My Poor Knee

So it has been quite a few weeks since I last blogged and I swear I have a good excuse! On April 27th I had knee surgery to repair my ACL and some meniscus tearing. For people who don't know what your ACL is it is your Anterior Cruciate Ligament and is the main support structure of the knee that prevents rotation of the femur bone to the tibia bone. Meniscus is cartilage around your knee that keeps your bones from grinding against each other and when I tore my ACL I also tore up the meniscus and had to have that fixed too.

The story begins when I was about 5 weeks pregnant with Mckenna and I was playing volleyball. I was coming down from a hit and my foot turned wrong and out went my knee with a pop. I knew what I had done since this was the second time it has happened to this knee. I got an appointment to see my doctor and he looked me over and said that there wasn't much he could do since I was pregnant and we would have to wait until after she was born to have an MRI. That way he could see all the damage that was done. So now it was just the waiting game. Lucky for me I could walk just fine and the only trouble I had was that my knee would lock up on me if I bent it wrong. Not a fun moment trying to unlock it but some how I made it through the nine months and then some until I had my MRI. Once the decision was made to have surgery I then wanted to wait a little longer until Mckenna was old enough to do some things on her own.

So to make a long story short I had surgery and came home with Keith who took a week off from work to take care of me and the kids. Surgery went really well and the only problem I had is the same problem I have every time after surgery, that I get really sick from being under anesthesia and from all the medication. The best part was I was able to walk out the door with my new best friend (my brace) on and no crutches. I haven't had to use the crutches at all and I am very happy about that. I am now coming up on week 4 since surgery and with going to physical therapy and doing exercises at home I have been able to get my knee bent to 133 degrees. Only about 17 more degrees to go!

I have to give Eli props because he took the picture of me with my brace on and I think he did a very good job. I call it my best friend because I can't walk without it. I also have to have it locked at straight and so I also call myself a pirate because I walk around with a peg leg. (= This other picture shows the swelling of my left leg and the atrophy that I am getting. Even with all the exercises I am doing when you don't walk on it and use it regularly it just happens.

These other pictures were taken the first week after surgery. The machine Mckenna is on is called a CPM machine and all I had to do was lay my leg in it and it would move up and down and bend my knee for me. Mckenna loved to climb into it when I wasn't using it. The next picture is of me getting my knee iced. I was told I would cry when they took that away from me and I almost did. It was so nice all you had to do was fill one part of it up with ice and water and then wrap the other half around my knee and it would keep it really cold and put just enough pressure on my knee to keep the swelling down. I wish I would have had this stuff the first time around.