Checksum Arcanius

And so, I shall win.

On Thursday I promised my physical therapist that I would make it into the gym before our next visit. So, while taking a brief break from The Project on Sunday, I headed to the IMA for a little bit of a workout. I was pleasantly surprised with how far I’ve come in just the couple of weeks.

Not long ago, my hamstrings could barely lift my own lower leg at all. A week ago, I couldn’t curl even 25 pounds. Sunday, 25 pounds was difficult, but I was able to curl it 10 times for three sets without overexerting myself. Now, two days later, I’m feeling the first “good pain” that my legs have felt in a long time — the achy muscle pains of gaining back muscle tone and strength to my atrophied right leg.

It has been a good start to the week in other ways as well. My CSE partner Remington’s work last night and this morning secured a 4.0 for us in our CSE class, and my physical therapist cleared me for riding my bike today. So for the first time in a long time, I rode my bike to school. It felt good, but next time I’m wearing my long fingered gloves :-).

I have been having trouble getting to sleep at reasonable times, leading of course to trouble getting up at reasonably times. Part of the blame, I believe, was the lack of physical activity that I have fallen into since tearing my ACL. So today I decided to change that and go for a run.

Well, the bad news is that I’m once again not in great shape — so much for best shape of my life at 25. The good news is that my knee held up well, and I think the run did the trick — I am ready for bed!

Running with a knee brace took a little bit of adjustment, but I’m sure the extra lateral protection is well worth the small distraction.

Today at 10:00, I left for the UW Sports Medicine Clinic (not to be confused with Hall Health Sports Medicine, where I initially went after my injury). There, I filled out some paperwork and then met Dr. Chris Wahl, whom Dr. Jonathan Drezner at Hall Health Sports Medicine referred me to. After another short exam and looking at MRIs, Dr. Wahl shared his conclusion that I have a ruptured (nearly to completely torn) ACL and a sprained LCL. The LCL he thinks has a good chance of healing on its own because it is outside of the middle of the knee. The ACL, on the other hand, has no chance of healing on its own, and will need ligament reconstructive surgery to restore stability to my knee.

My parents were kind enough to attend with me, and we each asked a number of questions about the surgery, the recovery period, timing, and so forth. The end result is that I am headed in for surgery on the 9th of November. I think of it as a sort of early birthday present from Dr. Wahl. The surgery will involve harvesting two of the five hamstring tendons from my right leg and using these to replace the ruptured ACL. Also at the time of the surgery, the state of my LCL will be reassessed, and if it is determined to not be healing tightly enough, I will receive an allograft (cadaver tissue) reinforcement to the outside of the right knee.

The hamstring autograft procedure ends up being stronger than the original ACL, and out of hundreds of reconstruction procedures that Dr. Wahl has performed, no one has ever had any problems with their hamstrings afterwards. If the LCL reinforcement is necessary, I will end up with a much bigger scar on the outside of my right knee. This is because of a nerve that runs near where the surgery must take place; they must move this nerve during the surgery to avoid cutting it, which would prevent me from feeling or controlling the muscles at the top of my foot. The ACL procedure, on the other hand, involves only three small holes around the right knee.

My confidence in Dr. Wahl is high; it was further supported by the following exchange between myself and a UW EE professor:

Me: I wanted to write you to thank you for showing us the cleanroom and lab areas during Albert’s Neural Engineering class. I’m also the student who hurt his knee, and you had mentioned a knee specialist that I might want to talk to. If you can easily find his name, that would be great, but even if not, don’t worry; I think I’m in good hands already.

EE Prof: The name of the doctor is Christopher Wahl, he is probably still and assistant professor in UW Medicine.

Me: Amazing! Dr. Wahl is the surgeon who I met with today and am going to have reconstruct my ACL in about three weeks. When I said I thought I was in good hands, I guess I was right!

EE Prof: That’s great! My friend had a very good experience with him, and he was recommended to her from others who said very good things of him.

Fortuitous!

I saw a Sports Medicine doctor at the UW Hall Health Center today. Both he and a resident he is training came to the same conclusion: my knee is hampered by an injured lateral collateral ligament, or LCL (see picture).

The good news is that the LCL is not the ACL. The bad news is that it still might be a tear; I won’t know until I get an MRI sometime in the next week. I have been advised to not bike (a bummer!) but I am allowed to put weight on the leg, which makes getting around campus in a timely manner much more doable. I have a huge knee brace with metal (!) hinges on right now, and I can walk without the assistance of crutches, although I have those too just in case. I also get to pop 9 ibuprofen a day. Woohoo druggie Ryan!

This morning, just after the game of ultimate Frisbee started, I went up to try to intercept a throw into the end zone, and came down on my right leg all wrong. The leg hyper extended and my knee “popped” and I crumpled to the ground in excruciating pain. It sucked.

On the bright side, my friends are the best people in the world. They helped me off the field as soon as the pain had subsided enough for me to move, and then they provided ibuprofen, a knee brace, transportation home, ice packs, transportation to and from the Husky game, and a shoulder to lean on all the way.

So, my knee is in really bad shape. I’ll need to see a doctor on Monday to see how bad the damage is. I’m most concerned about making it to school and after that, work. I should be able to drive, but biking may be out of the question, depending on the extent of the damage and the speed of recovery.

Well, I suppose it had to happen sooner or later. Thankfully, my friends rock.