Monday morning around 9am dr Cappaert and dr Arnold (the assisting surgeon) came into my room and Cappaert asked me if i wanted the good news or the bad news first...
"The good i suppose", was my answer.
He told me that the good news was that i had had the op and i didnt need to wait for that anymore!
This didnt bode well...
The bad news was that my knee was a bit of a mess to put it mildly!
I had significant cartilage damage to my kneecap where it glides over the femur.
I had an extremely lax anterior cruciate ligamennt, to the point that the dr thought that maybe it was completely torn.
And i had osteochondritis dissecans, a bone problem that can cause arthritis and osteoarthritis. Even if treated.
What the doc did was to scrape away all the rough bits of cartilage under the kneecap that were scraping on the femur, and try to create the natural groove for the kneecap to run in again. He told me that he hoped that new cartilage would form now that he had scraped away the diseased and dead cartilage and it would start to work in a normal fashion. Although this is hope. There is no certainty of this.
He told me that the cruciate ligament tear is a big op, and that he was not prepared to do any of the ops to fix me any further until i could get my quad muscle on my affected leg to the strength of my good leg!
He said this because any op that he did in the future, would need a recovery period, and that would weaken the quad through inactivity, and with a weak quad, any surgery he would do would be doomed to failure in the long run.
He also told me that i could thank dr Arnold very much, as he had fought my case to be operated on on the sunday, as the anaethetist did not want to do the op as it was not an emergency. This was policy.
But he won his argument and the op went ahead, making me officially the first and only elective surgery ever to be done in the George Provincial Hospital on a sunday!
So i thanked him, and asked where we go to next?
He said that i needed to go home and strengthen my leg muscles to the point that he was happy, so that further operations could be performed.
I was looking at 2, possibly 3 more operations, in order to get back to walking again.
Each op had a recovery period of around 6-10 weeks before the next could be performed, and the final op, the cruciate ligament reconstruction, has a recovery period of 6 months!
So, to cut a long story short, it looks as though i will be on crutches for at least another year, to year and a half!
Not exactly the news anyone would want to hear, but the facts remain...
I suppose i see it that at a worst case scenario, i am already more than half way to walking again from the start of this ordeal, 1.5 years ago, so every day from here on out is a day closer to walking!
I was booked in to see the physio the following day, but she was busy with other patients, so i only got to see her today (tuesday).
She has given me a complete set of physio exercises to be done 4 times a day, and 5 sets of each exercise. She has told me that if i am diligent and work hard, i may be strong enough for my next op in around 3 months time.
Its gonna be a lot of hard work to get me to that point, but i am up for the challenge!
I cant wait to get walking again, so i need to do this, and do it good!
So thats my lot really...i'll post pics of the exercises in my next update, and follow my progress as it happens throughout the rest of this adventure...
Peace & Positivity
Si
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