Surgery

So I got surgery on Thursday. I still have to scan the photos and upload them but hopefully they'll be here soon.

The background:
I've had bad knees my entire life. My kneecaps are very loose and slide out of place. Occasionally, they completely dislocate and cause me to fall for (seemingly) no reason. The question I most often get are "do you have to pop them back in?" and the answer to that is no, they go back in by themselves. The whole thing is very painful though. Over the years, my knees have gotten worse and worse. The frequent dislocations have caused the cartilage on my kneecaps to wear away and become arthritic (pics to come!). It prevents me from running, playing sports, and even little things like hiking on uneven surfaces. My knees just feel so unstable that I get very nervous doing anything besides walking.

I have been seeing an orthopedic surgeon since the beginning of the year to try to resolve this problem. We decided that the best course of action was for me to get surgery on both knees. It turns out I have two problems: 1) my kneecaps are too high and 2) the ligaments that are supposed to hold my kneecaps in place are off balance; that is, the inner ligament is too loose and the outer ligament is too tight, thus the sliding kneecaps. The surgery we were planning was fairly straightforward (from my perspective). My doctor was simply going to loosen up the tight ligament and tighten up the loose one. (At one point, the use of cadaver ligaments was even thrown into the mix - how exciting! But then my doc thinks we can just use my existing ones). That was scheduled for April - as soon as I got back from the CHI conference in Florence.

What happened:
I was in NYC on business the week of February 11th and I had another episode. I was walking through the lobby of my horrible hotel, the Paramount Hotel, and I my kneecap popped. Unfortunately, this one was not like all of the others I've had. I tried to get up and walk it off like I usually do, but I was unable to put any weight on it. I went to the hospital the next day and had to get crutches.

Fast forward four weeks and I'm in surgery at Stanford Hospital to remove a piece of cartilage that got knocked off when my knee dislocated. It was floating around in my knee causing problems since that day in NYC. I imagine things were a little more complicated than my doctor expected since I was in surgery for longer than scheduled. Since the cartilage was in there floating around for so long, it swelled a bit and had to be shaved down before it could be screwed back into place with bio-dissolvable screws. I was put under through general anesthesia - something I am not excited about experiencing again as my body did not take it well this time. My doctor was unable to perform the other surgery (tightening and loosening the ligaments) at the same time due to the nature of recovery. I have a special machine (a continuous passive motion machine) that moves my leg between extended and flexed very slowly. This is necessary for recovery so I'm able to bend it once it's healed. I have to be in the machine for 6-8 hours a day. I'm also attached to a special cooler for 5 days. It's really like a fancy ice pack that has ice water running through it for constant cooling.

The State of California now officially recognizes me as handicapped (woo good parking). I cannot drive for at least 4 weeks. I can't put weight on my leg for 8 weeks, which means I'm using crutches that entire time. I cannot fly due to increased risk of blot clots so I had to cancel business-paid trips to Switzerland and Italy.