Well my patient is recovering nicely. Maybe I can squeeze in 9 holes today ? Monica went for her knee surgery Thursday morning. She had popped her right ACL on the start of a truly fabulous ski day back in late March and missed all the great powder that day and the whole month that followed. Funny thing was, the darn ligament snapped while she was just doing a very standard turn, no fall or unusual twisting involved. She just stopped mid turn, standing and looked stunned.
Fortunately a group of ski instructors were in a small clinic down where I was and one had a radio. After the toboggan ride down the hill she was not really in much pain. So I left for a couple hours of great runs. Later when I checked in, she was ready to ski again. On the packed runs she was okay, but when we ventured into the untracked, her knee would become unstable. We knew but didn't want to believe. Only when the MRI was done earlier this month did the reality sink in.
She has the finest orthopedic Dr. around. He and his clinic specialize in sports therapy, and he is team doctor for Stanford football, and the 49ers, Dr. Dillingham. He did her left ACL about 6 years ago. This time he replaced her torn ACL (anterior cruciate ligament) with a cadaver graft of someone else's Achilles tendon. Much stronger and larger than the original. When I queried him, his reasoning was that evolution had not developed the women's ACLs as it had in men. Hunter/gatherer stuff I guess. He claimed that women suffer this injury in grossly higher numbers than men, like five times as many also that an Achilles tendon would make for a much stronger ACL.
The operation video he sent home showed an interesting segment of his routing out a larger hole to pass the new ACL through using this auger-like tool to chew away parts of the bone and gelatinous tissues in the area. Cool stuff. The rest of her knee joint including the patella and meniscus looked very clean and unaffected. The finale comes with the screwing in of one of the $300 screws that anchors the new ligament.
Two weeks of crutching, nightly riding of the CPM hardware and hours of PT, and workouts lie ahead. In six months she'll be skiing again though probably wearing a designer brace. Unfortunately these are not reversible, so her old one is of no use. Thank Dog for medical insurance. I've been waiting on her, hand and foot the last two days. Time for some sociopathic attacking of the local golf course. Course I guess I should do some of the dishes first. |
