Reconstructed ACL

When's the best time to get surgery? January! Because then you hit your deductible, and your health insurance will pay for the rest of the year of physical therapy appointments! Yay!


Clayton tore his ACL playing basketball a couple months ago. After an MRI and a few visits with a specialist, he was told that he would need knee surgery. He was surprisingly cheery about it. The nurses at Cleveland Clinic really liked him, they said they wished that every patient was like him. After he was sanitized and hooked up, the nurse led me to the back to see him before the operation. As we were walking she asked me if Clayton is usually a chatty guy. I said yes, and she said that she thinks he's a little nervous because he is talking everyone's ear off. haha. Sure enough, I go sit down next to him, and he's cracking jokes and babbling about nothing the whole time. In fact, that hyper chattiness didn't die down until 3 days post op. Percocet reaction?


Everything went really well. The doctor showed me lot of pictures and explained everything that they did, which I have completely forgotten now. I do know that they shaved off a part of his hamstring and created a new ACL out of it. Also, how cool is this, the hamstring (which a tendon) that is now his ACL will actually turn into an ACL (which is a ligament) in a few months. Something in the bone that it has been screw into will actually physically transform it from a tendon to a ligament. Bodies are amazing.

Clayton's recovery is going pretty smoothly. Luckily, we have this incredibly cuddly puppy to keep him company. Abe's actually not allowed on the furniture, which we have been really strict about, but we someone made an exception. The first couple of days were a little rough, but he's already up and walking with a slight limp. We have a lot of physical therapy ahead of us, but for the most part life has gone back to normal.


The stitches were uncovered when some tape fell off, so I gave him a sparkly bandaid to cover them up :) 

Comments

  1. BeckyMarch 7, 2017 at 9:05 PM

    haha, i love the sparkly bandaid, the crossed-out "we," and the info about the knee! we all noticed how chatty clayton was after the surgery. he was calling all of us at almost the same time, it was hilarious! :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. BeckyMarch 7, 2017 at 9:05 PM

    haha, i love the sparkly bandaid, the crossed-out "we," and the info about the knee! we all noticed how chatty clayton was after the surgery. he was calling all of us at almost the same time, it was hilarious! :)

    ReplyDelete

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