Bye Bye ACL

So after many weeks of waiting to figure out what is wrong with my knee.... I finally got some results on Friday. The doctor suspected early on that it was ACL related, but I had to get an MRI to know for sure. Well, the doc was right... unfortunately :) Turns out my ACL is completely torn. The good news of that is that no other ligaments are injured. Usually with ACL injuries, there is also damage to the meniscus or the posterior cruciate ligament. I do have some bad bone bruising, but that will heal over time.

So, I will be needing surgery to reconstruct my ACL. Luckily, I'm not in any pain and can get around well for the most part- so there is no rush on the surgery. They do require pre-op physical therapy, which I will start this month. The crazy thing is that they want you going into surgery feeling as if you don't need it. Weird, huh? They said that the closer they can get my knee to full motion now, the easier my recovery will be after the surgery.
There are different options to consider with the ACL recontruction- mainly what tissue I want to use to reconstruct it- my own, a donor's, or a combo of both. There are of course pros and cons to each method, but the doctor has been very helpful in letting me know what those are.
The surgery should only have me out of pocket for about 2 weeks, after that, I will be able to get around on crutches until about week 6. By week 8, I should be close to feeling 100% for day to day activities. It usually takes 3-5 months to be ready to be "active" again with running, etc. The skiing, hiking, etc should be possible around month 9- which I am fine to give that lots more time! :)

So, we'll keep you posted on things. Right now we are just going to play things by ear and see how the physical therapy goes before we start deciding on when to do surgery.

I'm sure Camille is counting down until mommy can run around with her again.... :)