Well, here we are yet again.
My right knee ACL has failed (again) and something has to be done about it. The past few months have been miserable because I can’t do any of the activities that make me who I am. Consequently, I have put on weight; which is not good… I love to blame the fact that I can’t actually exercise, but in reality; its likely overeating as a reaction to both stress and depression. That is something that I definitely will have to get a handle on.
I have an appointment with Dr. Brian Cole at Rush Orthopedics tomorrow mid-day, where I’m hoping that we get a plan of action for fixing this thing, so I can get back to what I love doing. On the “bright side”, it seems that the most common treatment is Revision ACL. Michelle shared with me some documents that describe the procedures (interestingly, one of the docs was written by Dr. Cole). There is a 10% chance that I’ll need to have a 2-stage ACLR.. that means, open the knee, pull out the screws; fill in with bone graft.. heal for 6-8 weeks.. then go in and do the ACLR; which then means another 6 months before I’m back to sport! That sounds horrible… twice the PT and twice the surgery for the same outcome! Let’s hope that my first knee surgery was done properly (so that the screw holes align) AND that the holes themselves haven’t widened.
The first time I had my ACL repair; I took the time to write down my thoughts about the process and what I was going through. That was long before the internet was huge; and I ended up having to write my own HTML to publish it. It should be a lot easier now, right?