Moving Forward...life before, during and after a meniscus transplant

Saturday was my 4 months (by calendar) since surgery anniversary. Or 17 weeks plus a few days. It’s funny because I noticed that I’ve stopped focusing on Thursdays (the surgery was on a Thursday) as a measure of time for me. Thursdays have meant (leading up to the surgery) “x number of weeks left until surgery” and since surgery Thursday has been my post-op count up. Count up to what, I have no clue (biking, swimming, walking around wherever I want). I think because the milestones seem so spaced out at this point, I’m losing interest in the counting.  Last week was a frustrating week. I had this weird lateral posterior L knee pain that came out of nowhere on Monday. No weird twists or turns, slip and falls, no extra walking,etc. to explain the pain but damn if it didn’t hurt like hell! I took the whole week off of rehabbing the knee, everything I tried to do hurt, so I just rested. Rest helped. When I saw Marty on Friday for PT he suggested it was hamstring strain from the leg...

Phew. Surgery is over.  Thursday was by far the hardest, longest, and most painful day I’ve ever had. Thursday night I wished I hadn’t done the surgery, had opted for a knee replacement instead, and pretty much wanted to die.  I’m not exaggerating.  But just one day later, I cannot believe how much better I feel. Every hour I feel stronger and more like myself. Still a lot of pain, but the anesthesia is slowly getting out of my system so I feel less shaky and blurry minded.  Dr. Z called me this morning in the hospital (I was too out of it to talk yesterday and he has clinic today, so he called me between patients).  The surgery was extremely successful. The meniscus fit near perfectly, my new ACL is strong and attached in the right place, and the cartilage they grew from my cells successfully patched the defects in my bones.  It was a LONG surgery...he explained that there really isn’t a more delicate or complicated orthopedic surgery than this one. All of...