Knee Update

Just a quick update on my knee...


Good News:
I had a scope about two weeks ago to clean out scar tissue and increase the range of motion and it looks like everything healed well inside my knee (the cartilage implants look great and my meniscus looks great too)!  This is encouraging news for sure!


Bad News:
I have had trouble healing the skin around my incision.  About a month after the surgery I had in August, I noticed my skin wasnt healing well along the incision.  And to make a long story short, I have to have a skin graft with a myofasical flap to cover the tendon tonight at 6pm.  My doctors originally thought the wound would heal on its own or at worse a wound VAC could be used to help heal the skin.  But, what I found out about a week ago, was that my infra-patellar tendon (tendon that attaches my knee cap to my lower leg) has started to degrade.  As a result, it has to be covered as soon as possible.  So they will take a piece of muscle from my calf and place it over the tendon and then take a piece of skin from my thigh and put it over the muscle.  


My mom is here in Denver with me and will help me for the next two weeks (and then we will fly back to Montana for Christmas together) as I heal from the skin graft surgery.  I will be in the hospital for about 2-3 days, which is a little nerve racking to say the least.  Following the surgery, I will be immobilized for about 2 weeks in order to let the skin graft heal and if all goes well, I will be able to start rehab following that period.  The only thing that is still a little unnerving (and unknown at this point) is the viability of my tendon.  It is possible that the tendon has degraded so much that the doctor will have to remove it and reconstruct it at a later date.  I am praying this is not the case.


The surgery will be pretty painful as they are going to be taking muscle and skin from two separate areas of my leg and closing up the wound over my tendon.  Prayers are appreciated and I will update this blog as soon as I can.