Kelly's World

Now that a date has been set for my surgery I’m starting to consider my rehabilitation a bit more. What I can and can’t do, if I can continue with my plans for Christmas etc. Luckily our office is shutting down for the Christmas break for 3 weeks (instead of the usual 2) and they’ve approved my working from home for the 2 weeks directly after my surgery. This is also the last 2 weeks before the Christmas break, so I’m looking at a good 5 weeks before I need to consider coming back into the office.

One of my concerns was the crutches, it appears they recommend crutches for the first 2 weeks. As I am booked in for surgery on the 9th, the 2 week “crutch timeframe” brings me right up to the 23rd. Not bad – I’ll hopefully be off them in time for Christmas. However we are meant to be driving down to Lismore for Christmas day (as we’re visiting Mat’s grandfather), which is  a 5 hour drive. Hopefully there won’t be any issues with sitting in the car for a long period of time, otherwise I’ll just have to sit in the backseat with my leg stretched out, stir Mat up about being my “driver” and call him James. “Just to Lismore thanks James”.

Immediately following our trip to Lismore, we’re then returning on the 27th, only to head straight back up north to Bagara to go camping with friends. It’s going to be a busy time. What a better modus operandi for rehabilitation though? Chillaxing at the beach, drinking, and making Mat do everything for me since I can play the “injury” card. Just kidding, I’m too stubborn for that – I hate being dependant on people. I’ll have to speak to my physio and try to arrange to see him before we leave for Lismore so he can give me a plan for the next week and a half.

I googled about the recovery phases, and managed to find some great information on about.com. It steps through the different timeframes of recovery, explaining what the patient will be focusing on and basic activities they’ll be able to partake in. Of course everyone is different so I can’t consider that a concrete plan for my recovery, but it gives me a taste of what to expect.I know I have to be very careful walking as I can’t put my knee under any stress at all, so walking on the sand will be a bit of a challenge. I always charge over it like a lunatic, and it’s not the most even of surfaces!

Just a small point too, I’m yet to find out what time my surgery actually is, but I plan on blogging the whole thing. From waiting for it to happen, through to waking up in my hospital bed doped out on painkillers, I’m writing it. And if I get to see the gory image of what will be my knee with multiple cuts and stitches, I’ll be sure to take a photo for everyone to see! *grin* Stay tuned!!

Final note – I hope I get to wear one of these sexy things. I’m sure that will get me some major sympathy points!!

Knee Brace

**Update – 2nd Jan 2010**

It’s been over a year now since I had the surgery. To see all my blog posts related to my knee reconstruction, click here. Feel free to ask me any questions as well, I’m happy to answer them all.

Wow, I didn’t realise it’s been 4 weeks since my last update of my knee , so I have a little bit of updating to do.

I found out from my old coach that I was actually covered by insurance from the netball centre, but it had been 2 months since the initial injury. It appeared you had to submit the forms within 30 days of the injury, so I rang the insurance company and explained that I hadn’t known about it. They said it should be ok, and that I would need to get the forms in ASAP. At the moment the form is with my doctor, as he was required to fill out a section on the injury, then I’m able to send it off. When I spoke to the insurance company on the phone, I got the impression they didn’t cover the gap between the total cost of the surgery and the medicare rebate, so at the moment I’m at least $2,000 out of pocket. I have paid $300 in physio fees already (after my health insurance pays their chunk), and the operation is going to cost $1700 (I got a loan to cover that bit, as I don’t really have that much money lying around at the moment). I would assume they would pay for my physio though, so at least that bit I don’t have to stress out about. With 2 months pre-surgery, and 9 months post-surgery physio the cost is really going to add up.

New type of anaesthetic

As previously mentioned I’ve gotten a loan to pay for the surgery. This meant I really had nothing holding me back from proceeding with the operation. I rang the hospital earlier this week and confirmed I was ready to go ahead, and received word today that my surgery will be on the 9th December – 3 weeks away. on the 2nd December I will be meeting with the anaesthesiologist to get a health checkup and discuss the anaesthetic method they will be using on me. I hope it’s a general and I’m completely knocked out, I don’t want to be awake for any part of it. Can you imagine? They pull out my hamstring, dangle it in front of me and say “woohoo check this out”. Yuk, no thanks.

Currently it’s all about preparing for for the operation. I’ve already had a million things run through my head, from who will be dropping me off and picking me up (I don’t want to put anyone out by making them spend the night there with me unnecessarily) to what I’m going to bring (iphone, clothes, the specific bag I will take so I can carry it easily while using crutches etc). Sad isn’t it? The worst part is I’m actually excited about the surgery. I want to get it over and done with so I can get the rehab done, and eventually not be restricted in what actions I can and can’t do. For example, I was at the gym over the weekend and had just finished 20mins of cycling. Knee felt fine, no worries there at all. Stood up, lifted my leg to climb off (as it was one of the seated ones with pedals out in front, not the normal bikes) and my knee let out a massive “CRACK” and pain shot through my leg. I limped over to the lockers and sat there massaging my knee for a little bit, stood up and it was all fine, like nothing had ever happened. I checked it with my physio this morning and apparently my cartilage had just gotten into a place where it shouldn’t have, so when I moved the crack was the cartilage going back into the correct position (aka nothing to worry about). I can’t wait until I don’t have to stress about getting off a bike.

So….let the count down begin. 20 days to go!