Hey, my names Joe. I had my ACL surgery a couple of days ago so I thought I would share my journey with anyone who is about to go through the same operation!
I tore my ACL a couple of years ago playing football. I was playing left-back In a game against our rivals Saint Andrews University. I was defending an attack when i switched direction quickly, I heard a huge pop & my knee felt like it had shifted out of place, I went down to the floor & screamed in pain. My leg swelled up but I was negligent to that fact & celebrated our 3-3 draw with my fellow team-mates that evening. Only 5-weeks away from a ski trip to Val Thorens, I rested ignorantly unaware of the damage I had done in the hope everything would be swell by the university christmas ski holiday… I was wrong. On the first day of skiing I did a jump landing on an iced over road along with a few buddies but my knee collapsed & swelled up again on landing… a couple of days rest, some tramadol & ibuprofen I managed to ski for the rest of the week pain free for the majority of time but I knew something wasn’t quite right.
The injuries occured back in 2012. Ever since then my knee buckled every few days I was walking around up until I had a knee arthroscopy to remove the bucket handle tear on my medial meniscus in november 2013.
On the 2nd of June I arrived at the hospital for 7 a.m. a hungry-hungry boy seeing as I was not allowed to eat or drink from 11p.m. on the 1st June. I seemed to be the only person in the ward who was not getting a whole joint replacement apart from the nurses, but that in no way helped how much i did not want to get the operation done. The idea of somebody cutting a piece of my hamstring tendon away & re-fitting it as my new ACL ligament seemed scary enough without the added stress from knowing that the surgeon would soon be using a power-drill on my femur (thighbone) & tibia (shinbone) in order to screw the new ligament into place.
I was led to a private room by one of the nurses & told I was second in line for the operation. My surgeon came in to check everything was in order and he drew a big blue arrow in marker on the leg which was going to be operated on. Then the anaesthetist came in to discuss the options available — I chose the general anaesthetic along with a femoral nerve block due to the fact I wanted to be well & truly knocked the fuck out for the operation. I had the femoral nerve block to lessen the pain (the nerve block lasts for at least 24hours). I was so nervous about the operation that the nurse gave me a sedative to calm me down, then the physiotherapist came to measure up my CPM machine for after the operation. The CPM machine flexes your leg slowly for a set number of degrees (60* flexion for the first afternoon increasing to 90* the next day) to reduce swelling in the knee, reduce the risk of DVT (deep vein thrombosis) & help with flexing of the leg. I was pretty jolly from the sedative & was enjoying my conversation with the guy, he chatted me through how to reduce the swelling (icing), how long it would be till i could go back to the gym (6-12 weeks!) & showed me some exercises which would help me through my recovery.
I was watching Jeremy Kyle in my hospital bed in my gown, sweatpants & slippers which made me feel happier about the whole thing as I knew life could be so much worse. I then watched homes under the hammer until 12 o’clock… I was starting to worry something had gone terribly wrong in the first operation my surgeon was undertaking at the time, my sedative had worn off… devastated.
It got to 1 o’clock & a guy came to wheel me in my bed up to theatre, I was excited that it wouldn’t be too much longer till I would be able to eat (I was starving). There was a spot of traffic when we reached the elevator to take me upstairs to the operating theatre, I said hi to the guy getting wheeled back to the ward but he was pretty out of it (I didn’t realise that I would be in the same boat on my return journey). I took my inhaler when we got parked in the pre-op room & the anaesthetist used his stethoscope to make sure my chest was okay (it was really tight as i was petrified — this shit was really happening!).
The anaesthetist put a needle into my hand & asked me what i did at university whilst he injected me with a dose of medicine to relax me… he then injected another substance into my IV, put an oxygen mask towards me & told me to breath into it… I was out. The femoral nerve block was injected into my spine after I had been put to sleep. The next thing I know is that I am sat up in recovery feeling horrendously drowsy drifting in & out of consciousness with a nurse sat next to me chatting away… I felt terrible (not in pain though), I was trying to talk & kept falling back to sleep (I saw him the next day & he said I wasn’t saying anything bad). When i finally came around I was wheeled back down to my room. Its weird trying to remember everything (it feels like the overwhelming sense of shame you wake up with after an ultra-booze-fuelled night out), but I remember feeling dreadfully sick & asking for anti-sickness tablets, I got them and felt better. I was placed on the CPM machine about 30minutes after I arrived back. I was not in pain due to the morphine & the femoral nerve block that had been given to me prior to & during the surgery.
I rang my mum after a quick nap to let her know I was okay. She & my dad came to see me at about 6p.m.. They brought me 8 pieces of cooked chicken, 7 snickers bars, kettle chips, grapes & 6 bottles of evian water but I was too groggy to eat at that time . My brother came to see me after work & brought me some diet coke, a terry’s chocolate orange & a box of maltesers… I was so happy with all the food, even though i couldn’t face eating it at that point in time… however, It all got devoured (apart from the crisps & grapes) in between 9:30p.m. & 7:30 a.m. in the morning.
In the hospital the television system was like an aircraft entertainment system only bigger. My father bought me a £10 card which got me 59 films, 25 television channels, unlimited internet access & a telephone line which was free to call landlines off for 24hours. There was so many good films to watch but I felt too groggy to focus on the screen at that particular point in time. My sleeps were generally 20-30mins then i would wake up. I watched Elysium at about 1a.m. which I thoroughly enjoyed. I tried to watch Snow White & the Huntsman at about 4:30 a.m. but I kept falling asleep every so often (great film, I was just knackered… if the creator happens to stumble across this blog — however unlikely that is).
All the nurses were really nice & we all had some good banter. It was quite difficult to urinate into the device we were given to go in, I discovered it was easier if the CPM machine was stopped at 0 degrees instead of trying to piss whilst it was flexing 0-90 degrees. I thankfully can’t tell you what it is like to defecate in the bed as the opiates in my system bunged me up nicely.
My blood pressure, pulse & haemoglobin levels were taken what felt like a record number of times in the 24hours following the operation. I also had a few antibiotics given to me through the IV line three times during my stay.
The next day I was supposed to be leaving the hospital around lunch time. My leg was still numb from the nerve block & my quads were still asleep so they tried to get me up but i could not straighten my leg so I had to get back into bed… I felt so pathetic that I couldn’t straighten my leg. This lovely nurse gave me an exercise to try and push my leg (which had a blanket rolled up and placed under the heal) towards the bed in order to help my quads kick back into action. I was instructed to do so 10times every 20minutes. I really wanted to leave the hospital because I was pretty bored so I watched something not very rememberable on television and just did the exercises as many times as I possibly could over the next hour until the nurse came back — I was determined when the nurse & student nurse got back that I would be able to straighten my leg & crutch my sorry arse home — Great Success! I was up & they taught me how to crutch around & handle the daunting factor of crutching up & down stairs — it felt so beautiful being free from a hospital bed I had sweated into on & off for the previous 24hours. I was told I could leave soon and I arranged for a couple of friends to pick me up around 5p.m., it was so good to see them, I was also really happy from the codeine I ingested minutes before I crutched out of the hospital.
That night I just chilled at home on the sofa, watched some television & ate a proper home cooked meal, it was delightful. I crutched myself up the stairs to my lovely king sized bed (so thankful after a night on a single bed at hospital as a 6'4" male). That night I had some vivid nightmares from the codeine but apart from that I was okay, the worst pain tends to be when you wake up in the morning. I wasn’t given a knee brace so I have been sleeping on my side/front as I despise sleeping on my back (which I am guessing does not help the whole pain situation).
If any of the nurses from Ormskirk hospital see this I would like to give them a huge thanks, you guys were wonderful & had great chat. I would also like to thank my surgeon Mr Adam & his right hand man (who’s name I can’t remember for the life of me) for performing two successful knee surgeries on me, along with my parents, Bro & pals for looking after me & bringing me home.
I would like to wish the best of luck for anybody going through an ACL operation or rehabilitation… It’s only day 4 but I am glad I had it done. Peace.
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