21 Days and Counting

21 days. 504 hours. 30,240 minutes. All of them equal to the same thing - the day of my ACL reconstruction and meniscectomy surgery. Fun times, I tell ya.

So how did I get here? Well, it took a lot of hard work, some slightly stupid decisions, and then some not so good advice, finally I had to listen to my gut. People listen to your guts! There's a reason it's called a gut instinct.

If you follow me on Instagram or have been a follower of this blog, then you know that in mid-April I dislocated my kneecap. 10 days before I was supposed to run my 13th half marathon down in Nashville. I may have blogged about the annoyance of dealing with this injury a few some a lot.

A few days ago, I told everyone about the severity of my injury. It was a shock when I got the news. So here I am now, trying to get projects done and organize myself for some serious downtime, but first I'd like to share just what happened.

So it all started with cross-training and doing some rounds of jumping squats and high knees. These are not exercises I'm new to. I know better than to jump on the jumping squats. I usually modify. I go up onto my toes and then back down, because I know I have bad knees. Well, my enthusiasm at such a good workout was rewarded with the aforementioned kneecap dislocation. Not my first dislocation, so I knew the drill. Stay off of it. Take it easy. I talked to the orthopedist that the ER recommended and he agreed with my assessment of what I should do. He did say that the half was probably out of the question, but that the 5k was doable.

So I ran the 5k in Nashville with my sister and reinjured the knee, you can read about it {HERE}. I saw the doc the day after I got home from Nashville, and told him what had happened during the 5k. He didn't seem overly concerned, and I went back home and continued to baby, but not baby, the knee. I mention to my husband one day that the knee doesn't feel right, like the muscles aren't in the right spot or something, but figured it was probably just swelling and inflammation.

Then May 12 struck. I was 2 miles into a 3-mile easy run, coming down a hill and turning onto the road that leads back to my neighborhood, and I had to stop running. My leg came down and it felt like I had no kneecap. It felt like my thigh bone had just smacked off the top of my shin bone, and it hurt like the freaking devil. I stopped running immediately, and caught my breath and fought off tears. There may have been some yelling/grunting/snorting there too. I gingerly try to put weight on the leg, and the knee was not having any of that. I do some light stretching and test the knee a few minutes later, and still no dice. The knee was hurting a lot, and I was pissed. I was angry at myself, I was angry at my knee, and I was mostly angry that I was still dealing with this damn forsaken injury. Not to mention I was still a mile from my house. I call my friend and she comes and rescues me. So she stopped getting ready for her planned thing at her house to come rescue me. She's the best type of friend.

I call my doc and he's able to see me that Monday, and I tell him what happened this time. He says this time that no running, and to rest it. He'll see me back in a month. I tried asking him for specific exercises I should be doing, but again I get the generic answer of you should just do quad exercises, and focus on the medial quad a bit. While that is slightly more helpful than your other answer, I'm still not happy. My follow-up would be June 11. The next day after almost falling down my stairs again, I call the orthopedist office that helped my mom when she broke and dislocated her elbow. They're able to see me on May 30.

Between May 12 and May 30, my knee continues to act up. Always when moving in a downward motion, usually on the stairs or stepping down out of our house. It happened so often that Baby Girl became a pro at running and getting my brace or ice and bringing it to me. She also got really good at barking orders to her brothers, because while their shouts of, "Mom!" were cute, they're not helpful in the least. It's to the point that my knee is causing me stress and anxiety.

May 30 finally comes and I'm seen by the new doc. I'm nervous and anxious, but he's very nice and listens to my concerns. He says that he wouldn't have done anything differently than what my other doc did the first visit, but now that I'm continuing to have issues, and nothing showed up on the x-ray then he's going to write orders for an MRI. He also talks a bit about what's going to happen if what he thinks the MRI is going to show and how he'd like to move forward. So the MRI is scheduled for June 5, and my follow-up June 21. It was far out, but even my doc is allowed a vacay.

I walked away from this appointment much calmer and happy that I'd been listened to. The doc was nice, and a runner, but he also listened. Really listened to me. I was not a whiny patient who was complaining that her knee hurt. I was someone who's knee was starting to impede her life, and that was not something he wanted me to have to live with.

June 5th could not get here soon enough. I was excited. I've never had an MRI, but the opportunity to lay completely still uninterrupted seemed like heaven. I know I'm weird. I have 3 kids, even with the noise of the MRI machine, it was still more peaceful and calm than on a typical day at my house. I fully enjoyed the 30 minutes the machine took. So the tech at the MRI place told me that the report would take about 3 days and that they'd send it over to my doc. I had also requested a copy of my MRI images. I wanted to see what was going on in there, even if I didn't know what the heck I was looking at.

I got a phone call at 11:30 the same day, and its the new doc's office. The doctor would like me to come into the office tomorrow even though I have an appointment already scheduled. You know this has to be good news. The nurse tells me I have a torn ACL and meniscus. I have a what now? So we set the appointment for the next day, and I hop onto my computer to actually look at those MRI images. I managed to find my femur, tibia, and patella!

At the new doc's office the next morning, I get the fun news that my ACL is ruptured and the meniscus won't heal on its own. He opens up the MRI images and starts explaining the parts of my knee. The good parts, and the slightly deformed parts (the patella), and the not so good bits. The tibia has a good size bruise on it, there's swelling (duh), and the medial meniscus looks like its shredded on the one end. Then he gets to the PCL and he says that it looks good, and then he moves the cursor to an area kind of in the middle of the knee and moving diagonally and says this is where my ACL should be. Should be? Excuse me? Where is it? Well, that would be the rupture. You can see a little bit of the ACL at the tibia and then there's nothing. The doc needs to do a meniscectomy, and I have 3 choices for the ACL. He does tell me that PT is an option, but it really boils down to whether I want one surgery or two. I will take one surgery, thank you very much. Like any good person in this day and age, after they'd given me the news yesterday, I hopped on old Dr. Google to see what I could be dealing with, so the options the doc gave me for my options were not surprising. I ended up deciding that a hamstring allograft would be my best option for reconstructing my ACL.

Now the surgery is 3 weeks away, I got fitted for my brace today and got to bring home my ice therapy machine. I'm excited and scared. I'm excited for finally being able to move forward. I'm also worried about the giant step backward this is sending me, but I will come back, and I will resume running. My goals are just going to be different. I might never hit a 2:30 half marathon, but at this point, I'll be happy to be running a half again or even at all.

That's not to say that I don't love all the biking I've been doing, but it's just not the same. Coasting down the hills, while so much fun, just isn't the same as running down them. Not to mention, that I think getting up those hills might be worse on the bike than it is running.

I also don't want to diminish what I've still be able to do while dealing with this. I should have probably been doing some seated exercises, but hey, I've got 3 weeks, and some time to spare. Those seated exercises are going to get some run-throughs.

I'm also trying not to panic about all the rest of the projects I want to get done before surgery. I'm trying to keep the list manageable, but its been really, REALLY, REALLY, difficult. Just ask my poor husband. He's been trying to gently remind me to keep it in the pragmatic area.

So there it is. My journey is about to take a big detour and I'm going to really find out what I'm made of.  Thanks for stopping by today.