Surgery (June 5)
When the ortho doc/surgeon 1st mentioned cutting my leg to stitch the tendon back together she used words like ‘little’ and ‘tiny’ and I assumed she was talking about something that could be done in the office. Nope. She was talking a ’knock you out & put in an IV’ kind of procedure. The following day was her surgery day and they had a slot for me at 9:00. I agreed and the rest is now histort (or perhaps HERstory).
i had never had surgery before but have waited for friends in the recovery room many a time and The notion of me being on the stretcher was daunting at the least. when the time came I was anxious and my bladder kept insisting that I get up to relieve myself again and again. Each time I nearly ripped out my IV causing a mini panic attack. In the end waiting for the surgery was worse than the procedure itself. The surgeon never fully explained the procedure but I had a couple of great nurses that set me at ease.
Being in a cast was a very frightening idea for me. The surgeon knew that I hoped to go to a concert 4 days after the surgery and she told me that I would likely wake up with a cast to the knee or perhaps a heavy duty splint. When I awoke from anesthesia I found myself in a cast that went 1/2 way up my thigh. Sigh….
The anesthesia did not make me groggy or nauseous. In fact, my throat & mouth felt worse (from tubes inserted during surgery) than my leg for the next couple of days. Other than the long pre-op wait the day flew by. I was home by 3:30.
on June 13th, 2013 at 2:51 pm
Your getting immobilized above the knee makes me fear that you are being treated by primitives, and will be receiving a sub-optimal (probably too slow) rehab. (It’s virtually impossible to find a modern excellent hospital that still immobilizes the KNEE post-ATR in 2013, because it’s a major nuisance, adds upper-leg atrophy to your calf atrophy, and has zero clinical benefit.)
Check bit.ly/UWOProtocol to find out what World Class ATR treatment looks like (with or without surgery), and if your Doc thinks it’s better to hold you back slower than that, ask her for the evidence. (There isn’t any.) BTW, the entire UWO study that used that protocol is available on this site, in the “Protocols and Studies” section, at achillesblog.com/files/2008/03/jbjsi01401v1.pdf
on June 13th, 2013 at 3:53 pm
Thank you for the information. I was getting worried because I have not met anyone on this site with such a monstrous cast. I can feel my thigh/butt muscles softening. The cast is so heavy and difficult to maneuver around with. I am currently a week and a day past surgery and am very overwhelmed and uncomfortable. On Monday I meet with the surgeon and hope to get a smaller cast at that time. I have to admit, I did not research on my injury. It happened and I reacted- went to the local hospital because I live in a rural area and it was the easiest place to get to… I have nothing to fall back on so I chose surgery because it seemed like faster healing route. Now with nothing but time on my hands I have to get out of the passenger seat and into the driver’s seat of my recovery.
on June 14th, 2013 at 9:12 am
Sometimes we talk about things that seem to be true but surgeons don’t know. This is one that virtually every surgeon knows. Norm is right on the cast.