ACL Recovery Log #6 -ACL Recon Surgery

Well, it’s done!! I have a new ACL thanks to a generous cadaver donor. Here’s a little rundown of how my surgery day went. Jordan and I arrived at the surgery center at 11 am. I checked in and signed a bunch of paperwork. The nurse took me back to pre-op where they prepped me for surgery–changing into the scrubs and starting my IV.

After a while, the anesthesiologist came to go over the post-op pain meds and to discuss my options for anesthesia. He said 98% of ACL surgery patients go with a spinal (epidural) and stay awake during surgery. I was hesitant about it, but he made it sound perfectly fine and a lot better than general anesthesia. So I went with that! Then he prepped my knee with a nerve block and then I got some drugs via IV to relax (I was a nervous wreck) and did the epidural. Soon I couldn’t feel the lower half of my body (so weird.) My surgeon came over to talk to me–the drugs must have been working because I cannot for the life of me remember what he said. Ha! Before I knew it I was being rolled into the operating room. I remember shivering pretty bad which they said is common with epidurals. And then I completely blacked out and don’t remember a thing from the surgery. I guess I was talking though, I just don’t recall anything until waking up in recovery 2 hours later! The nurse gave me some more meds to control the pain. It didn’t feel too bad–kind of like I had just hiked Mount Marcy 10 times in a row. Most of the pain has been in my quad right above the knee.

Then I was sent home at around 4:30ish! Surprisingly the pain has been manageable (probably due to the pain meds I’m on and the nerve block.) I just keep waiting for it to hit me because everyone says the first few days are the worst. But maybe I’ll be lucky if I stick to my med schedule! Monday I can take the dressing off and my first follow up appointment isn’t until the 12th of March. In the meantime, I have exercises from my PT that I need to start doing in a few days. Overall things haven’t been as bad as I expected. I always think the worst. I can’t say enough good things about the team at the Captial Region Ambulatory Surgery Center. They made everything so comfortable and easy, despite me being super anxious about everything.