the surgery went well ...

[psyklone393]

it seems that everything went smoothly. i'm on the road to recovery. woooohooo!

note: for the next week or two, any outburst of the word 'woohoo' is more than likely a side effect of vicodin and/or percocet.

so they told me that the second day was going to be the hardest and holy cow, they were not kidding around. but it's all downhill from here. i'll be ready to ride soon enough.

i got a video of ithe procedure as well as some still pics through the orthoscope, but i haven't transferred the video over or scanned in the ortho-pics. i do have some digital pics that we took and you can check them out here:

[Only registered and activated users can see links. ]

the thing that's really great about this is how supportive suzie has been. she's basically doing everything for me right now and keeps telling me how i'll be back to riding this summer which really helps keep me focused on doing what i need to do and working through some of the pain.

cheers,

-Z

[MotoMax]

Good to here.

[VET393]

Good deal -Z

Nice pics by the way

[Dirtbikindad393]

Man Z thats good news. I am glad to hear your doing well now work hard and get recovered soon.

D

[huffdaddy70]

Good to hear your doing well! What exactly happened to your knee? And how did you do it?

[psyklone393]

thanks dbd!

huffdaddy70, here's what happened: torn acl ... not good.

[TexasDirtNap393]

Psy, glad to hear it went well. You'll be up and runnin for the summer fun. Looking forward to it !

[Dirtbiknkid]

glad to hear everything went well, hope its a speedy revovery.

[Bubbagums]

Glad it went well. Just curious what they used to replace the acl. I understand its done a couple of different ways.

Bob

[Blitz393]

naaasty pics. are those your wife's hands in some of those pics? look a little... girly

great to hear, now.... who gets to babysit your YZ for ya? you know, i have a little room in my bedroom for her, and i'll take REEEEEL good care of her. c'mon waddaya say.

take care Z! get well soon!

Rob

[char393]

Wow Z....those pics really put it into perspective. Thats gnarly.

Sounds like you've got a great woman there.....you'd better buy her some flowers (if she's into that sort of thing ).

Be sure to keep us updated on your progress.

[Woody_393]

FREAK those were nasty... Not bad really, but gosh... Those'll get you to buy some knee braces all by themselves.

Good luck with the recovery, and keep us posted.

[Keetoman393]

Keep up the stretching work outs and get healed up soon, Z!!

You should have just yanked that tape off

[psyklone393]

bubbagums --> they used part of my patellar tendon to replace the acl. i opted for that one over the cadaver graft because it's stronger after it's healed.

thanks for the well-wishes everyone.

oh, rob ... remind me to give you a big wedgie when you show up at gmb3. and unfortunately my yz isn't in riding condition right now. it would be harder for me to sit here on the couch knowing i've got a perfectly good bike down in the garage, so i pulled the clutch basket out (time to replace it anyway) and have the bike stored at a bud's place. thanks for the offer though!

-Z

[MotoMan]

Glad to hear everything is going well for you Zack!

BTW, thanks for the pics, I was just going to get up and get a snack, that took care of that senseless urge.

[Satch0922]

Zack...looks like you'll be as good as new and ready to ride by summer!

[mxerhale]

I've been in your shoes (twice) and had the exact same procedure so here's mine and my wife's advice. Have her torture you with the stretching of your new graft and do all the re-hab religously. My right knee is almost as good as new, but the left was more seriously damaged with alot of meniscus destroyed and a stretched PCL. I wear CTi2s now, and can't say enough good about them you should try and get the doc to write you a prescription.

[psyklone393]

if you've been through it twice i don't envy you at all. on a 1-10 scale the level of 'suck' rates about an 11 (this one goes to 11 ...)

i pretty much torture myself with my own rehab/stretches. i took myself off of crutches 10 days after the surgery. for those that haven't gone through it, that sounds like a long time but believe me ... the leg wasn't too keen on being walked on at the time. by two weeks out i was walking stairs without supporting myself, of course walking down the stairs is still a bit harder. stretching is definitely one of the most important (and uncomfortable to say the least) things to keep up with. i've got a pretty decent range of motion, but not anywhere near full on flexion. they just started me on physical therapy yesterday and they were definitely happy with where i'm at right now. the key is to keep it up, and my motivation right now isn't just to get back to riding, but to get full use of my knee back. i work with a couple of guys that have had knee surgery and they were lazy with rehab and they still have stiff legs/walk with limps years later. that's not going to be me. noooo way. and thankfully i didn't sustain any miniscus damage, the cartilage all looked fine. apparently i hit everything just the wrong way and just the right way at the same time. i popped the acl without any collateral damage.

i already know that he won't write me a prescription for two braces, and i'm going to take him an asterisk and get his feedback on what a cti offers that an asterisk doesn't to see what he's got to say.

so what kind of problems do you have with your left knee and is it something that can be fixed?

-Z

[mxerhale]

My left knee is just a little loose and it has a tendency of hyper extending pretty easy. The missing meniscus obviously can't be fixed and my doc told me after surgery that with all the damage it had sustained that I had better not ever do anything like that to it again and that I'd be looking at a knee replacement in my 40s. Hopefully they have some super tough bionic stuff available by then.

[Woody_393]

My Grandfather had both knee's replaced about 15 years ago, and I thought they did a pretty good job. He could walk just fine etc, don't know how they would have been if he was really active (which for his age he was verry active).