MPFL Reconstruction Post Op: Day 1

It's been a long few days. I'm exhausted and I have already over done it because of the awesome pain killers I was pumped full of for the surgery.

I know there are not many blogs that have been on the subject of MPFL tears or patella dislocations (which go hand in hand) or the surgery process. I've come across a few, and figured I'd write about mine since everyone has different procedures, healing times or even post operative issues.

I dislocated my knee cap in January doing nothing more than going into my closet to get clothes, turning (while feet firmly planted on the floor, as I've done time and time again, with an occasional pop here and there from the knee) but this time, Mr Righty (so called because it's my right knee) had other ideas and decided enough was enough, which is wear the most pain I've felt to date came into play with my dislocation. Now I can't tell you if my knee went back where it was supposed to before/during/after I passed out and fell to the ground like a ton of bricks. But it did somehow. I awoke around 10/15 minutes later, on the bedroom floor screaming in pain like I'd never felt in my life.
My cousin came running to me after realizing my goat cry (yeah it pretty much sounds goat-like…. which sounds sort of like a laugh to some) was an actual cry and not a laugh, and took me to the VA hospital (I'm an Army Veteran, this knee was first injured in Germany in 2003 in a motor vehicle accident when the driver's side dash/steering column crushed my legs)

Okay, so after physical therapy for a few months, and a slight run around with what we were going to do with the VA, it was decided surgery was the only option left that had the best chances of (hopefully) stabilizing my knee and keeping the grinding to a bare minimum to zero.

I was scheduled for surgery in less than two weeks of meeting up with the surgeon (VA referral) and that surgery happened yesterday. I was just getting MPFL reconstruction (which is where they use a harvested ligament *I've read from the hamstring* from your body, or a cadaver ligament…. I'm not sure about non-biological materials because it wasn't part of my plan) and a chondroplasty which is where they go in a clean up the damaged tissue. It wasn't until I was awake from surgery, that my cousin relayed to me what the surgeon told him, which was there was more work to be done, and that was sort of like a mini lateral release, because my knee cap wasn't releasing into it's normal grooved "home" so there needed to be minor trimming to allowed it to go where it needed to go.

Be prepared, at least my doctor asked to discontinue any blood thinning medication/over the counter drugs, not to shave for 5-7 days, no nail polish on fingers or toes and to shower the night before and use a special pre-op wipe on the surgical area…. as well as doing the same thing the morning of surgery…. oh and nothing to eat, drink, etc after midnight the night before surgery. That includes water, hard candies, cough drops…. everything!

After going over my medical hist