ACL surgery

On Wednesday May 4th (which I'm told was star wars day and had multiple people say "May the 4th be with you),  I finally went under the knife to repair this dang ACL tear of mine.  Not gonna lie, I may have teared up a few times that morning waiting to go in for surgery just thinking about how I was gonna be in pain and unable to walk when I woke up.  I didn't really want to go through that.  The anesthesiologist totally caught me in a crying fit when he came in to check on me before surgery.

Anesthesia is such an interesting thing.  It's so weird how you are talking and then the next thing you know the surgery is over and you are waking up and your leg hurts.  They replaced my ACL with a screwed in cadaver tendon and I had meniscal tears on both the medial and lateral meniscus that they performed meniscectomies on.

They gave me a femoral nerve block which blocked the pain for most of the first day which was nice.  And they gave me a scopolamine patch which was supposed to help with nausea upon wakening from surgery and nausea from pain pills.  I think it really helped. I was a little nauseous when I woke up but not bad and never ended up throwing up and haven't been nauseous at all since.

Now that the block has worn off, I do pretty good as long and I just sit still with my leg propped up.  But, any time I move it hurts and then throbs for a little while after.  I'm so sick of taking pain pills and feeling all doped up.  Hopefully the pain let up soon.

I had my first physical therapy appointment yesterday.  I had 8 weeks of physical therapy before my surgery and the aides were all anxiously anticipating my first appointment after surgery and seeing what I would be like all drugged on pain meds.  They were so sweet and presented me with a poem they had written for the occasion:

Chelsea it's too bad you fell
But now you have a new ACL
Who cares if your knee is tighter
Cause let's be real you handle them dinosaurs like a fighter (referring to the plastic dinosaur toy I slipped and killed my injured knee on a few days before)

This poem is harder than we assumed...
But we hope that it leaves you amused.
Because your pain is probably pretty bad
And that makes us sad.
But you've come to the right the place...
Matt will fix your knee like a plastic surgeon fixes a face!

The PT was very impressed with how well I was functioning 2 days after surgery.  I was able to do 3 sets of 15 leg lifts almost entirely on my own (he says usually he has to pretty much lift people's legs for them), I have almost full extension and 90 degrees of flexion.

I don't feel like I can do anything. I feel pretty worthless.  And it's not fun sleeping in this huge brace, but I guess I am going to have to for the next 4 weeks.

 Also, I'm not allowed to get my knee wet for 5 days which I think gives me a get out of jail free card in terms of showering for a while (but my hair is officially so greasy that I might have to try a sponge bath or something today).  I'm so glad my Mom was able to come out.  I don't know how I was going to survive with out her.  She has been cooking and cleaning and entertaining kids and helping me up to go to the bathroom whenever I need and refilling my water bottle.  She leaves Monday and I know at this point it would not be safe to leave the kids with me alone.  So, I'm a little terrified about how we'll manage, but there are lots of other people around who want to help.  I guess I will just have to let them.

The kids have been so cute.  Liv loves to bring me meals in bed and they all fight over who gets to snuggle next to me.  I have been able to do puzzles with them, and play games, and read books, or watch little shows with them.  And they have all been so good about staying away from my hurt knee.