In December 2009 my left knee was constantly locking up, catching, and giving out. Decided that I needed a new orthopedic doctor since I had already had 2 scopes. It just so happened that Charlie's buddy from high school recently moved back to Thibodaux. He had just finished medical school and a orthopedic sports fellowship in Los Angeles. He said I needed MRI and that it looked like I had scar tissue and a small cartilage defect. So that December he went in and cleaned my knee up and biopsied my cartilage. He sent that biopsy to a lab in Boston that grew more of my own cartilage cells from the sample.
By December of 2010 my knee was giving me problems again. I have 3 kids and I teach pre-k so I'm on my feet most of the day. And at the end of most days my knee would be very swollen. At that point the cartilage defect was getting larger, which meant that my bones were grinding more and more. I got fitted for and unloader brace which realigned my knee to take pressure off the damaged area. The pain was getting more and more pronounced...even when I had the brace on. It was then time to do something else. Something more radical and permanent.
There were 3 procedures that needed to be done. It was then the question of whether to do 2 separate surgeries or 1 big surgery. Finally, after scheduling conflicts, I had 1 big surgery on June 17, 2011!
Here's what they did:
1. Remember the biopsy of cartilage that was taken during surgery # 3... And it was sent to Boston. Well they made a cartilage graft from my own cells to patch over the defective area. (ACI Cartilage Graft)
2. Then he ripped out the remaining piece of meniscus and replaced it with a donor cadaver meniscus. So now I have a whole meniscus instead of just 1/3 of one. (Meniscal Transplant)
3. Finally, he realigned my knee by cutting part of my tibia off. This is done to shift the pressure to the outside part of the knee. (called High Tibial Osteotomy)
Essentially, I have a brand new knee! All new parts....nothing missing...nothing torn. The procedure went good. It lasted about 6 1/2 hours. I've got a long recovery ahead of me and will spend a lot of hours in rehab.
As for right now... I have a hospital bed in my bedroom. I stay hooked up to the CPM machine for at least 6 hours a day. I can't put any weight on my leg for about 2 months!
Stories of my recovery to come! I've got few good stories from the hospital... Lets just say, me and sedatives don't mesh well together!
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Location:Surgery Details
