Surgery

I remember always having the thought that surgery was kind of cool. Sure it probably sucked, but now you're part of some special group of people with cool scars and some interesting story to tell.

Yeah, that was a stupid thought. This shit is not fun at all.

Almost exactly six days after the injury I was being carted off into the annals of UPMC Mercy to have my knee reconstructed. Dr. Lezniak, my surgeon, had strongly suggested that I get the surgery as soon as possible. My lateral meniscus was actually fully torn and had been folded over itself, causing it to be pinched by my leg. Due to this, I wasn't able to really bend/move my leg without a decent amount of pain, so he was concerned that the longer I wait for the surgery, the more my leg would deteriorate. If it had just been my ACL, I could have delayed the surgery until I was ready, but since I couldn't put any weight on my leg, I was scheduled for surgery the day after my initial appointment with Dr. Lezniak.

I'm now 3 days out of the operation and bored out of my mind. Most movement of the leg still causes a considerable amount of pain since the stitches are still in, so 90% of my days have been spent by me sitting in one place and moving as little as possible. March Madness has been keeping me somewhat sane, but there is only so much basketball I can watch before I lose my mind. My mom has also been taking incredible care of me, making me food, helping me move from one resting spot to the next, and whatever else I have asked her to do. I've never been one to ask for help, so I'm already exhausted of asking for help with the tiniest of favors. I can't even count how many times I've had my mom get up and walk across the room to grab me the remote, or my phone, or take the dishes from me. I know she doesn't mind, but it makes me feel incredibly useless.

I have a follow-up appointment later this week where they are planning on taking out the stitches, and I'm hoping after that I'll be in much better shape. As of now I'm doing some very basic exercises to mitigate the muscular dystrophy, but hopefully once the stitches come out I'll be able to kick it up a notch. I just want to be able to do basic tasks on my own again. The pain meds they gave me have made it hard to focus anything specific for an extended period of time, so I apologize if this post isn't my best writing. I'm slowly starting to wean off the medicine and hope that I shouldn't need it after the next couple of days.

Until then I'll just continue to sit in my living room, leg elevated and hip cramping. There isn't any basketball on for another day now since the bracket has finally been set, so I'll need to find some movies or something to pass the time. I just watched Boss Baby. It was pretty good.