I went to bed late the night before. I had to ask two of my friends to come over and sign as legal witnesses for my documents that I was signing the night before surgery. I also was really testing the limits and eating chocolate chips right up to midnight – I think I had my last chocolate chip at 11:58 pm.
My mom and I ended up going to bed a little bit later and then woke up really early – around like 4:30 am for me to shower and then leave in the uber. We scheduled the uber the night before to make sure that there would be someone there to take us to the hospital that early. My surgery was at 7:30 am and we were supposed to check in at 5:30 am.
When we got to the hospital, we went to the fourth floor and waited for people to come and check us in. But no one was there. I ended up taking a nap on the couches while mom and I waited for people. An hour passed and no one showed. I final checked my phone and saw I had gotten missed calls (my ringer was off). I called the number back and they told me the surgery rooms were on the second floor! I was shook and super scared. We rushed down to the second floor and within a few minutes of getting checked in there I got rushed in to get ready for surgery but wow I almost majorly screwed everything up by not reading the paper.
I got changed into the hospital gowns and had the little cap to cover my hair. And then the anesthesiologist came and asked me all sort of questions. He asked me when I had last eaten and what I had eaten – and I got to say “11:58 Chocolate” which was kind of embarrassing but it was okay. And then he asked me if I wanted a nerve block and after a healthy amount of skepticism, I said yes (this was a good call!). They put the IV in me and then the fellow came to mark my leg. He wrote his initials and gave me a smiley face in purple marker. I remembered from my previous ACL surgery that they have to mark your leg before you go into surgery so the surgeon knows which leg to operate on.
Dr. A also stopped by and said hello and he would talk to me later. When my mom came she got to speak with him too and expressed to him her concerns that my ACL might also have some trouble. Dr. A promised that he would take extra care and look at the ACL while he was in there as well.
They gave me the drugs and the next thing I remember I was waking up on the bed. I remember that the first thing I felt was that my back was in SO much pain. They gave me Tylenol then and my knee ached a bit but mostly my back was in so much pain. I was also super drowsy so I kept falling in and out of sleep. Then I started getting nauseous for which they gave me more medicine for. My soccer coach came in and was talking with me. My mom said when Coach came over, I immediately perked up and put on an all-positive attitude but that soon after I started drifting off and spitting into a bag (the nerve block can have the side effect of nausea). And then, my machine started beeping frantically. I guess my heart rate monitor which they had slipped on my ear had fallen off. But at the time, my mom and coach had no idea what was going on and they got kind of scared. But everything ended up being okay and they put a new heart rate monitor on me.
After a bit, I ended up going home. They wheeled me out and then put me in the uber with my crutches. I was so tired so when we got out of the uber, I sped crutched to my apartment. I crutched up the stairs (somehow not falling!), sped crutched all the way to my bed where I collapsed in it – absolutely exhausted. I took off my shoes and I think I slept for like 6 hours. After that, I finally came to and went to the living room where I ate dinner and responded to everyone who had snapped or texted me abut my surgery.
I took my drugs at the appropriate hours and then fell asleep once again – the day of my Friday surgery was over. The day after surgery – Saturday – was a pretty rough day. I was in a lot of pain earlier in the day and then later at night. I also had a tough time sleeping through the pain that night. Whenever I tried to elevate my knee, it started throbbing intensely and I couldn’t keep it up. This was not super beneficial as then my knee’s swelling couldn’t really go down either as it couldn’t drain up my leg because I wasn’t elevating. Luckily all of Sunday went very well and by Monday morning I had convinced my mom that I was independent and could take care of myself.
Some of the ways I did this was showing her how I had perfected moving around my room/apartment with the crutches. I showed her my set up for the CPM (Continuous Passive Motion) machine and how I could set it up so I could do homework on my laptop while moving my knee. I also showed her how I would shower in the handicap stall in the soccer locker room. How I did this? Two words: Trash bags. I also had to actually lay out an entire schedule for her and my dad of where I would be and how I was getting to different places. Basically, in order for her to feel good about leaving me at school just 3 days post-op, I had to demonstrate I could plan everything out, which I did! I also successfully weaned myself off Tylenol and then off Advil after about a week which was another major plus.
Overall, compared to ACL surgery the pain was so much better. I was also able to return to normal activities much more quickly. The only downside of meniscus surgery compared to ACL surgery was that I couldn’t weight bear for a while and have to use crutches to get around. Other than that though, everything has gone super well and I’m glad to finally be on the road to recovery!
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