tendon for the ACL graft. The two little ones are where they cut out my meniscus and grafted my ACL. In this particular shot, Marc is removing the drain that was removing the excess blood from my knee. The blood bag was empty before he started.
This is when Marc removed the Lidocaine pump from my knee.
So yeah, there you go. I get to take this brace off for good in a month. Think I'm counting down the days? Well, yes, as a matter of fact, I am.
Yesterday, I woke up at 7:30 am, showered, shaved, and put on some clean clothes. I got in my car, which I'd washed, vacuumed and waxed the day before in anticipation of its month and a half long hibernation, and drove with my dad out to the West Anaheim Medical Center. I parked, checked in, and got taken back to the Ambulatory Care Unit, where I was weighed and had my temperature and blood pressure taken. Then, I had to put on one of those oh-so-stylish medical gowns and laid down on a gurney.
Two nurses came in to start a sugar/saline IV. The first time they tried it hurt like a bitch. Generally, the procedure for starting an IV is running it into the vein, but not directly through it. So, a huge bump raised itself on my wrist as they pulled out the needle, and my blood did that cool spurting thing you see in movies. Then, they straightened out my left arm, and put the needle in there. There was some debate as to whether or not they had managed to hit the vein, but fortunately, they figured out that my veins are so big that it had gone in perfectly with a minimum of bleeding back into the IV.
Then began the waiting. There were three people ahead of me for surgery, and the guy in the room next to me had "a lot of variables" for his shoulder surgery. So, my dad came in and read with me while I watched TV. I've noticed that when it comes to daytime TV, whenever the producers run out of ideas for a particular show, they do the token "troubled kid who doesn't know it yet, but he's going to boot camp at the end of the show" episode. There was a hilarious high-speed chase that actually went right by the hospital (and later, my house) that involved some crazy guy dangling a purple bathrobe out of the window of his car as he drove at 100 mph down the 405. He ended up driving right to a donut shop, where he went inside and ended up getting pepper sprayed by the cops. I can appreciate the irony of 20 cop cars and a SWAT team taking a guy down at a donut shop.
After what should have been an hour wait (but was closer to three and a half), they wheeled me back to the pre-op center. I had to put on this goofy looking blue hat, slippers, and the anestheseologist came into talk to me. She told me they would administer the anesthetic through my IV, and that it tended to burn a little bit before it took effect. Also, they would be sticking a tube partially down my throat to breathe for me, and that before I woke up, they'd be giving me another shot of anesthetic to the groin. I wasn't too thrilled with the prospect of a large, sharp needle being stuck so close to a (ahem) vital organ, but I figured if they fucked up, there'd be at least a decent shot at a malpractice suit. Anyhow, I was wheeled into the operating room, and the anesthesiologist told me they were going to give me the anesthetic. Beneath my oxygen mask, I asked how long it would take before I would feel effects, then the anesthesiologist just said, "Yes, that's nice." She then stuck the shot directly into my IV, and I felt a strange, cold, burning sensation spread all over my body. My vision blurred, and my last thought before the lights went out was that I could actually feel my eyes rolling back in my head.
I woke up in the recovery room with two nurses hovering over me. I was shaking violently, and I heard one of them yell for blankets and Demerol. Another shot went in the IV bag, and I suddenly felt a whole lot warmer. They took my blood pressure again (for what seemed like the 10,000th time) and it turned out it was 194/78- which is really high. Later, I found out that it was my body reacting to trauma, and that my body was trying to tell my brain that I was fucked up and in a lot of pain. Fortunately, the drugs and the nerve block they installed in my leg did a good job of duping my brain into thinking that everything was cool, but my body still kept up with some slight shaking and elevated blood pressure. As a result, I had to stay in the recovery room for two hours. Thanks to the anesthesia, it was about an hour and a half before I thought to look down at my leg, and this is basically what I saw:
The clear sack with red liquid is exactly what you think it is. The tube runs into the cuts made from surgery, and drains the blood that continually leaks from them. It has to be emptied every few hours or so, just enough for it to fill up with a few ounces of blood.
That's the blood bag being emptied.
The blue tube running out of my leg is part of a portable cooling unit that is filled with ice every few hours. It pumps cool water all around my knee, and is helping to keep the swelling down. The clear cylinder is my pain pump- when I first got it, it was filled with Lidocaine (a local anesthetic), but now, it's quickly running low. Every few hours, the pump would press down a little bit more, injecting Lidocaine directly into my knee as so to numb it and keep the pain down. It's effective, especially when supplemented with Percocet. The brace itself is large, bulky, and is designed to immobilize my leg. I have to wear this thing for a month straight, save for when I'm doing physical therapy. Even when I'm asleep or showering.
Anyhow, after my blood pressure stabilized a bit, I was wheeled back to the Ambulatory Care Unit, where my dad was waiting. After not having anything to eat or drink for nearly 24 hours, I was absolutely famished, so they brought me a Pepsi and some graham crackers. I chowed down, ignoring the irritation in my throat from where they stuck the tube. In retrospect, I should have probably insisted on drinking water, because the sugary Pepsi just caused me to crash in about an hour. There were a few criteria for release- the nurses wanted to make sure my blood pressure was stable (still), I had to be able to piss (an indication that the anesthetic was wearing off) and I had to show them I could walk on crutches. The first and the last part was easy, but let's just say that trying to piss when you're coming down from anesthesia is like handing a midget a firehose and sending them to a five-alarm apartment fire- it's awkard and fucking tough. Anyhow, after I did those things , the IV was pulled from my arm and a bandage tied over the wound, and I was discharged. They wheeled me out to the parking lot, and my dad went to go get the car.
Things kind of went downhill as soon as I sat down. I was dehydrated, I started to shake again, and I felt like I was going to either pass out or throw up in the car.
I barely made it to the couch, but fortunately, my dad had a big glass of ice water ready for me. I had a few sips, and started to feel better again. Then, the anesthesia really wore off. I broke out in a sweat, I started to shake again, and I felt like I was going to throw up. I managed to get down a piece of bread and chased it with a Percocet, and after about an hour, the pain started to go away. I was able to settle down a bit more and eat some more bread, and I ended up watching the Lord of the Rings with my dad.
It wasn't until today that I found out exactly what the surgeon had done. I knew that my ACL needed replacement, but whether or not my meniscus was repairable was up for debate. The following pictures were taken with the arthoscopic scope camera they used to scope my knee.
In the first picture, the one on the right is my meniscus. As can be seen, the meniscus is fairly shredded. Rather than try to fix it, the surgeon simply cut it out. I am now missing part of the cartilage on my right knee.
This is my ACL. It's pretty screwed up as well, but fortunately, this graft should have taken care of it:
What you can see there is the patellar tendon that they sliced from my kneecap and grafted where my ACL used to be. If you look closely, you can see the tiny metal screws that are going to hold that new ACL to the bone for the rest of my life.
Sleeping was pretty easy. I took two more Percocet and just kind of floated away into some pleasant dreams- I dreamt I was snorkeling in a kelp forest with a bunch of brightly colored octopi. Anyhow, painkiller dreams aside, I managed to get seven solid hours of sleep, which is a really good sign for my recovery. The pain actually hasn't been that bad, it's been utterly manageable with the Percocet, and the occasional Relafen for swelling. I'm up crutching around the house, and I may go for a "walk" around the block later.
Earlier in the day, Home Health came by to remove my pain pump and the blood drain. The nurse, Marc, also changed my bandage. I'm warning you, the next few pictures are kind of gross, so don't look if you're offended.
This is what my leg looks like right now when you peel back the bandages. The big scar right on top of my kneecap is where the surgeon did a "ligament harvest" and removed part of my patellar tendon for the ACL graft. The two little ones are where they cut out my meniscus and grafted my ACL. In this particular shot, Marc is removing the drain that was removing the excess blood from my knee. The blood bag was empty before he started.
This is when Marc removed the Lidocaine pump from my knee.
So yeah, there you go. I get to take this brace off for good in a month. Think I'm counting down the days? Well, yes, as a matter of fact, I am.