I'll be live-blogging today's orthroscopic knee surgery, so watch this space for updates. Unless they let me and my iphone into the OR, there might not be a whole lot to report, but we'll see....
9:15: Riley's at preschool and we don't have to be at the surgical center until noon, so we'll be hanging out here at home for the morning. Karen's making cranberry relish for Saturday's Moms group Thanksgiving dinner (can be made up to a week ahead of time and prob won't feel much like working in the kitchen for the next couple days), and I'm just chilling and redding up a bit (that means tidying up to any non-Pittsburghese speakers out there).
9:20: As I'm typing the above post, we get a call from the surgical center that the appointment's been moved up an hour.
11:18: At the surgical center. They just took Karen back to get things started. Once she's all set, they say I can go back and wait with her until they can start the big show.
12:25: Ok, she's off to the OR. The anesthesiologist was delayed by a previous procedure, so there was about a 30 minute delay after Karen was all ready to go.
I'm off to lunch and to pick up her crutches, which I left at work (grrr).
2pm: Surgery's all done. Just talked with Dr Rollins. Everything went fine. Her ACL was completely torn, but the replacement for that went fine. The miniscus is better than expected, hardly any damage at all, but the PCL (Posterior crutiate ligament) has a partial tear. However, like the MCL, that just requires time to heal.
Dr says the prognosis is excellent. Yea!!!!
3:30: The nurse is getting Karen ready to go home. I've been directed to go wait with the car.
4:30: Home and resting comfortably-ish on the couch. A bottle vitamin V at the ready.
This concludes our programming day. Thanks for watching. ;-)
Thursday, November 19, 2009
Thursday, November 12, 2009
The knee, cont'd
Saw the ortho again on Monday to discuss the right knee MRI (which was a story in itself, see below). Results are: Torn ACL, grade III sprain of the MCL, and torn meniscus. Surgery is scheduled for a week from today (Nov 19th).
Also this week, had an MRI of the left knee (also causing a bit of pain). That MRI shows a grade I sprain of the MCL, but that just requires rest.
As for the other injuries, the ribs and back are still nagging, but not as bad as the knee. The ribs make it hard to sleep on her side, and once in a while a cough, sneeze, etc is an adventure. As Karen says: Sneezing is not as fun as it used to be.
Now about that right knee MRI: she also had some xrays that were suppossed to taken prior to the MRI that day. After waiting for an hour, she went up to the desk and asked what the hold up was. "oh, the xray is down, sorry". Great. Thanks for telling us. So then into the MRI. Now, one side effect of the injury is that she can't straighten her right knee without significant pain. So what do they do for the MRI? Force her leg straight and wedge it in place! 30 minutes of this. So when the MRI is over she says to the tech through clenched teeth: "Release my leg, please"
"What?"
"Release my leg?"
"Huh?"
"RELEASE MY LEG!!!!!"
Fortunately, the left MRI was much easier.
Somewhat off topic: did anyone out there send a package to our house in San Jose while we were in Maui? We have a note from the mailman that he left a package at the front door, but no one that was taking care of our house saw anything. We're afraid it might have been swiped off our front porch.
Also this week, had an MRI of the left knee (also causing a bit of pain). That MRI shows a grade I sprain of the MCL, but that just requires rest.
As for the other injuries, the ribs and back are still nagging, but not as bad as the knee. The ribs make it hard to sleep on her side, and once in a while a cough, sneeze, etc is an adventure. As Karen says: Sneezing is not as fun as it used to be.
Now about that right knee MRI: she also had some xrays that were suppossed to taken prior to the MRI that day. After waiting for an hour, she went up to the desk and asked what the hold up was. "oh, the xray is down, sorry". Great. Thanks for telling us. So then into the MRI. Now, one side effect of the injury is that she can't straighten her right knee without significant pain. So what do they do for the MRI? Force her leg straight and wedge it in place! 30 minutes of this. So when the MRI is over she says to the tech through clenched teeth: "Release my leg, please"
"What?"
"Release my leg?"
"Huh?"
"RELEASE MY LEG!!!!!"
Fortunately, the left MRI was much easier.
Somewhat off topic: did anyone out there send a package to our house in San Jose while we were in Maui? We have a note from the mailman that he left a package at the front door, but no one that was taking care of our house saw anything. We're afraid it might have been swiped off our front porch.
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
The knee
Saw the orthopedist on Monday. Preliminary diagnosis is torn ACL and a miniscus tear. An MRI is scheduled for Thursday to confirm. Surgery will be required for repairs, date TBD.
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