Going Under the Knife, Feb 3, 2012 The trip no one wants to go on.

I've been lurking lately since I can't ski.  I thought I'd write a TR on knee surgery, the trip no one wants to go on.
A brief bio:  
1) Skied since I was a little kid.
2) Hurt my knee over jumping the landing zone at a gelende constest at Big Tupper in the mid 1970's.  (Delamed my beloved Rossi Strato 102's also).
3) Had minor knee issues since then, locking, popping, etc. but still managed 40 to 100+ days a season.  (closer to 40-50 the last 15 or so). An old Dr. told me do nothing until it interferes with what I do. (cycling, skiing and hiking).
4) I squated down in Sept. 2011 and felt a pop along with minor pain, but no swelling.  It started catching and locking a bit more after that.  Xrays and MRI showed nothing except some arthritis and a small bakers cyst in the back of my knee. The Dr. did say that Xrays and MRIs don't always show everything
5) Since then the popping, catching, locking, etc. has gotten worse and every now and then when I move just wrong a quick sharp stab of pain almost like an electric shock behind my knee cap.  The Dr. gave me a shot of cortisone and said we'll take a look in my knee in the spring.
6) I went to Utah in mid January and strained my hamstring to the point I needed PT (the skiing sucked in Utah at that time).  
7) At that point besides the hamstring the catching, locking, etc. had gotten even worse.  We have a trek in Peru planned on the Inca trail to Macchu Pichu in mid April, and I was getting very concerned about my ability to hike for 4 days over 14,000 ft passes.  So I said to my friend who is also my Dr., why wait until spring, let's see what's up in there.

So, I'm going in for diagnostic orthroscopy tomorrow, Feb. 3.  I'm hoping they find something minor to fix.  If they find nothing, 4-6 weeks and I'll be back where I am today.  If they find something like a meniscus tear to fix, it will be more like 6-8 weeks recovery.  

So, I'm going kinda nuts.  I don't sit around well and don't watch TV.  I usually ski 2-4 times a week, along with working a full time job.  I'm on the patrol at Gore, organize a recreational tele night at West Mtn on Wed. evenings, and ski Hickory and MRG when there is snow.  I've never been home on 2 consecutive weekend days in the winter in probably 25 years.  So the trip begins.

I'll be taking the same trip soon...good luck!!!

Patience  guys , your HEALTH is way more important than making turns . @.5 yrs ago i had a heart attack , silent , np real pain and had been in great physical condition with all the RIGHT metrics ( BP, Cholesterol ,weight , active life style , low fat  hi fibre diet) WHEN YOU FACE MORTALITY u get a much different perspective.

I had a epiphany of attitude and take each day at a time -- treat this as an adventure rather than a drudgery , vigorously go after PT/rehab and most of all PUT things into PERSPECTIVE . You'll be amazed at the results !

damn can't type for crap  !!!!!!!!! that happened 2 and half yrs ago - now fully recovered and doing all the same stuff  i could beforehand

You bring up a good point, Warp.

Big deal, I can't ski for the rest of this winter. When I look around and see what others are going thru in their lives I'll take a banged up knee. Perspective is an amazing thingE.

Good luck Kman! My dad's played hockey all his life..orthosurgery on both sholders and both knees (one knee and one sholder twice) and yes, he's still playing hockey..i can already hear my mom saying "i told you so!" with another surgery not too far in the future..haha

Good luck man.  Hope he can fixer up.

campgottagopee wrote

Perspective is an amazing thingE.

+10000

Face4Me wrote

campgottagopee wrote

Perspective is an amazing thingE.

+10000

truth

Good luck, hope it goes well!

You will be back K-Man!

Be Well!!

still going to mad for the tele fest? the way conditions are the party may be better than the skiing. get well kman miss you up on the hill such as it is

Best wishes for a speedy recovery K-Man.  If it's any consolation, you picked a good winter for an injury!  You'll be healed in plenty of time for mountain biking season.

Kman best of luck to you in your recovery.

Can't wait to see the pics of you and M hiking in Machu Picchu.

Good luck!

Good luck, reconstructed ACL here. Though it'll never be the same, It doesn't keep me from doing whatever I want to. I worry about how it'll be down the road, but for the last 17yrs, it's been good. You should be good to go next season.

In a perverted way, I was looking forward to my surgery. The only other one I've had is a circumcision. I did't remember anything. I awoke to them hanging out at a desk in the O.R.. When I went to rehab, there was a twenty year old there who had the same operation. He wanted to know if I watched the procedure on a monitor while it was being performed. I said hell no, I wanted to be under while it was going on. I saw it on a medical channel on tv that used to be on. That was enough for me, guess I'm a wuss.

Cornhead wrote

Good luck, reconstructed ACL here. Though it'll never be the same, It doesn't keep me from doing whatever I want to. I worry about how it'll be down the road, but for the last 17yrs, it's been good. You should be good to go next season.

In a perverted way, I was looking forward to my surgery. The only other one I've had is a circumcision. I did't remember anything. I awoke to them hanging out at a desk in the O.R.. When I went to rehab, there was a twenty year old there who had the same operation. He wanted to know if I watched the procedure on a monitor while it was being performed. I said hell no, I wanted to be under while it was going on. I saw it on a medical channel on tv that used to be on. That was enough for me, guess I'm a wuss.

Same here CH. NO surgery and the waiting game is friggin driving me nuts!!!

My wife had knee surgery (3 all together) this past summer and watched the whole thing...THERE IS NO WAY I WILL DO THAT!!! Like you, I'm a wuss too. My wife is not---she's tough, tough like a week old bagel tough.

K-Man, give us updates as soon as you can.  cheers for a speedy recovery.

ps Harv we need a better beer smilie and a rockwoot smilie please

you picked the best season to have surgery in the last 10+

relax and do your PT post op.  work hard but don't push it to pain

Surgery went well.  Checked in at 12:45 p.m. on Friday and woke up from the best sleep of my life about 4 pm.  They found and removed a flap, but I'll know more in a week.  I was coming out of the anesthesia when they told me the details, so it's a bit foggy.
 
No crutches.  They wanted me on it, weight bearing and moving it as much as possible.  The Dr. said let pain determine your level of movement.  Well, Friday evening there was no pain, so Hickorymartha and I went to an open house in Glens Falls for a commercial building friend had bought and restored to it's former glory.  Halfway through my first IPA i decided it was time to go.  So basically except for an extremely stiff leg, I had very little pain Friday night and into Saturday.  I gimped around, worked on bikes, mounted a pair of skis for HickoryMartha and headed off to a bonfire party Sat. night.  Then the pain hit.  I guess my knee or mind was still numb until then.  It was that deep broken bone type pain, that aches and throbs.  A case where the cure is worse than the disease (temporarily).  I finally broke down and popped some pain pills.  I wondered why they'd given me 50 of them.  They didn't do a whole lot for the pain, but at least I was happy.

HickoryMartha wanted to get a few runs in on Sunday, so I went to Gore and rode the Gondi up, was an unoffical greeter at the top, checked in with my patrol buddies, took a ride back down and checked out the ADK chairs on the deck.  

They gave me leg excercises to do to avoid atrophy of my thigh muscle, which I have done religiously.  They also said to get on my bike (on a trainer) and start moving my leg back and forth at the bottom of the pedal stroke.  Goal is to make a full pedal stroke in 1 week.  So by Monday evening I was on the bike working it.  

I'm working from home today, because I haven't tried driving yet, but plan to hit the road today for a test drive.  I can't work from home much so need to get mobile.  I have my follow up on Monday Feb. 13 to get the stiches out, then start PT.  Prognosis is that I could be on skis by Mid-March, definately will be ready for our April trek in Peru and I joined the Davidson Drafters Cycling Team again.

 

Glad to hear that things went well -- hang tuff  , work the PT and u'll b back good as new