Knee Saga - Part Two

These were the 'good' years *sigh* This will be from summer of 2001 until the fall of 2004.

This continues basically exactly where part one left off.  I was doing physio during the summer and mentioning how frustrated I was getting and one of the physiotherapists suggested I contact this clinic that was in the teaching hospital about an hour away from here (from here on out it will be mentioned as the 3FK).  This place will see you even without a doctor's referal.  It is a teaching hospital so generaly you go and see the bottom run of doctors, they asses you and then determine if you area a surgical cause or if things can be done and sent to the next level of doctors.  Finally, you get to the orthapedic surgeon (OS) to discuss your problems.  This first time through I saw the first level doctor and got sent straight up to the leading surgeon of 3FK (the place is named by him, he brought the scope to Canada), instead of having going through the second phase, I just went straight to the head surgeon.

I believe it wasn't until around November that I saw Dr F for the first time.  He did a very in depth physical and kept pointing things out to the student in the room.  I was wearing a sweatshirt from the University I attended and it just so happened that the clinic was on the campus of our rival University.  He was always making jokes about that, like that I seemed so smart, why did  I go to 'my university'.  He would always have to check my chart to see my history but could always remember the school I went to. During the first visit we even found out that the doctor who did my dad's neck fusions actually trained under Dr. F so that really put us all at ease.  He did the physical, ordered xrays (they have an xray clinic right there to do them) and declared that a Lateral Release was the absolute worse thing that could have been done as it made my knee more unstable both medially and laterally instead of just laterally like it was before surgery.  He definitly wanted to do surgery but he wasn't sure what he would be doing until he got in and saw the knee so he booked surgery for the spring and we would have a consultation shortly after that.

I had the first surgery on March 22nd, 2002.  Dr Fowler was great, and the hospital was much nicer and more compassionate than our local one.  My parents were allowed to stay with me up until 30 minutes before the operation.  They let us stay just outside the pre-op room until I had to be taken in and prepared for it.  I will always remember that for this operation I had to go to the bathroom constantly!  The nurses were even joking about it with me.  Everything went according to plan and we found out later that just a basic scope with some debridment was done.  When I was coming round I was shocked as they allowed family into the post-op area to be there while you were waking up. As it was just a basic surgery there wasn't much to do post-op as I already had crutches, was shown proper crutch use pre-op (they had physiotherapy students come to patients pre-op to discuss the use of crutches) and was not wearing any type of brace, just had a few steri-strips covering the 2 small holes that were made.  There was to be no discharge instructions as the gave me a few painkillers in case I needed them ( I didn't after the first night) and I didn't have to go to physiotherapy for anything.  I was drugged up really well and sent on my way 'home'.  I was living at my aunt's house while going to University so my mom and dad came for the weekend and then dad had to go home to work but mom stayed with me for the following week to get me too and from school and just help me out as my aunt was away on vacation that week.

We had the follow-up appointment that was very short and simple.  He could dislocate my right knee both laterally and medially with just his pinkie applying minimal pressure.  What surprised him was that he could also dislocate my LEFT knee medially and laterally with just slightly more pressure.  I told him that Dr. S wanted to do both knees at once and he just gave me a look and told me it was good that I didn't and that he had never heard of an OS doing fairly major surgery on both knees at the same time unless absolutly necessary!  He told us that another surgery was necessary and although it would help, it would only get my back to the place I was before all the operations were done.  At that point that sounded great to me.  So we scheduled another operation.  I gave him some 'suggestions' as to when it would be best to be done (IE after the first of may and with enough time left of summer that I could recover) so I wouldn't hvae to miss out on any school which he was more than fine with and agreed.  We got a call shortly after stating that my surgery date would be June 13th.

We get there on the 13th pretty confident as we already knew all the procedures with this hospital. One thing that I remember the most is that we were done in a room in the basement waiting for staff to show up (they did mine first in the morning as they knew we were traveling) and the phone rang so dad picked it up and gave the person on the other end instructions on how to get there!!  Mom and I were just mortified!  Just after he hung up a nurse came in and all three of us just started laughing.  Anyways, they get me set up in the pre-op area, had the pysiotherapist come down to go over crutches and the braces I would have.  The nurses recognized me from last time and one came over to apologize!  Apparently the last time I had to go to the bathroom so much was becasue they had the IV full open instead of dripping!  They realized it after everything had been disconnected.  Again nothing big happened, my parents were allowed to stay in the pre-op room then I was taken in.  I find out later that my parents had gone down to the cafeteria to get some coffee (they didn't drink anything in front of me because it didn't seem fair) and ran in to Dr. F getting some breakfast!  Dad and Dr. F got along really well so they exchanged a few jokes then dad told him to get going so we could go home soon lol. 

I woke up in the post-op area and Dr. F was there talking to another patient.  He came over to me and asked how I was doing and I said that it hurt.  I will never forget this!  His reply?  "It will stop hurting when the pain goes away".  Said all seriously and I took it seriously and thought it made sense, until the drugs left my system lol.  This surgery was a lot different than the last and we had a lot more to discuss in the post-op area before we could go home.  I found out that he performed a Lateral Repair, which basically just undid the Lateral Release that was done previously.  I was in an immobolizer (that looked something like that picture) completely with blood stains on it as it is put on right after surgery, still in the operating room.  I was given a perscription for pain medications, follow-up appointment dates and they talked a lot to my parents.  I was in a great deal of pain so they loaded me up with pain killers and let us go home.  It was an hour drive home and I honestly don't even remember how we got home. I know we took the van so I could stretch out but I was basically gone.  We got home and my parents had rearranged things so that our pull-out couch was brought upstairs for me to sleep on (I have a waterbed and was in the basemenet, my parents wanted me closer) so I crawled into the bed and fell asleep.

The next day was pure hell!!  My parents were giving me pain killers every 4 hours, took turns sleeping on the recliner in the living room with me and kept ice on it.  About a week later I was getting really itchy and just 'yucky' with the immoblizer and was supposed to go back to the city (an hour away) just to get the stitches cut!  My dad called and talked with the receptionist first and asked if he could do the stitches himself.  She didn't know about that so had Dr. F call dad back later.  Dad explained that he had taken many first aid and first responder courses through his job and that he felt confident just snipping the stitches and that I was okay with letting him do so.  Dr. F agreed that it was silly to drive an hour to have something so simple done and gave dad the go ahead to take the immobolizer off, clean the skin and do the stitches.  Dad took me in the back in the sun (I hadn't been outside since the surgery) and very carefully cut the stiches so they could work their way out, cleaned all the iodine off my skin (the reason it was done outside is that he cleaned it with rubbing alcohol, the pure stuff, not the stuff in drugstores!) and just let my leg get some air.

We went back to the clinic to get it looked at and I was then allowed to move into my post-op brace. I was to keep it at around 30 degrees for 4 weeks and then move to 90 degrees for 4 weeks then I could be out of it.  Well ROM was never a problem.  As soon as I got the brace allowing for 30 degrees, I was bending my leg 30 degress, same with the 90.  I was given the option at the end of an extra two weeks in the brace without crutches, or two weeks without the brace with crutches.  I took the crutches!! The brace was very uncomfortable and kept slipping down my leg making it even worse.  Eventually everthing healed up pretty good and we were all very happy with the results.  I was back at school in September with no crutches and could get around as well as everyone else.  I did have to stay in physio for a good long time but it wasn't too bad.

Well my knee didn't like being 'good'.  Around the fall of 2003 I developed both Tendonitis and Bursitits in my right knee.  I did physio, wore a knee strap and tried everything.  Went back to Dr. F and he did a cortisone shot in the tendon and that helped a bit but I did have a small reaction to it.  Eventually it was decided that I would need a fourth operation, a bursectomy.  It was a very uncommon procedure, there was no guarantee that it would work but it was something he thought might help which was all I needed to hear.  However, life got in the way...