A Brand New Anterior Cruciate Ligament

 It happened. Scott had surgery on his knee and came away with a brand new Anterior Cruciate Ligament. Well, just like you say with a car - new to him, not really new. His surgery was to replace his blown out ACL with a donor ligament from a cadaver.

Surgery was February 20. It was quite a feat figuring out where each of our kids was going to be and who was going to pick them up from where during that whole day. Thankfully we are surrounded by really good friends that took good care of us. We arrived at the hospital and were told it was going to be a while because the doctor in front of us was running behind. We hung out together in a waiting room while Scott got to shave his leg and put on his dress. This wasn't a sex change, right?

This was so funny.

Nurse: "I'm going to get you a nice, big oversized gown."

Scott: "Is that a fat joke?" 

Maybe we were nervous, but we both laughed pretty hard. 

 

 They came to take him away. We said our good byes and he went in to surgery. Scott's only request was to see the donor ligament beforehand. They couldn't show him before he went under anesthesia, so I got these pictures texted to my phone from the doctor. 

 

The surgery only took about 2 hours and then the doctor came to tell me that everything went perfectly. They found exactly what they expected going in. I went back to Scott, who was coming out of general anesthesia to find him quite groggy and complaining about how much his knee hurt. It was a sad sight. 

I successfully got him home after stops for his prescriptions and 40 lbs. of ice (went through in 2 days) for his cool contraption to ice his knee.  

Coming home that evening and the next few days that followed were down right CRAZY around here! The kids demanded so much attention and I needed to take care of Scott - getting meds at the right time, refilling ice cooler through the night and day, food, drink, etc. Turns out, there is a reason I didn't go into nursing. I am NOT good at it. Luckily, we all survived.

Scott stayed in bed the first days and occasionally had visitors. He was pretty out of it though.

 On the third day, he left his bed just long enough to go to the church with us for the Second Annual Soup Social that he organizes and hosts for the ward. It was fun, there was a ton of soup and everyone was there, but Scott was pretty much white in the face and had beads of sweat across his forehead. Maybe too much, too soon. I'm glad he got to be there for a little while.

 Things have been getting better and better. Scott has been on crutches since the surgery, but as of yesterday is able to walk around a couple of hours a day without them. He goes to physical therapy for two hours every Monday, Wednesday and Friday after work. He is making major progress there. So, it's all looking good. He'll be taking it easy for a while longer, but slowly he is joining the moving around, living world again.