I was thrilled to get the go ahead to begin putting a little weight on my right leg, and just about as happy to be allowed a slight, 15 degree bend in that leg as well. 15 degrees doesn’t sound like much, but I’ve gotta tell you – it feels like such freedom!
I was reminded again about how amazing it is that I was even able to have this second surgery. Let me walk you through (see what I did there?) the story.
When my first knee surgeon, here in Calgary, discovered that my knee had not healed properly from the original injury and surgery, he was very discouraging about my chances of any further improvement. It “just happens” that the condition I’d ended up with happens to about 4% of patients, and he was not willing to try another repair, as the risk of complications was just too high.
It “just happens” that our next door neighbour is a physiotherapist, who “just happened” to have worked a bit with a surgeon in Banff, about an hour away from us. She thought that the soft tissue malformations in my knee would be just the sort of thing that would interest Dr. Hiemstra, this surgeon in Banff.
Dr. Hiemstra normally only sees patients that are athletes, or have been referred from Sports Medicine physicians. So, yeah, um, I’m not really in that demographic. My one major athletic feat was a single, freak home run in grade 7 or 8, other than that I’m always the last one picked for any team. I was referred to Dr. H by my family physician (not a Sports Med doctor) that sent off my letter and history “just in case”. I got a call back almost right away saying that Dr. Hiemstra was very interested in my knee and that she wanted to see me right away.
Turns out that Dr. H. is really interested in JUST the type of weird, uncommon problem that my patella was presenting with. And she was quite confident that she could fix me right up. Even though I’m not an athlete, I just have an interesting patella. (Aw, shucks..) Isn’t that cool that it “just happens” that she is so interested?
It gets better.
Fast forward a couple of months to a convention in the states, where my Dr. H was presenting a paper and “just happened” to sit beside a American colleague at lunch... who “just happened” to talk about a cool new procedure. One that he’s developed to fix just the sort of weird problem that I “just happen” to have. My doctor thought of me right away. (Aw, shucks!)
Perhaps it’s a good thing that I didn’t know BEFORE the surgery that she’s never done that particular procedure before – and as far as Steve and I can figure, it’s probably the first time that this procedure has been done in our neck of the woods. It DOES explain why so was so excited to do my surgery, and why she thanked me (I was pretty groggy, still on the bed in recovery) so enthusiastically for bringing her such a “cool” knee.
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There were sure a lot of things that “just happened” but I know better. As it happens – I am pretty happy about the state of my weird knee today. God is so comprehensive in His attention to detail – and so good. I see Him at work in everything to do with this. Of course, I do wish I hadn’t just happened to step on that little pebble in June 2010, but then I wouldn’t have learned so much.
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Next steps: physio starts next week, where I will begin work on rebuilding the strength in my knee, and begin working on the range of motion. In 4 weeks, we will be allowed to increase the bend in my brace - ever so gradually. In about 4 weeks, I’ll graduate to a cane from the crutches. In about 9 weeks, I can probably go back to work. It's going to be a long 9 weeks, but so very worth it.
I've go so many things to be thankful for, but I am totally exhausted. Maybe tomorrow...
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