12 Days since the ACL Revision

What a difference between the original ACL surgery and this one! First off I'm not frustrated as hell from being on crutches and all that goes along with having no free hands.

Here's what's up now...

• Bruising - Minimal. Barely bruised up at all.
• Swelling - Minimal. Well considering it's really quite good. I can actually see some of the knee cap instead of a ball of swelling.
• Sensitivity - I do have more lack of sensitivity this time around. It's kind of like touching your cheek after getting Novocain from the dentist; you can feel the pressure of you touching it, but you can't feel the surface.
• Range of Motion - Great. I even impressed the physical therapist just 7 days after surgery. It's not 100%, but did bend to 130 degrees which is 30-40 more degrees than most people.
• Quad Muscle - What quad muscle? It's not as bad looking as it was after 5 weeks of crutches, but it's not pretty either.
• Calf Muscle - Again not as bad as the first time around. In much better shape than the quad. I can actually feel muscle mass when I flex it.
• Brace - I've barely taken it off. I AM NOT GOING THROUGH THIS AGAIN! I've had it on like 95% of the time. If I could shower in it I would. The first time I tried not sleeping with it I kept waking up because I could feel it. I did sleep without it last night, but I went to bed at 4AM so I don't think anything would have woke me up.
• Blister - That tape/surgery blister thing leaked 5 days after surgery. It was quite big. It had some blood in it and now it is this flat purpley-red scabby looking thing. It reminds me of those birth marks that some people have.
• Portals - The incision points look good from what I can tell. The tape kind of started coming off and then I was helping it out but on my first day of PT they put fresh ultra sticky tape over them again. But I want to see!
• PT - It is what it is. Nothing too drastic yet. Although I am leaps and bounds ahead of where I was last time and I really think I'm ahead of the game compared to most people. There was a young very athletic football player in there also with a torn ACL. He could not believe that I was just 10 days post-op! It was almost encouraging to see those young guys (there was another, don't know what he injured... also a football player.) They were jumping and pulling and squatting. Muscles were pumped, veins were defined, the sweat was pouring... shoo-wee, I better stop! But really, that was the most encouraging thing I've seen/experienced during this entire process. Just to think that I could maybe really return to my physical level I was at before! The first time didn't count since I had an issue that I didn't know about... yeah, that little ole re-tear thing that certainly prohibited me from excelling at PT.

I think that about covers it. I'd take pictures, but there's the tape and all. You'll just have to believe me that it looks great in terms of swelling! YEAH!