Well, its been a long 2 months or so since i went for my bone isotope scan, and i am happy to say it is now only 1 week til i get my op on my knee.
All things going well, i should have already had my op by this time next week!
To say that i'm looking forward to having the arthroscopy may be a bit strange, but i am certainly looking forward to putting all this behind me as soon as possible.
I have a lot of faith that after this op i will start to finally return to a somewhat normal life again.
There have been moments over the last 2 months where i have been in a lot of pain, and even phoned the hospital mid January, to see if there wasn't a chance i could get a place sooner if a place opened up?
I can see that over the last year my knee has slowly degraded to the point i am now, where even taking it from a bent relaxed position over the edge of the bed, to a straight out position, is painful, and a lot of clicking and grating can be heard under the kneecap.
Sleeping has been a bit of a battle for the first 6 weeks or so since the scan. As i am drifting off to sleep the muscles in my quad seem to have a nervous tic and contract, pulling my knee tight and causing a lot of discomfort. This would happen regularly during the night, making sleeping thru impossible.
Luckily as i have strengthened my quad muscle, that seems to have stopped, for the most part anyway.
Although i have been doing a fair bit of strengthening exercises, my quad still remains at around 15-20% of normal strength. This is not great, but at least i have managed to get some strength back into it.
Straight leg raises don't present such a problem anymore, and i can relatively easily do 5 sets of 20.
My op is on the 5th, but i will be admitted on Monday next week, the 4th.
I'll need to get my file and go up and see the ortho specialist, who will admit me to my ward, and i suppose, give me some advice on what the procedure will be and what to expect afterwards.
I have done a fair bit of research on the op though, so i have a good idea of what is to be expected.
I even found a pretty cool video on the net that explains the entire pre, during, and post op procedure...
Knee Arthroscopy Procedure
My brother has also had 2 arthroscopic knee surgeries to repair a torn meniscus, which i know that i have too, so i have spoken at length about it to him.
I dont think anyone can say for sure that they are enjoying going into hospital, but like i said, this is a necessary op, and i know it will certainly help me on the way to walking again.
All thats left now is to mentally prepare myself for surgery, and next time you hear from me will be post op!
"Break a leg"
8)
