Third Times a Charm

I was scheduled to have my PCL reconstruction done on February 4th and as some of you may have noticed, nothing was ever posted. Well, I had my surgery cancelled because I had a real bad flu and they don’t like sick people at the hospital. After I got better my surgery was rescheduled for Feb 28th, I didn’t post anything because I didn’t want to jinx the new surgery date and have to do another reschedule. The good news is that yesterday the reconstruction was performed and I am now resting at home. I am still recovering from anesthesia, so while what I type makes sense to me...it may not make sense to you.

Yesterday, my day started at 0400(4:00AM). Actually the previous day never really ended because I got almost no sleep due to nerves. I would suggest to anybody having any surgery to ask for valium to take the night before so you can sleep. My surgery was schedule to start at 0715(7:15AM) so I had to be at the hospital at 0600 to get going on all the pre-op stuff. Everything went very smooth, with the exception of my blood pressure(nerves), and everybody was ready for a two and a half hour long surgery. I walked into the operating room, the anesthesiologist starts doing his thing, and the last thing I remember is the gas mask.

So I start waking up and as my mind is getting recombobulated I asked, “What time is it?” and my wife who just sat down next to me says its 1315(1:15PM). Even with a major amount of anesthesia fog I realized surgery went a tad long…like double. At this point I am having an internal panic attack wondering WTF happened. I asked the nurse what happened during surgery and my wife was able to tell me that my surgeon was performing a new allograph technique and did not take that into account from a timing perspective. I spoke to my OS later in the day and found out his assistant didn’t know this new allograph technique which essentially made the entire surgery single threaded. Outside from that minor timing hiccup, my surgery went very smooth. I got home by 1445(2:45PM) and have been resting as much as I can.

Pain hasn’t been a major issue so far. When I was in recovery I was pretty sore, but now I would say I am at 4 on a scale of 1-10. I do know pain is on the way, the local anesthetic is starting to wear off and I am hoping I can manage with the meds I was given. Currently my pain management routine is as follows:

• 2 Percocet every 4 hours
• 800mg of Advil staggered 2 hours after the Percocet.

I am icing A LOT. I was given a cryo cuff and I am basically icing 30 minutes on/30 minutes off.

 

Here are the final surgery stats:

•  5.5 Hours.
•  Complete PCL replacement using a donor Achilles tendon.

Lessons learned:

1.  Ask for valium so you can sleep the night before.
2.  Surgery time estimates are just that, an estimate.
3.  Stay on top of icing and pain management
4.  If using a Cryo Cuff, get a couple of ice bags from the local stop and rob to augment your ice maker.