Surgery Scheduled - August 26th

Yes, my ortho doc is still on vacation, but I was looking at my schedule and with the help of school letting me rearrange my schedule a little, next week looked like the best time to get the surgery done before residency interviews and such. So I called up the physician assistant and they said they could go ahead and schedule it but I still need meet with the doc Monday. So that's the plan, pre-op visit Monday August 24th, surgery Wednesday August 26th. It'll start as an arthroscopic surgery to remove the plica, but if it looks like my knee cap is misaligned and I need a lateral release, they'll have to open my knee up for that. If it's purely arthroscopic, they predict crutches for a day. If they have to open my knee, they predict crutches for a week and a little longer recovery.

This may sound completely outlandish to some, but I am truly excited to be getting this surgery. Joe can vouch for me, I've been a great patient doing my exercises, etc, and these past 2 months of PT offered no relief. After having pain for 8 years, I'm ready to be radical and forget the conservative approach. I know I may still have pain after the surgery and I know it'll take a while for me to get back to running, or even the elliptical, but I feel that at least we're trying something else. That offers me hope.

Another exciting development of surgery--Mom is flying out to help me post-op. I feel bad because I sprung the surgery on her, she hates to fly, flights are higher than if we knew about this a couple of weeks ago, and it's probably inconveniencing her work schedule. I think I could manage on my own (Joe doesn't have any paid time off right now) and would if Mom didn't offer to come out, but it will be much less stressful with her here. Plus, she's never been to our house, so I'm glad she gets to see where we've been living.

I'm determined not to have anything prevent me from having the surgery and having a UTI can. For my one and only UTI, the only symptom was foul-smelling urine. Right now I'm not having any symptoms of a UTI, but since I didn't really last time, I went to the drug store and bought an over the counter UTI test. Negative, plus cheaper than the copay for the doc's. Now let's just hope my blood count isn't crazy out of whack, which I don't think it will.

Since I'm having surgery on my knee, I thought I'd be kind enough to shave just before surgery. Nope, I can't shave less than 48 hours before surgery, plus they give me this special soap I have to shower with the day before and that morning. Umm...I have to be at the hospital at 6am, what time am I going to have to get up just to shower with the special soap? Oh well, I will because I know it's meant to decrease my risk of infection.

So that's where I stand right now.