Feelin' Better!

Today is the 5th day since surgery, and I feel the best yet. Yesterday hurt more than before, and I have no idea why. But today I got up the strength to take a shower by myself, just sitting on the bath tub floor. Here's some pics:

Before: I took this right before leaving for the hospital. But my right knee (the one on your left) is slightly larger, and that quad muscle is a little bit smaller. Its hard to tell from this picture though.



After: As you can see, it's verrrrrrry swollen. This was taken Sunday, when I was allowed to take the bandages off. We were surprised to see no stitches or staples, the cuts just held together with tape. It is numb around the cut, but it hurts everywhere else.

My right ankle is also very swollen, I was sad to see I have a cankle. I actually slept in today, which was a change from any other day. I've been wakin gup around 7:30 AM or so since Friday, and today I slept until 10:30!! I could hardly tell that my leg was operated on this morning, there wasn't any pain or anything until I got up from my bed.

Tomorrow I have to wake up early though, because I start physical therapy at 8 in the morning at St. Mary's Spine Center. It's a lot closer than the doctors office, which is way on the other side of Saginaw.

Sitting on the couch gets very boring. Luckily, I have had many visitors since Friday, frequently bringing me Slurpee's or Jolly Ranchers, which are my favorite. Saturday night my parents moved our desktop computer to the couch so I could have access to it, which I am glad for. We had a laptop, but my mom couldn't figure out why the internet wasn't working. So they just drug over the computer to me.

There's not a lot to blog about when you sit on the couch all day, but I'll have something to talk about tomorrow after physical training!!!

Day 3

My knee feels a whole lot better from yesterday and Friday, even though it still hurts a bunch. I actually got up and out of the house today, to go to church. I've decided to switch to Motrin instead of the vicatin to save my stomach, because it seemed that every time I got up to use the bathroom more grossness came out of my mouth than the other end.

Anyways, back to my knee events. I went to my regular doctors (Dr. Bhrama) Friday, and she sent me to an orthropedic doctor, because she didn't know much about knees. We had some trouble getting an appointment at Saginaw Valley Bone & Joint, but we finally got one for the following Friday. When we got there, I was introduced to Dr. Danielle Duncan. She was very nice and reassuring about everything. They took a huge needle (I'm just assuming this because I looked away... I can't stand needles!!!) to my knee and drained a crapload of fluid from it. I looked at the fluid after they were done and it was really gross, all bloody with like, brownish fluid mixed in. After that, they moved around my knee a bit, examining it to see what could be wrong with it. Toby, Dr. Duncan's assistant, told me that bloody fluid is a sign of a tear or rip in a tendon or ligament in the knee. He also said that after examining my knee, he was concerned about my MCL and ACL, which are two major ligaments in your knee. That just put me down in the dumps right then, because I know of a few people who tore their ACL and needed surgery. That was what I wanted the least.

They scheduled an MRI for me at St. Mary's Hospital in Saginaw the next week. It started at 6:00 AM!!! So I woke up, my dad drove me there and I got all set up in the machine. It was my first MRI, although I have had quite a few catscans. It took about 45 minutes, and I fell asleep. I finally got home around 7:15 and I had to rush to get ready for school at 8. I did take the time to look at my MRI, because they gave it to us on a CD. Neither my dad or I could get anything out of it, it just looked like some milk got spilled all over a black background. I had another appointment with Dr. Duncan the next day, where I would find out what was wrong with my knee.

The next day after school both my parents went with me to see Dr. Duncan. When we were there, we recieved the bad news that I had a torn ACL and meniscus, and I would need surgery. It was really disappointing, they told me how I would miss 6 months of sports and suck like that. I got really emotional, too. I was devastated to hear that I would miss 2 out of 3 of my senior year sports: volleyball and cheerleading. If all goes well, I will be good as new for softball season, which is my main sport.

Toby told me to work on getting my knee straight all the way, and to move it around so I could get as much mobility as I could. I also had to do some straight-leg lifts, to keep my quad muscle up to par. The bigger your muscles are before surgery, the easier your recovery will be. Also, if you cannot straighten your leg all the way before ACL reconstuctive surgery, then you will never be able to straighten it all the way after surgery.

There was a chance that the torn meniscus (or cartialage) was flipped up, which was preventing my knee from straightening all the way. It was either that, or the swelling was just keeping it from getting straight. So I iced it constantly, got the swelling down quite a bit. After a while, I was able to strighten it all the way. It was a very good thing, because if I hadn't been able to I would have needed two surgeries, the first one on my meniscus, and then a good 6 weeks or so after that surgery would come my ACL surgery. That would have set me back a whole month longer I would miss out on sports, so I didn't want to take that chance. I pushed hard to get my leg all the way straight, and it paid off.

One thing that Toby said to me was that I would have to put all my competitiveness that I would usually put into my sports into my knee to get it better quicker. It makes sense, and that thought will help me a lot.

So my surgery was Friday at 9 AM. I got to the hospital at about 7, to get everything ready. I was freaking out like, majorly, so they gave me some calming stuff which made me think everything was hilarious. My softball coach, Mr. Geese, came by the hospital just to send his wishes to me. I was really nervous, but i calmed down after they gave me the drugs. So i finally got put to sleep around 9:15 or so, and I woke up around 12:30 pm, they gave me more drugs so i fell back asleep and woke up again around 2:30 pm. They let me go home after i woke up, which was surprising.

I'll say more later, I'm about to take a nap.

Hoo Baby!

Today is the day after surgery. I meant to start a blog before, but I never got to it. My mom said that people would be interested in it, and I guess she may be right.

But I guess I should start out with the beginning of my knee problems. On May 17th, 2008 Carrollton was hosting the Cavalier Round Robin for Varsity Softball. We had two games that day, at 10 AM and 2 PM. For the 10 o' clock game I started off the game as pitcher, and was throwing my usual. It was a close game, and the 6th inning when our team was up to bat I got a hit and beat out the throw to first. I stole second on a pass ball, and took third when my teammate got another hit. I like to think I'm an aggressive runner, and I'll steal when given the slightest chance. I tend to be quick, which helps out. So there was another pass ball, where the pitcher threw the ball where the catcher couldn't get to it right away. I took the chance to score another run, and the run did score. But when I slid into home plate, my foot got caught. The right batters box was really dug out, and the plate had a little lip in it. It didn't help that I slid a little too late, either.

So I kinda sat there on home plate in shock, because I knew I hurt my right knee. I was rather upset, because I hate getting hurt. After the coaches settled me down and carried me into the dugout, I got some ice. I couldn't put any pressure on it, so my mom ran home to get me crutches. I just kept it iced and elevated all day, in hopes that it would get better. Buuuuut it didn't, so my parents took me into the emergency room Sunday after church. The took some X-Rays, and said it was just a sprain and I could go back to playing in a week. They told me I should stay on crutches as I feel, so I kept them the rest of Sunday and Monday for school.

So, of course I tried to go back to play on Tuesday. It didn't hurt too bad, and I could run fine. But our trainer wouldn't let me play because I couldn't bend my leg all the way. I was disappointed, because I knew I could play through the pain. So I sat the bench those two games that day, limited to warming up our left-fielder and doing the book. That night and all the next day I was constantly straigtening and bending my leg to make sure it would bend all the way for our last conference game on Thursday.

Turns out, I did a pretty good job because there was no pain and I could bend it all the way on Thursday, so the trainer gave me the go-ahead to play. She gave me a warning though, to be very careful. I started in left field, just in case I couldn't handle all the knee-bending at second base or the stress put on my push-off leg while pitching. I was doing very well, made two good catches (which my mother still owes me two tropical smoothies for!!) and went 2-0 for batting, with a walk. My third at bat I layed a bunt down and beat out the throw to first. As i started to slow down after I touched the bag, I pivoted on my right leg to turn around. It gave out on me, and I heard/felt a little grindage going on. I fell to the ground, and I was heated. Our first base coach helped me up, and I went into the dugout for some ice. The trainer came in, and just gave me that "I told you so" look. It was horrible, I knew then that something was kind of seriously wrong with my knee. We decided to go to my regular doctor to get it checked out, and she just sent us to a knee doctor.

But more on this later, because my mom says it's too late to be on the computer.