Last Wednesday (6th) after many phone calls and driving the receptionists at Dean crazy they managed to schedule me in to meet with a surgeon. (they were going to make me wait until the 13th, just to find out the results to my MRI!) Anyway, I met with Dr. Stidgen and after another evaluation and reading my results he informed me that I had loose cartilage and a possible torn meniscus. The pins from my first ACL surgery, in 2002, were blocking parts of my mensicus, so they wouldn't know for sure until they were in with the scope if they had to repair the meniscus or not.
Dr. Stidgen said the cartilage was causing my pain and thought a scope would be my best option. Whew! At least it wasn't the ACL again! After meeting with his nurse she let me know that they could fit me in for the scope, tomorrow!
SO less than 24 hours later I was waiting in the hospital lobby to have surgery...with my nurse Andy! He took the morning off from work to stay with me during the scope. He did a good job of keeping the atmosphere cheerful by giving the nurse a hard time about letting me sit in the comfy chair rather than him. He also made sure to tell me, "Shannon, if you see the light, just go to it!"
The process went very fast. I was put under at 9 a.m. and we were in the car on our way home at 11:30. I used the crutches for hobbling back and forth to the bathroom on Thursday and Friday, but went without them on Saturday. My knee feels great now, some soreness at the end of the day, but this whole process was a cake walk compared to having ACL reconstruction. I will have PT for a few weeks, but Andy claims that between his knee injuries and mine we could open our own therapy center.
I am just happy I had it fixed and I will be pain free for the start of the school year, and the wedding! Andy's frequent comments about buying me a wooden leg or carrying me down the aisle kept me smiling throughout this whole thing. I sure have been seeing a lot of Paul coming out in him these past few weeks! (A side note for Shelly...Paul called me to see how my knee was and said "I didn't want to call you, Julie made me...if it was Pearl having surgery I would have been down there right by her bedside!" :)
Thanks to the Luehmann's and Mueller's for the beautiful flowers as well!!! :)
I'm heading home this week to make one more dent in the wedding planning before the school year starts. I still can't believe that in 3 weeks I'll have 23 little 8 years olds back in my life! More wedding updates coming soon!!!
