Day 4: Miniature Milestones

     After any sort of major procedure like this, it's always funny which things are used as markers for progress. Simply bending my leg a few degrees at this point is a major achievement. Going number 2 for the first time is also a big one (trust me). And I was able to achieve another minor milestone today: finally taking a shower. It had been 3 1/2 days since I last bathed, so I was very much looking forward to it. Since the incisions on the knee are covered with gauze pads and wrapped up, you have to keep them dry- no water should get anywhere near the incisions at this early stage. So what you do is take off the brace, polar treatment bag, and ace bandage, then put a trash bag over the gauze and such and tape that baby down on each side so no water can get underneath it. It worked very well, and my parents have a handy little stool to sit on in the shower which was very very knee-friendly.

     After that was over with, it was time to change the dressing directly on the incisions, which meant getting a look at the actual knee for the first time since the operation. Here's what it looked like:

     Pay no attention to my ramblings. Considering the ordeal that knee has been through in the last 72 hours, that's pretty amazing. There are 3 incisions on the top where the arthroscope, drill, and various other surgical tools were inserted. There's also another incision somewhere on the back of my leg where they took the sections of hamstring to make the new ligament, but they were so unnoticeable that I couldn't see where they were. At every step along this process modern medicine has really surprised me (not to mention made me glad to be born when I was).

     At this point I guess my next minor milestone is being able to bear any sort of weight at all on the injured knee. I'm continuing with the light rehab exercises I've been given, and hopefully within 1-2 weeks I can walk on my own again. I think updates on here will be a little sparser as things proceed, mostly because the monotony of these first few days just doesn't provide very compelling images or descriptions. I can't wait to be better, but this is definitely an interesting experience to go through.