Knee Surgery

When I first went down to Utah last Fall, my second day of classes I was walking around campus and experienced a sharp pain in my knee, it didn't not go a way and became progressively worse no matter what I did. I went home for Christmas and got it looked at and found out that I would most likely have to have knee surgery to fix it, but we decided to wait. While in DisneyWorld my mom noticed just how much pain my knee was actually causing me, so we talked about it and came to the decision that I needed to come home earlier than I had anticipated to have the surgery. So a week after coming back from my fun vacations I was packed up and beginning another adventure to Alaska. I called my boss to see if I would be able to begin work early and have a flexible schedule around me knee and was all set.

When we met with the doctor he reconfirmed that I would have to have surgergy; the good news was that it wasn't as bad as we had been anticipating. He told me that my injury was typical of tall, skinny people (lucky me) and it wouldn't surprise him if it occurred in my other knee in the future as well. So we scheduled my surgery for that Thursday (oh the surgery was a Lateral Release). I arranged with my boss to have Friday off with the hopes of being back to work on Monday (that was not the case).

This wasn't my first rodeo, I had shoulder surgery my senior year of high school so I knew what to expect. I was a little nervous because when I had surgery last time I had a REALLY hard time holding down food for the next day. When I mentioned this to the doctor they prescribed me with a little patch behind my ear that kept the nausea at bay for the first couple of days (worked like a charm!!!) The surgery went well (the doctor checked my meniscus and said it looked really good) and I went home and slept all weekend long. Mom had taken work on on Friday. I went to physical therapy the next day (yes we immediately started physical therapy to prevent loss of motion in my knee).

Week after they removed the bandage, I bruise really easy from surgery (at least that's what the Doctor said)

The recovery process went really well, however I did make a little mistake. I was feeling so well and had thought that I was farther along in my recovery process that I decided to go and play volleyball (very lightly, without any intention of getting into it) but I forgot my little bit of a competitive streak. Daniel, we weren't dating at this point, served the ball and I missed it. Being the cocky person that I am, I told him to serve it to the same spot, he did and I went down to get it. As I squatted down, I felt this pop and felt a pain like none I've ever felt before or after and collapsed. I promptly got up and pretended that nothing was wrong and let everyone play. Then I left the gym to go out and bawl my little eyes out. Daniel noticed that I had left and came out to see if I was okay and realized that it was a lot worse than I had let on earlier. He got me some ice and sat there with me until I was able to walk (very slowly and very painfully). I didn't tell my mom right off the bat, I had pt the next day and it wasn't until I talked to her and realized that I could have really screwed my knee up that I decided to tell my mom. We had to keep an eye on my knee and if it swelled up too much we would have had to go to the hospital to have another surgery (bleh) Thankfully that was not the case and my knee began to heal. After six weeks I was completely back to normal and enjoying life.

I hadn't realized just how badly my knee was holding me back until I had got it fixed. I am so grateful that I was able to get it fixed and can now lead the active life that I am accustomed too. I feel truly blessed!