Well, I had the surgery on April 24th.
See
my original post about my injury, if you like.
Doc says it was pretty bad. When I awakened, my leg below my knee was almost completely numb. It was from how long the tournaquet was on my leg due to the length of the surgery. I could only move my foot from full extension to full flexion. I had no feeling or finer control of it. Any contact with my leg felt either like pins & needles or like a vice grip. Luckily this was fading after 3-4 days and is now mostly back to normal.
The first 5 days post-op were the worst days I've ever experienced. Any, and I mean any, bump was pain. My wife had to drive 5mph on the way home from the hospital just to limit the pain (and I was o n two regular Vicodin). After I got home, I was taking two Vicodin ES (1.5x as strong as regular Vicodin) and it still hurt when the bed was bumped. It was the 5th day after surgery before I even got out of bed. Since then, it has steadily improved. PT is tough, even excruciating.
The ACL was replaced with the patellar tendon. See
http://www.arthroscopy.com/sp05025.htm for a how it's done. The MCL is being left to heal naturally. The Doc trimmed up the carlidge in two places. In one are, it was simply gone, not enough left to fix. The only good thing about this one is that it appeared like it may have been old damage and that I had been living with it like that for almost 20 years (from a previous non-surgical injury).
The doctor expects that I will be walking without crutches or a brace by the middle of June. I'm hopeful that I can beat that date. Release to full activity is expected be around October.
Looks like I'll be ready just in time for next season.
I actually helped ref a very easy game this past Saturday from an elevated seat at midcourt. It was a girls game of mixed ages (12-17, but mostly 13-14) and mostly inexperienced. It's certainly not the desireable view, but for this game, it worked good enough.
The suspected cause of the injury: a wet spot on the floor in a pickup game.
The moral: when players go down, ensure that the floor is still safe.
[Edited by Camron Rust on May 12th, 2003 at 03:58 PM]