Post-Surgery Appointment and Recovery Schedule

 

Well, here I am. Good news and what-I-expected news.

My appointment was at 2:30pm. They took me in immediately for x-rays. I’m attaching those to this post so everyone can see my bones. Everyone in the office knows me at this point, so I had people stopping to ask me how I was and doctors saying hello. At one point, Dr. McDreamy came in to talk to me and tell me he’d be with me in a minute and the lady next to us in the waiting room gawked and said to me afterward "man, I wish my doctor was that good looking."

After we waited for a bit, they brought me into the exam room. The nurse came in and got all of the stuff ready to take my sutures out. He came in a few minutes later and the first thing he said was "I’m happy and proud to say that everything in the x-ray looks beautiful." We sat down, talked about how I was feeling, and went over all of my concerns. My hands were feeling better and the x-ray looked fine so I didn’t mention my fall the other day. Didn’t seem worth it.

He did say that the hamstring pain that I’ve been having is an unfortunate side-effect to my brace. I had it re-fitted today, so hopefully the pain lessens a bit from that.

All he did was take off the steri-strips. Apparently, I had dessolvable stitches put in and I didn’t know it. He said he remembered my last incident where I got queasy when he took them out and could barely talk to him afterward and figured it was best to lessen my suffering. 

I got yelled at for doing an straight leg raise out of the brace, with a "good job, but you’re not supposed to be doing those out of the brace yet." Hee. Woops. He asked me if I had been bending my leg, when I looked at him and rolled my eyes and said "you gave me strict instructions not to…" he said "well, I didn’t expect you to follow that. Try bending it."

I got about 30 degrees, right off the gate. I could have gone more but I didn’t want to over-do it.

Since I’m not going to be in the office with him every week and he can’t adjust my PT protocol as he sees fit, we sat down and did a week-by-week baseline for where he wants me to be and what he expects to see when I go back next month.

Now, what you’ve all been waiting for…

My Physical Therapy Protocol for the Next Six Weeks
 
October 15 – October 20th: Toe touch only, light partial weight bearing; crutches; brace locked at 0 degrees

October 20th – November 3rd: Toe touch only, light partial weight bearing; brace locked at 0 degrees while walking; crutches; starting ROM exercises up to 45 degrees

November 3rd – November 17th: Weight bearing as tolerated with brace; brace locked at 0 degrees while walking; starting ROM exercises up to 90 degrees

November 17th – November 23rd: Weight bearing as tolerated with brace; brace locked at 90 degrees while walking; starting ROM exercises up to full extension and flexion

November 23rd: 6 week Post-Op appointment, progression evaluation, x-ray, & brace removal pending strength in quads

I’ll be free by thanksgiving! Perfect timing for crazy black Friday shopping and getting crap in order.

Now, if I could just find a job.
 

This photo shows the screws that are in my shin now. I can’t feel them, and there’s enough skin there that I shouldn’t, but there’s also a brace on in that photo so there’s not THAT much room between the screws and the surface of my skin. You can see that he cut the bone and moved it away from my leg bone and tilted it to the left. The screws are in at an angle. That piece of bone was considered way off angle which is what was causing my recurrent dislocations once my quads lost control of my knee.