Thought it would be good to relax for a while before this given the hard work i imagined would be required for rehab purposes. Elaine and me had 9 nights on Ibiza returning on 15th May. Very quiet, relaxing and just what we were after.
Went in to hospital on 17th with the operation that afternoon. The idea being that i could get home the following day if all was well. It wasn't. The surgery went fine with my own hamstring tendons harvested to make the new ACL but the silly buggers gave me a Patient Controlled Analgesia(PCA) device post op. This allows you to push a button when sore for immediate delivery of a controlled amount of medicine. Morphine in this case. The nurses encouraged me to use it quite freely however I think i may have got a bit carried away.
During the night i was sore, unable to stay asleep for more than 10-15 mins, or so it seemed, and was anticipating the pain becoming worse when the local anaesthetic added in theatre wore off. Once pressed the device locks you out for 5mins so you cant really over do it but i zapped myself loads during that night and suffered on Tuesday. Feeling nauseous, head spinning and falling asleep throughout the day in the fashion of heroin related gouching I couldn't take part fully in the physiotherapy. No going home till they had me on the stairs and it was going to have to wait till the next day.
So two nights in hospital then home. The pain and swelling seemed much less than with my arthroscopy last November. Went back to the physio yesterday and got a few more exercises to add in. Even at this early stage they, along with regular icing, are making quite difference to the swelling and discomfort. Funny that. Will be seeing the physio weekly and have a copy of the whole protocol which is likely to take at least 6 months. There is definitely a light on the horizon.
The exercises aren't particularly difficult and are done in 4 sessions per day. It is a bit time consuming but i've got plenty of that just now. Probably takes about 3 hours altogether for the sessions.
Feeling optimistic.
