6 Months and Completing Jump Training

Well I have just passed the 6 month mark after I had ACL surgery. Honestly the time has really flown by. Not to say that it seemed like forever until I could bike or swim or run, but looking back it has really gone by quickly. My knee is in great condition and the doctor has released me to do whatever I want. Just if I do anything like basketball, tennis, ski, etc. I should wear a brace. My knee feels a little sore now and then, I've been working on running more and increasing slowly so I know how much I can do.

When I first started running I ran too much and was sore. So now I'm working my way up, running walking for 20 minutes, and increasing the time that I run. This way I can figure out when I get sore, or perhaps not at all if I progress well.

My knee is still a little stiff at times, so I make sure and stretch it regularly. I am almost done with the final week of the jump training that my physical therapist assigned me to do. After that I'm going to start with some vertical leap training to increase the strength of my legs more before I start playing basketball again. Feel like if I go back being stronger than ever then that will be good for making sure I don't re-injure things!

Jump Training!

Now I begin jump training, where I begin to train my body to jump and land properly, so when I do begin doing sport activities again my body's muscle memory will be used to doing things the right way. It also gets the body used to jumping again. Apparently you need to do an activity 1,000 times before your body will re-learn something correctly! The jump training is 6 weeks long, and I will begin that next week. It's a pretty tough set of exercises, but now it's both an aerobic sort of workout and also a strength training. Gonna help me get whipped into shape for sure!

4 Months!

I'm at 4 months since the surgery today! Very happy about that! Though I will have to admit that my knee is a little stiff. Probably from the running I did the other day. But overall feeling good. Biking has been my saving grace since I can't really do running all that much. And Saturday and Sunday I do the Tour de Cure where I will be biking 80 miles each day! That will be a good test of my knee! We'll see how I fare. I'll post here how things go!

Don't Over Do it!!! Do as I say, not as I do!

So even though I'm past 3 months after I had my surgery, it's probably not a great idea to overdo the biking too much... I may have done that this past weekend. The doctors advice was to increase the distance that I do slowly so that I know what my limits are. I guess increasing my 20 miles a ride is too much...

I had done 20 and even 40 miles in a day with no problem. This past weekend I did 2+ hours on the stationary bike on Friday, thin 50 miles on Saturday, and then 70 miles on Sunday. Then I did a blistering fast ride on Monday, very hilly, up Mt. Bonel, and after that my knee was sore afterwards. Always felt fine when I was biking, but felt stiff and sore afterwards.

So now I'm taking it easy this week. No more long distance for me until I get to the Tour de Cure at the end of May.

Running!

So about 1 week ago I was able to start running! I had to pass a gruling test to be able to demonstrate to the doctor and physical therapist that I was ready, but I did! Here's what I had to do:

1. 3 minutes of one legged squats with a bungee cord pulling me down. Up one second, down the next.
2. 3 minutes jog in place with bungee pulling me forwards.
3. 3 minutes jog in place with bungee pulling me backwards.
4. 50 reps of jumping sideways with bungee pulling me to the right.
5. 50 reps of jumping sideways with bungee pulling me to the left.

So I was given the clear to start jogging. I was told that running on the treadmill initially was good to reduce impact on the knee. I then later ran on a trail and that felt good. I was also told to not run too long without taking a break and walking. So when I ran on the trail I made sure and walked down the hills to reduce the hard impact on the knee. Feels great so far. And of course the last bit of advice given to me was to stop running if there was any pain in the knee. So happy to be back and able to run after about 10 months! I'm now looking forward to being able to push myself harder and run further!

At this point biking long distances is not a problem and I have been able to do about 40 miles at a very fast pace without having any issues.

Keeping it slow...

I had my second PT appointment this past Friday, which was just after 3 weeks. My range of flexibility had definitely improved a lot, but since I had my appointment at 7 am I hadn't taken the time to stretch ahead of time, so my physio therapist was a little concerned that my flexibility of the ACL in straitening my knee wasn't quite there yet. So now I need to straiten it for 10 minutes 5x a day! So a word of advice for those doing this, stretch first thing in the morning, so when you go in for PT it is a more accurate representation of where you are, rather than the fact that you haven't stretched in over 8 hours because you were sleeping!

I was a little discouraged to find out that I could not bike, walk "for exercise", swim, nor do yoga. So I need to keep in the mindset of keeping it slow and focusing on my physio therapy exercises, which I have been doing very regularly. I found out that I can do water jogging, and now have more PT exercises, and now I can use the stationary bike for 20 minutes a day and can add resistance! So that is good. I don't know much about watter jogging, but I'm going to look into it. I don't care if I look a little silly! :-) I'm really eager to ride my bicycle(s) again! Meet with the doc in a little over a week, so hopefully he can give me the go-ahead then. With the disclaimer of course saying "just don't crash!" :-)

Evening things out...

Coming up on 3 weeks now! Things are still progressing well. Walking pretty well normally without the brace. Still a little uncomfortable extending my leg fully while walking. I've been doing the physio therapy exercises very regularly. The swelling of the knee is pretty well back to what the other leg is, will probably take a while longer till they look the same, but close now.

When I was doing the physio therapy exercises earlier this week, the yoga instructor at the gym stopped in and pointed out that I should be doing the exercises on both legs. At first I didn't think much of it but then realized that I should make sure and do that so that I can keep the strength of both legs the same, or as close as possible. I'm not really able to do any other exercieses besides the physio therapy, so it's important to me that I keep both legs in good condition. One thing that I heard is a lot of athletes will tear the opposite ACL after having surgery... Not necissarily due to not strengthening the opposite leg durring recovery, but probably because they are favoring the oposite leg, putting it harms way more. But it can't hurt to make sure that opposite leg is strong too so that you don't mess up the other one too!

First Physiotherapy and Walking!

I had my post operation appointment with the docter 10 days after the surgery. Doctor said that everything was looking good. Was fun seeing the pictures of the inside of my knee! Only a little bit of the maniscus that they had to cut out. So there will be lots left to coushin my knee for things like running.

Right after the appointment with the doc I got to have my first physio apt. The physio therapist said that the knee was looking very good after only 10 days. So I was very happy and relieved to hear that. I guess taking good care of the knee paid off. She checked the flexibility of the knee and recorded that. Then got me started on some physio therapy exercises that I am supposed to work on for the next 2 weeks or so.

I was really happy to find out that I can use a stationary bike! Though I have been told to only use it for 10 minutes a day. After I go back for my next physio therapy appointment 2 weeks after then I should be able to use the stationary bike more.

One thing that really stuck in my head that my physio therapist stressed was that it is very important that I streatch my knee a lot to make sure that I can straighten my knee fully. When they put the ACL in they apparently do it so that it is a little tight, better a little tight than far too loose I suppose! So as the new ACL heals it tends to tighten. So it is important that you have the full range of motion as it heals because if you don't the knee will get pulled out of allignment causing problems to other parts of the knee! So I streatch the my knee by elevating my heel and extending my knee for 10 minutes, 3x a day. Usually feels a lot better after streatching. I also try and streatch it as much as I can throughout the day. I was given exercises that I should be doing daily. It takes me about 40 minutes to do all the exercises. So I am being very diligent about making sure that I get those done.

I was told that I should be putting more weight on the knee when I walk. So I was shown how to walk with one crutch so that I put weight on the knee. This is done by putting the crutch on the side opposite the knee. Then when you step forward with the bad knee you can transfer some weight onto the crutch. If you wanted to avoid putting weight on the bad knee all together then you would put the crutch on the same side as the bad knee.

I was able to get ride of the crutches on day 11 since I wasn't really putting any weight on the cruch while walking. Was also able to start driving my car that is standard on day 11 as well! Was very happy to be able to drive that again!

I am still wearing the breace to protect the knee should it give out or I get knocked by someone. While I walk I focus a lot on making sure that I walk with good form. It's almost as if I'm relearning to walk! Very happy to be walking 99% normally now.

Unveiling

So after 5 days of having the knee all covered up I was able to take off the dressings. Wow that felt really good! It did look pretty nasty though I will have to say. There was some bruising at the back of the knee, which apparently is expected given that's where the pooling of blood would take place. Was nice to finally get to shower at that point as well!

After I stopped taking the ibuprofen after the first week I had quite a bit of pain when I first stood up. There would be a rush of blood to the knee causing a lot of pain. But that would go away after 30 seconds to a minute. Now I'm at 10 days after the surgery and that has pretty well gone away.

I have been using the cpm at the max that I'm supposed to use it (90 degrees) for a while now and that hasn't been a problem. I have noticed the last few nights that I used it that I got cramps in my shins. A little odd, not much of a deal, just painful to wake up to.

I'm excited to see the doctor tomorrow morning and see what he has to say about my progress. I also have my first physio appointment so I'm looking forward to that as well!

Back to Work - constant arm workout!

I was able to return to work on Monday with no problems. Though it helps that I have an office job! It's a little bit of a pain to lug around the polar care ice chest, but it's well worth it. I really found that my arms got a huge work out from using the crutches.

I ended up getting a little sore from the crutches rubbing on my sides. But quickly improved my form so that the crutches didn't rub. Probably would have been good to look at something like this on using crutches, but I thought that they were too simple to deserve research! Definitely doesn't hurt to make sure you are doing things right.

Day 2

Day 2 went on very smoothly. My fever seemed to stay away after that one hellish night. Knee exercises were much easier. Knee exercises where you extend your leg and move your foot towards and away from your head now no longer hurts.

Getting around is pretty easy at this point. I have got pretty used to getting around by limping slightly. Almost prefer this to getting around with crutches, but probably better to use the crutches when covering larger distances.

Went out do dinner with some family friends and didn't have the knee iced for about 4 hours. Wasn't in any pain, the knee just started to get quite warm since there is so much covering it (ace bandage, moisture barrier, water cooling pack, outer bandage, and then the brace). Since I wasn't really in any pain after not having an ibuprofen for10 hours (missed one pill at dinner) makes me realize that I don't really have any pain in the knee. Which is very good as far as I see it.

Day 1

So the first day after the surgery went really well for the first part. I was feeling really good and had no reactions to the anesthesia and had no real pain that required the hard core pain meds. Was able to go run some errands with my Dad, and was able to get around very easily on the crutches.

The only bad part happened when I went to sleep. I think towards the evening I started to have a little bit of a fever, which apparently isn't uncommon after having ACL surgery. Apparently it's only a problem if it's above 101-103 and I didn't feel that hot. All the achyness from the fever is now gone which is great, because that's not a fun feeling at all!

So now I'm on Day 2 and I've changed the cpm to 70 degrees!

Day 0

So the surgery went really really well, I honestly couldn't have imagined that it would go so well. The nurses were really kind and had their stuff together. I got into the surgery center just before 6 am, filled out paper work and then got prepped for surgery. One of the nurses got the iv set and then lots of visits by the other nurses, doctors, and the anesthesiologist. Every one made sure to ask me what knee they were operating on. I initialed my knee to make sure they did the right one. :-)

Then they whisked me off to the surgery room and then after making some jokes about basketball injuries, I was out.

The next thing that I knew I came to and they had my knee in the cpm and were wheeling me out of the surgery area. The first thought that came to me was that I had just woken up after a wonderful fun night downtown! I guess I was dreaming that I was downtown while they were probing and drilling around in my knee! :-)

Then after my Dad and I got instructions on how to use the cpm, ice cooler, and the perscriptions and exercises to do, I was dishcharged! Was about 10:30 when they dishcharged me! So fast!

I was very alert, and remembered everything after the surgery. No nausea, other than when I used the computer.

Since there were no nerve blocks I was able to move my leg when I came to, and had it being moved in the cpm. Having the cpm (something like this) and an ice water circulating pump have been godsends. I had the cpm set to 60 degrees for the first day, and then I increase the angle by 5 degrees every day. I'm also starting knee exercises right away on day 1! It's good to be starting on the rehab right away with no requirement for down time!

Background:
I tore my ACL while playing basketball about 3 years ago now. I thought that I would be okay not having surgery on it if I didn't play basketball any more and just stuck to sports that didn't require having an ACL (running, biking, etc.). But then I had it give out 2x in the last year. Once while playing capture the flag. I forgot that I didn't have an ACL in my left leg when I cut side to side with the flag in the final play of the tie-breaking game... then I had it give out again when I jumped off a ledge about 2' off the ground. This was something that shouldn't have given out with just a missing ACL in my mind, so it seemed that with the recent giving out of the knee that I was doing things that required an ACL and the knee wasn't holding up well to having these injuries. So I had some partial meniscus damage and tares that were due to the 3 times that the knee joint had impacted the meniscus. So with that I realized that if I wanted to run again (because of the meniscus damage) I needed to have ACL surgery! So here I am!

Well that's about all for this post. Others should be a little shorter than this one I would expect. But wanted to get all the details of the surgery posted. If anyone wants to know more details of how things went for me, feel free to ask me in the comments!

The Journey Begins!

The idea behind starting a blog on this is to provide people who are going to be having ACL surgery in the future with some information on my personal experience of having ACL surgery. This is not meant to be a medical journal of correct absolute facts, but rather my experience. I am also doing this to have a regular thing that I write about that I can look back on for how I have progressed and to motivate myself as I go through physio therapy! I am also doing this so that people who care about me and care to read this can be updated on my progress! :-)

I'm going to keep this post short since I need to get to bed "early" since I need to be up at 5 so I can make it to the doctors at 5:45 AM!

Feeling excited and nervous, and happy to be getting my knee fixed! Just focusing on staying calm and thinking positive thoughts. Very touched by all the people who called me or messaged to wish me good luck.

Next post I'll give some background on why I'm getting surgery and how I feel after surgery! So it all begins!