Thursday 4th October 2012 - Day Of Surgery

Well here we go!!!! It's the morning of surgery and I am just about to leave the house for the hospital. It is about 35 minutes drive from my home town of Liverpool.....

Was due to be at the hospital at 7:30am but I didn't arrive until 8:40am. There was a really bad traffic jam on the motorway which isn't the usual route I would have taken.. I rang ahead an let the ward know and they were very understanding.

Upon my arrival I was shown to a side ward which was opposite the Nurse Station which was reassuring, I then sat with a Nurse and went through some admission paperwork, I was then visited by the Anaesthetist who went through some further questions on my lifestyle, eg Do I smoke? and how many? How much Alcohol do I drink? If I take Amphetamines or Ectacsy tablets? Or when was the last time..... I told him I do not use these sorts of drugs but that I smoked 10-15 cigarette's a day.

He then told me what he would do in regards to helping me with the pain and also administer General Anaesthetic. He also advised that he would give me an injection in my groin in my Femoral Artery for a nerve block whilst I was under. I was told this will help with the pain above my knee but as I was having a bone plug extracted and a piece of my Patella Tendon this may not help for the pain below my knee. He also advised he may pump my knee with a Local Anaesthetic to help with the pain when I wake up.

One of the Surgeon's also came to visit me shortly after to explain the procedure, he drew a arrow in black marker pen and started to describe the usual procedure for an Arthroscopy he then went on to say how my Surgeon would extract fibres of my hamstring and use them, I stopped him in his tracks and advised that I was told I was getting the Patella Tendon graft. H e quickly referred to a letter mounted on orange paper which explained the full procedure and type of graft to be used. He apologised for the mix up and went onto explain how my Patella tendon would be extracted with a bone plug on each end and used then to be held in place by some Calcified Pin's which would eventually morph into bone after some time.

Nervously waiting for Surgery.... Eeek!
 

I was then told I would be called for around 10:30am as I was late to arrive they had arranged for another patient to go before me. (funny thing is for some reason I wanted to be 2nd in and by default I was)

Below is a video of the procedure I went through. I also had a horn tear to my Meniscus.

 

I went down for Surgery at 11:00am and the procedure was finished around 3:30pm. I was placed in Recovery and was transfered back to my side room shortly after. I had an Adverse Reaction to the Anaesthetic which let to further complications later on, which I will explain later.

 

It took me some time to wake up and come out of the Anaesthetic I was in a bit of a bad way as the below picture shows.

 

After the Anaesthetic it took me a long time to come around, I was attached to IV Morphine and an Antibiotic drip, an Oxygen mask and a blood pressure monitor.

Once I managed to come to my senses I could not stop vomiting, this lasted for 4 days, I was distracted mostly by the nausea and vomiting to even think about my leg. For some reason the IV Morphine was removed early hours that evening and replaced with Paracetamol IV, I just couldn't stop vomiting for the life of me. I spent Thursday and Friday night in hospital and was discharged 1pm Saturday 6th October 2012 (almost exactly to the hour 6 months since injury)

 

 



When I woke I had these straps on my legs which were attached to an air compressor at the end of my bed to prevent DVT

The next morning I was visited by 2 Physiotherapists as I was not up to it after Surgery on the Thursday, I was shown a technique to get in and out of bed by using my left leg (good leg) as an anchor underneath to help take the weight and to prevent the graft from being under strain.

 

They had me walking up and down on crutches and showed me a technique of how to go up and down a staircase correctly. I went up and down a flight of stairs with the support of the rail and a single elbow crutch. I managed this quite well and with only some pain. My biggest fear was of losing my balance or fainting as I still wasn't feeling my usual self.



 

 On the day of discharge Saturday 6th October 2012 my bandage was removed and I had my wound site  assessed and re-dressed whilst still in hospital, the Staff Nurse told me that I had metal staples in my knee and that I had a 2 inch incision down the front of my knee also a single staple and 2 other small incisions before she revealed the below

 



With bandage removed



Once the protective dressings were removed this revealed the full extent of the size of the stapled incision down the front of my knee where the Patella Tendon Graft was taken from

 



This is with the protective dressing removed 06/10/12



I was discharged with the following medications and directed to take them as follows 2x 500g Paracetamol, 2x 30mg Codeine Phosphate and 15ml Liquid Morphine to take together every 4 hrs.

 

One serious cocktail of drugs :S