I'll start with a big hello, so Hello.
As you can see from my profile, my name is Paul and I've got a bit of history with my right knee (well I suppose I've got as much history with my left knee, 35 years of it, just not as eventful or painful....).
I am 3 days post a PCL/MCL allograft repair in my right knee, which is now my eighth operation on this knee over the past 18 years, and the third in the past 12 months. This blog is mainly going to deal with my re-cuperation from this most recent surgery, with a few other pearls of wisdom thrown in.
For a bit of history I'll quickly run through my previous operations (as far as I can remember them, we are talking 18 years now and I struggle to remember last week most of the time). I originally hurt my knee playing football when some great lump of a midfielder landed on my knee when it was out-stretched and tore my MCL and partially tore my ACL. Operation 1 was an MCL repair followed by lots of physio and fitness work, returning to football 3 months after the op. All was fine until one fateful day 7 weeks later, where on a rare foray forward from my position of centre defence, I played a neat one two on the edge of the opposition area, sent the keeper the wrong way (to be fair the keeper went the way I was aiming...) and scored. Here's where the problems began again.
My celebration consisted of jumping up and yelling 'Yey' following by landing and going 'Ow'. (My Dad still has a great newspaper cutting which says 'unfortunately Paul injured himself celebrating and took no further part in the game', he loves bringing it out on family occasions and whenever I'm in hospital).
Something had popped in my knee, subsequently found out to be my ACL, MCL and PCL. Great. So, a further MCL and ACL repair later (note two separate operations, three months apart therefore two sets of post-op physio and recovery, I tell you medical folk can be cruel sometime) I was back to some semblence of health, but not playing football anymore.
Things settled down for a couple of years, increasing pain lead to an arthroscopic clear out of some debris in 2001, then it all went quiet again until 2005 when I tore my cartilage. I had a partial meniscectomy (I think that's how you spell it) followed by a wonderful 3 months off work watching the Ashes. I was a Paramedic at the time and the knee just wasn't up to it. A change of career and I was back to work.
The next fateful event was a rather beery evening when a work colleague mentioned his team were short of players and did I fancy a game. Sounded like a great idea so 15 hours later I've dusted off my old kit and am taking part in my first rugby game for 15 years. Surprisingly my knee was OK for this game and the next 18 months, painful after a game but nothing a bit of ice and a few gin and tonics couldn't sort.
Roll forward to December 2008 and a rather sticky, muddy looking field which I described as a bit of a knee tweaker. Turned out this was a premonition and tweak my knee I did. Initially diagnosed as a cartilage tear (partial meniscectomy in April 2009) followed by diagnosis of a failure of my Kennedy LAD ACL repair (revision surgery in September 2009) to a weak/stretched/torn PCL/MCL repaired by allograft three days ago in April 2010.
Phew, still with me? Good (and if not, you'll never read this bit so I can call everyone who didn't make it this far slackers!).
This blog will now mainly focus on my recovery from this repair and will wander around talking drugs (mainly legal ones!), physio, braces, crutches, work and any other meandering thoughts that crop up every now and then. So I hope you'll join me again.
Paul
