2 Days with My Sister

August 4, 2009

2 Days with My Sister

My sister’s family is in town so I get to spend 2 whole days with them. Yesterday, we watched old episodes of Gilmore Girls, various cartoons from Nickelodeon, and this morning we are working on … “Knocked Up.” I took another shower yesterday, albeit short, but it still felt so nice to be fresh & clean.

I’ve subscribed to The ACL Repair Blog and this morning read an inspiring post from Katherine who is just 12-days post-op and yet is doing so much already, including yoga. I have to copy and paste it here because it’s so inspiring:

From Katherine’s Blog

I’m 12 days post surgery with allograft! Thank you to all of those who talked me into the allograft! This has been a piece of cake. I went back to work on day 4. Quit using crutches on day 4, quit taking pain meds as of day 4, and have resumed yoga as of day 11. I am walking up stairs using ‘bad’ leg first for strength exercise, and am working on gently being able to cross my legs indian style again. I have been going to therapy only one time each week and they are telling me to ‘hold back’ and not stretch out graft. So, I am trying to be very careful not to push it. I am one degree off in extension from my left leg and have regained 140 degrees flexion – which is all my flexion and am able grab my heel and pull it to my buttock like my left leg.

I still have some pain, weakness and swelling, but all is going well. I got my sports brace and am wearing that now to work, and out gardening and such.

I guarantee all of you I will have all my extension back by next Monday, and will continue to stay off the horse and not trip over my dog!

My sis (the Yogi Master pictured above :)) and friend said they think I’m too afraid to do things, that I can probably do more than I think I can. So maybe today’s new mission is … to do something I normally do and not sit in my camping sofa station all day. I’ll keep you posted on that! After all, I have my first PT session scheduled for tomorrow. Guess I’m just not sure what it is I’m supposed to do and not supposed to do. The doctor’s post-op instructions didn’t get into the details.

PS – This picture is my inspiration. I can’t wait until I can do Yoga with my sis again!

Recovery

Posted by:

Sarahdippity

6 responses to “2 Days with My Sister”

cynthia

August 4, 2009 at 11:42 pm

Hey there: Came across your blog. I’m also recovering from ACL reconstruction. Thought you might be interested in this site, which I have found to be enormously useful:

http://www.kneeguru.co.uk/KNEEtalk/index.php?board=17.0

Good luck to you! Cynthia

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Sarahdippity

August 5, 2009 at 2:08 am

Thanks Cynthia! I’m checking it out soon as I’m done typing these lines to you! Thanks for your comment! How did your surgery go and how are you doing?!

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cynthia

August 5, 2009 at 3:41 am

Funny. I just saw that you posted there! Everything has gone surprisingly smoothly with my surgery and recovery so far…just slow! I had my surgery just about 10 weeks ago and was on crutches for a very long time (conservative surgeon), so I feel sort of far behind rehab-wise. But, I’m getting out and about these days, go to the gym to do physical therapy every day, and am just working really hard at it. I just have to be careful not to overdo it (too much time on my feet), or else I still have a lot of discomfort.

I’d say that you’re in the toughest part right now. By about day 10, things start getting easier…pain goes way down, you start getting much more mobile, less fatigued. I don’t know about you, but I napped like mad for the first couple days…Cynthia

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Katherine

August 7, 2009 at 2:06 pm

Hi Sarah,
I don’t know the answer to your question, really. One thing is, I believe I have a very high pain threshold. I’m one of those people that when I say it ‘hurts’ – it REALLY hurts. Secondly, I have endomorphic construction. That is, my joints are open and loose and I have a lot of hyperextension in my all my joints. I have a sister who is very petite and has tiny, tight joints. She blew her ACL and had just an orthroscope done – and you would have thought someone had hacked her knee with an axe! She’d scream if you just touched her calf. I don’t know if that has anything to do with it or not.
Thirdly, I have a philosophy about pain that goes like this. “It hurts, so what. It’s not going to kill me.” (Although, believe me – I have been in severe pain for long enough that I WISHED I would just croak!) But not from my knee.
Anyway, here is my routine: 6:30 am. Up, stretching in bed. Put my feet on wall, while lying on back and ‘walk’ my feet down wall until my heels are sitting on my buttocks. This is a very passive exercise and really works. Then, I do straight leg lifts with my good knee pushed to my chest. Then, I do the heel slides. Now, for the sucky part – I do hyperextension stretching. I hang my legs off the edge of the bed from mid-thigh down while lying on my stomach for 5 minutes. Then, I ice with cryo cuff and eat my breakfast. While putting on makeup and fixing hair – I use the TENS machine while seated. I cannot walk w/ TENS unit on. Then, I drive to work. At work, I keep my leg elevated most of the day. I ice for 20 minutes or so – at least every couple of hours. I stretch as much as possible. I do straight leg raises and hyper-extension hangs off conference table. (My boss LOVES that.) If I’ve been sitting for a while, I stretch as much as possible before getting up to walk. I also use TENS unit for 10 minutes after doing my mid-day hanging extensions. With lunch, I take one 325 mg aspirin for blood clots, etc. I also take a glucosamine/MSM/Hyluronic acid supplement with lunch and the aspirin. Although, my doctor had me discontinue that for two weeks prior to surgery and 1 week after surgery. TENS is Transcutaneous Electric Nerve stimulation. I learned about these with my left leg 1990 ACL graft, which is a patella graft. I personally get a lot of benefit from them. They don’t do anything for some people. For me, accupuncture is worthless. For my brother, it really helps.
After work, I do leg raises, wall walking, and bed extensions again. Ice for 20 minutes and TENS for 10 minutes. Then, I do a modified yoga routine. Whatever I can do to stretch and relax and keep the rest of my muscles moving. Then, I do some weight lifting, but not with my legs. Then, I usually garden.

After dinner, I take two aleve and prior to going to sleep, I do exercises again, then a shower, then ice and tens. When I’m doing yard work, I take one crutch with me to help with the little hillocks and uneven ground. I also have been carrying a step stool that I sit down on while pulling weeds, etc. The floor and ground have just gotten reallly far away. Once I get down there – I have trouble getting back up. Being 40 is so not funny sometimes. Have you born your full weight on your leg? I find that half weight doesn’t hurt any more than full weight. I wouldn’t say I’m pain free – but it’s not AWFUL. I wasn’t taking any pain meds last week, but decided I sleep better if I take something. I did take percocet for the day of and 3 days after my surgery. But, I went back to work and if I take percocet – I’m sleeping. So, that had to stop.

Good luck and happy healing. By they way, from your photos of your sister, it looks like you have access to the beach. Avoid getting hit by a wave in the knee for at least 8 or 10 months, but walking in the wet sand and having that shifting sand/water combo under you feet is great therapy for the knee – when you are ready. Just make sure, if you do get in the water, that you have your good knee turned out toward the waves and keep you knees bent and soft if you’re going to get hit by a wave.

I had my first check up with the surgeon on Monday – which was day 11. I had come dressed for therapy in tshirt and shorts and had only a compression sock on my surgically repaired knee. Mostly, just so people didn’t have to look at it. My surgeon come in and looks at me and has his chin in his hand and says, “I don’t have a lot of patients walk in here w/o crutches 11 days after surgery. You’re walking heel to toe and rolling your ankle like a normal walking gait. It appears that you are doing very well. ?” Well, I know I was walking w/o crutches after 11 days in 1990. It was probably more like 7 or 8 days. But I did have a ‘foamy’ brace on that forced my knee to be rigid.

Another factor in my success is my surgeon. When I first had knee surgery in 1990 – I had therapy and I kept seeing all these women who were just HORRIBLE after ACL surgery. I put the surgery off from 1988 to 1990 because I felt I was in better shape than most of the women in PT without an acl. I was in college, and I met a scholarship basketball player at a party with ACL scars. I found out who her surgeon was. Then, I met a scholarship tennis player w/ acl scars – and got the same surgeon name. So, I went and got HIM! It turns out, he’s done the knees of international soccer players, Edgerrin James NFL football player and also NFL player, Marshal Faulk – among others. I learned w/ my orthroscopic surgery and all those girls in therapy that women’s knees are HARD to fix. The guys, it didn’t matter who their surgeon was, they’d be on the incline on the treadmill running 6 weeks after surgery. But, the girls, some of them couldn’t pedal a bike even A YEAR after surgery. Having someone who is really skilled at what they are doing and getting pushed in therapy are vital to women having a successful outcome with ACL grafts. The wrong doctor can make you worse off than you were.
This allograft is new territory though. When I got the patella graft, they told me in therapy, “You cannot hurt this while wearing a brace.” No one has told me that with the allograft.
Well, I’m rambling here. Just remember that pain is ok and to let it go – but twisting right now is NOT ok……so don’t do it.

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Sarahdippity

August 8, 2009 at 4:51 pm

Hi Katherine!

Thanks so much for this awesome post you sent. So many details. I’m going to have copy and paste it somewhere so I can “study” your methods, Katherine!

I’ve never heard of endomorphic until you mentioned it. Guess it’s a definite plus to have such movable joints, right?! I love that exercise of walking your feet down the wall until it sits on your buttock. Will try it tomorrow morning when I get up! As to hanging the leg off the bed and lifting it, I’m not there yet. I also have never heard of the TENS machine! I’m blown away at your repertoire!

And you garden! I want to garden again but haven’t tried it yet. Do you still need crutches to get around Katherine? Please keep me posted on how you’re doing! You are again my inspiration (along with my sisters, the Yogi Bear and the Mountain Biker). You’re all such amazing women! 🙂

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Katherine

August 10, 2009 at 9:52 am

Hi Sarah,
I haven’t been using crutches at all, except I do take one with me when I go out in the yard. Most of the time, it’s just on the ground, but my yard is old and lumpy, so I use it like a walking stick….just in case I get a little off balance. My garden is a disaster this year. I blew out my knee on May 28 and we had a late spring, so most plants didn’t get out until late May anyway. I had more trouble walking in the garden pre-op than post op. As my knee is stable now with the grafted ligament. My garden is also a disaster, because of the strange weather we are having. Everyone is having wierd stuff going on around here in their gardens. I have tomato plants that are normal size, and I have ones that are only a foot or so high. Usually have ripe tomatoes by the first week of July – just started getting them this past week.
I am not icing as much as I should, not keeping my leg elevated as much as I should, and not wearing my compression bandage the last few days. In spite of all this, my knee is somewhat taking the shape of a knee again. Albeit, one that has been chewed on by a dog – or so it appears.
The knee hanging exercise, you don’t lift your leg. You lie on your stomach with the legs above the knee hanging off the end of the bed or a table. This helps the knee get as fully extended as the other knee. You just ‘hang’ there for about 5 minutes (or as long as you can stand it) and work up to 10 minutes. Another great, passive exercise.
When I had my first knee surgery, I went to this rehab place 3 x a week called Rebound. I worked out there with an athletic trainer named Lindsey Hartshorn, who busted my chops and made me cry. Lindsey left Rebound and moved back to his home on New England and became a trainer for some professional hockey or basketball team…….I can’t remember. Anyway, he taught me to push myself in PT.
Just wait til your Physical Therapist introduces you to ‘The Fitter’. Ha Ha! That one was a sucky exercise even when I was 19! Go ahead, ask them about ‘The Fitter’. I have PT today and expect to have all my extension back. (It was harder this time. I had a ‘cyclops tear’, where the acl formed a big ball in the front of my knee and didn’t allow me to extend my leg fully prior to surgery.) I’m a couple of months away from ‘The Fitter’, though.
Well, gotta get back to work. Take care and happy healing!
Katherine

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About Me

I had ACL surgery in 2009 and started this blog to keep calm. :)

LOVE YOUR KNEES