Story of My Knee Injury and Its Recovery!
When you are all healthy, there are so many things that feel easy: walking, sitting on a chair, sprinting when you’re running late, and jumping when you’re happy. But we owe all this to our knees, so please take care of them.
A while ago, I met with an accident where I twisted my knee and broke a ligament (more specifically, the ACL). I went through surgery to reconstruct the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) of my right knee. It was my first surgery, and now I’m going through physiotherapy to get back to my normal life.
According to doctors, this is one of the most common sports injuries and is easily recoverable. For them, it might be just another simple surgery. But for the individual going through it, it’s still a big thing.
Imagine this: one second, you’re running, jumping, and walking comfortably, and the next second you’re struggling to take a single step.
This was a big enough shock for me, and I keep ruminating on the moment when I fell. But these thoughts are not going to help, and now my focus is to recover as fast as possible.
The Fall
To be honest, I am not a sports person, and I was not doing anything extraordinary when I fell. I was in a slightly running position. It was dark and I stepped onto a trolley. So one leg was on the trolley and the other on the floor, and the trolley did its job: it rolled! 😂 I twisted my knee and fell.
While falling, I felt that the bones of my knee moved. There were very minor bruises and not much pain, so I thought I was okay. But then I tried to stand and was unable to. I tried two or three times, but every time I felt the knee joints moving. So I sat on the floor for a few minutes and tried again. This time I was able to stand, but I had difficulty walking. I accepted my husband’s support and went back home.
There was not much swelling, so we were sure it wasn’t a fracture. So we had dinner and went to sleep, hoping everything would be fine the next day (I had never expected a ligament tear in my wildest thoughts).
The next morning, I woke up and checked for swelling. There was only mild swelling, but I still couldn’t walk. I needed the support of walls, tables, and chairs to move around the house. I realized something wasn’t right, so we went to the hospital.
Thanks to my limited knowledge of biology, I expected the doctor to move my knee bones and fix everything in a few minutes. But to my surprise, the doctor kept on checking my knees, asking how I fell, if I could stand straight, and if I could walk. Then they finally asked me to get an MRI.
The first thought in our heads was that these were money-minded doctors. How could such a simple fall lead to an injury that would require an MRI? We should just leave. We told the doctor we we’d prefer to leave and didn’t want any other tests.
The doctor hadn’t mentioned surgery yet, but I was freaking out already. I had never gone through an MRI before and was scared. But my husband and the doctor talked a bit, and I calmed down slightly. My husband was very supportive and said that we should get the MRI so we could be sure there was nothing serious. I eventually agreed and got the MRI done, praying to God and thinking everything would be okay.
The reports came out a few hours later, and we figured out that I had a full-length ACL tear.
The Surgery
The doctor mentioned that surgery was required to reconstruct the ligament. The swelling and pain would go away slowly, but there would still be instability when I tried to move in certain ways. ACL reconstruction surgery was the only way to fix the problem, and the decision of getting the surgery was up to me.
The doctor also mentioned that it would take six months to fully recover and get back to the gym, running, and fast walking.
I was still absorbing the news and went back home. I thought about it throughout the evening and night. The next morning, we went to meet another doctor from a different hospital for a second opinion. He also mentioned the same thing: I needed to get the surgery done.
So I was admitted the next day and had the surgery. It wasn’t as scary as I had imagined it to be 😂. There was no pain for the next 24 hours because I was on painkillers. On the day of discharge, I was assigned a physiotherapist.
They tried making me walk with the help of a walker, but my first attempt failed because as soon as I stood up, I started feeling dizzy. Everything turned black around me. They quickly got me back to bed and asked me to do breathing exercises. It is normal to feel dizzy after surgery, especially the first time you try to walk, because you have lost some blood and have been lying on a bed for hours. When you try to stand, there is a sudden rush of blood flow towards your legs, which can make you feel dizzy.
The second time I tried to walk, I was successful but with two people supporting me on both sides. It was painful.
So I was discharged in the evening and went back home. Going home was a dramatic experience because I couldn’t sit in the car anymore because my knees wouldn’t bend. Even a single touch on my toes was extremely painful. Every break and every jump would reach my knees and turn into pain.
The Recovery
The recovery phase was smooth, and I was able to walk without support within a month.
The new ligament needs to be trained to act as an ACL ligament. If you are new to this, like me, these things might come as a surprise. My knees won’t bend anymore. The new ligament, which is replaced in your knee, belonged to another body part and is not trained to function like an ACL. That is why physiotherapy is needed to get it back to normal functioning.
This is my overall experience. Please don’t use these as a reference for your recovery because every injury is different and every person is different. Just follow what your physiotherapist or doctor says. You can refer to this to get an understanding of what to expect.
Week 1
I had minor pain throughout the first week after surgery.
My physiotherapist gave me these exercises:
- Lifting: I did three types of leg lifts (left and right sides, and vertical).
- Bending: Trying to bend my knees as much as possible.
- Rotating: This mostly contained ankle rotation, clockwise and anti-clockwise.
- Quad sets: Putting a roll of a towel under the knee and tightening the thighs.
- Walking: The first week my physiotherapist taught me how to use a walker so that I am not dependent on others for moving from one place to other. He also made walking a part of my exercise.
I did all these exercises three times a day.
Week 2
Week 2 was almost the same as week 1. The pain reduced and I didn’t need painkillers anymore. The bending also improved compared to the first week.
My physiotherapist introduced a few more exercises to my daily routine:
- Lifting my leg while sitting on a chair.
- Ankle rotation while sitting on a chair.
- Bending my knees and trying to push it back using my unaffected leg on a chair.
He also added resistance bands in all my lifting exercises.
Week 3
Week 3 was more exciting because I started walking with knee braces on and with little support from a side stick.
- New exercises introduced and weight (1kg) added for lifting exercises
- Leg raises (front, side, and back) while standing
- Lying on belly and trying to lift legs and bending knees
- Wall-sit 3 sets of 40 seconds each
- Lunges and squats with some support
- Stairs climbing
Week 4
The knee brace was removed in the fourth week and I was able to walk without support. There was a weird stretch inside the knee in the mornings, but it goes away after morning exercise.
- The physiotherapist introduced new exercises and increased the weight for lifting exercises to 2 kg.
- The duration of walks was increased from 150 steps to 300 steps
- I was able to do daily work with minor discomfort (e.g. climbing stairs)
- Walking speed also increased to a normal level.
I am happy with the pace of recovery.
Conclusion
From this incident, I learned multiple new things:
- Don’t be too hard on your knees. It has gone through two big traumas. The first one is the injury and the other one is the surgery. Give it time to recover and have faith in yourself.
- There will be moments when thoughts like “Why me?”, and “What if I had done xx differently” will fill your head. But these negative thoughts are not helpful and will waste your time and energy. So just brush them off and focus on the recovery.
- Celebrate small successes during the recovery, when your knee bends a little bit extra, when the walker was removed, when your knee brace was removed, and when you started walking for the first time. All these instances are worth the celebration.
- I understood the power of exercise because I could see my knee recovering every single day when I did my exercises.
- We should explore the world and not limit ourselves just because something seems risky because if an injury has to happen, it can happen while you are sitting at home feeling safe and comfortable.
This article is very personal to me, but I decided to write about it because I thought it might help at least one person out there who is going through a similar injury to mine. I also wrote this for myself to never forget the process of my recovery! Thank you for reading this article.
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