The operation went fine as far as I can tell. The surgeon sounded pretty positive when I spoke to him after it anyway. Though ultimately I won't know for quite some time whether it's improved the state of my knee to the level what I'm hoping for. Right now however, it's time for the difficult part - rehab.
What they did
I was still pretty drowsy from the anaesthetic during the surgeon's explanation of how the operation had went, so I might have some of this wrong haha. They repaired the meniscus on the left side of my knee (not sure whether this means they removed part of it, or stitched part of it together, or both!). The thought of having less cartilage in my knee is a little disconcerting, as it basically acts as a shock absorber (which helps when jumping down from high walls).
My ACL is still intact, though is a bit rubbish. It doesn't tighten and restrict the movement of my knee until it has travelled a lot further than it should. Not quite sure what to make of that at the moment. I'm relieved that it's intact, but trying not worry that it's not fully doing it's job. Hopefully by building up quads like Chris Hoy, I can overcome that.
Then there's the issue on the right side of my knee, an "osteochondral defect of the lateral femoral condyle". Which the surgeon described as being like someone having taken a bad golf shot off the bottom of my femur, leaving a divot on the surface of the bone. Sounds horrible, and has probably given me more pain than the meniscal tear, though the surgeon seemed fairly positive about it. He said that he never actually done anything for it as it appears to be "healing" itself, and is filling in the divot with scar tissue.
So yeah, reading that back, my knee does sound a bit messed up. Though as I mentioned in my last post, if professional athletes in the Paralympics can play table tennis with no arms, or the high jump with one leg, then I can certainly return to amateur sport with a slightly gammy knee.
48hrs Later
For the first two days post-op, I couldn't really do much. Not because of the pain, which actually wasn't too bad at all (in hindsight, the painkillers might have had something to do with that!). Rather, I had a very thick dressing and bandage on my knee, which severely restricted any bending of my leg. So I basically had to force myself to rest and not do anything, something I struggle with.
So a long 48hrs later, I got to take the dressing off:
Removing the first dressing after it's been on for 48hrs is never much fun.
The first bandage came off fine, but then underneath there was a LOT of the cotton wool wrap (shown in the above photo). The congealed blood from the wounds has seeped through all the layers, meaning that every time I unwrapped a layer it would tug on the wound and the sutures. Not very pleasant to say the least.
I've not included any photos of the actual wounds, just in case anyone is overly squeamish. They didn't actually look too bad, just a couple small slits that kind of made my knee look like a smiley face.
Physio Time
This is my 3rd knee operation, so who knows how many times I've done the same 4 or 5 isometric knee exercises that are recommended after surgery:
After 3 knee operations and many injuries, it's fair to say I'm familiar with these exercises!
They are pretty boring exercises, but I've been attacking them hard over the past week. The physio suggested 3 times a day or until it's too sore, so I've been doing it 4 times and adding in sit ups or push ups haha.
The "do until sore" or "pain-permitting" advice I've always found strange. Surely this is completely subjective? What I find too painful, or what I am happy to tolerate, is completely different to another person. It's always hard to walk the line between being a wimp and not pushing hard enough, and ignoring the pain signals from your body and pushing too much. Part of me thinks the scar tissue build up after my first knee op was due to me not trying hard enough, so personally I always err on the side of doing too much.
End of the Week
So a solid first week of rehab after the operation, and I'm looking forward to progressing past the standard isometric exercises. My knee is still a bit swollen and sore a week later (as would be expected), but my walking is getting better, and the exercises are getting easier. Even started incorporating light ankle weights into the static leg raise, so progressing nicely.
I'll be doing pistol squats in no time ;)