Knee Scope

The second Christmas Drew has been not working in most of our married life and what do I do but schedule arthroscopic knee surgery for the Friday before Christmas.

I'd had nagging pain whenever I exercised hard for a couple of years.  Way back in 1985-86 I tore my ACL clean out so I've been living life with no ACL, which creates a lot of instability.  I can't count the number of times I have re-injured this knee since then, most recently that big hike I did two years ago Thanksgiving.  An MRI revealed a probable tear in the medial meniscus and potentially the start of a bone spur on the front of the knee.

 Doctor Mark Scholl went in there after it on Dec 18.  Here's what he found.

The piece of tissue to the right of the metal probe is the flap of torn meniscus that had folded underneath the rest of the meniscus.  This medial half of my left knee meniscus is about 1/3 the volume of a healthy meniscus. The good news is that the femur and tibia surfaces (the top and bottom flat white surfaces in the photo) look to be in good shape, i.e. no arthritis.

The video below show the doc trying to maneuver the flap so he can cut it off. There is not sound, but you can click in the lower right of the video to make it full screen.

In this one, he has separated the nickle-sized hunk of meniscus and is pulling it out of the joint.

The bone spur turned out to not be a bone spur, but just an area of damage to the soft tissue that wouldn't heal, so he cut slits in that area to get some healthy inflammation and blood flow to it.  This video shows that area while he is articulating my knee.

Drew was not due home until late that evening so my friend Shelly retrieved me from the hospital.  I had my recovery room all set up the day before so that I could just get kicked to the curb (well, not really, Shelly escorted me into the house and made sure I had everything I needed) to recover until nursemaid Drew came home at 8 pm that night.

I felt pretty good with my kitty nursemaids by my side.

After three days I was putting weight on it but still using crutches.  I was allowed to take the bandages off.  Here are before and after surgery pics. 

Before

3 days post-op. Not too swollen, really.

 My sisters and Mom sent me gorgeous flowers to brighten my bedside.

By the following Wednesday I was able to go to work and not use crutches.  Christmas came and went with a lot of limping, but not much pain.  Then I went to work two days the next week and Kapow! my knee swelled up like a puff ball mushroom and became really painful.  Back to crutches and laying around.  Max and Marley didn't mind that at all, especially in the warm back bedroom.

I brought some work home. I like these office mates.

So today, after nearly a week of being really careful, I was able to walk a little and went to my first PT appointment.  The PT really helped; although the knee is sore, I have a lot more movement in the joint.

I hope to have no more set backs so we can have fun in February.

UPDATE: 3 WEEKS POST OP
Feeling pretty good. PT helps. I'm able to go around a full pedal stroke on the stationary bike.  Still limping a little. No cardio exercise but I'm able to get a decent upper body work out in at the gym.

UPDATE: 4 WEEKS POST OP
Same as last week except that the knee feels less weird and I'm walking almost without a limp now. I can spin easily on the stationary bike and I've done yoga a couple of times.  Still being careful, but I occasionally forget I had the surgery and just do normal things.

UPDATE:  5 WEEKS POST OP
I had a PT appointment at 5 weeks. The very best PT in the valley, Dr. Colin Bywaters (who also helped us coach high school mountain biking) gave me a good session today.  He pushed on the top of the knee to stretch the back of the knee, which helped immensely in being able to straighten almost fully. He then made me lift actual weight by doing leg extensions and curls with 30-40 pounds.  I was afraid the knee would be really sore and swell up, but it didn't. He also gave me the go ahead to do easy cardio, so in the following days I did 20 -30 minutes on the spin bike with some moderate resistance. 

I feel SO much better about the recovery now.  I am walking almost normally most of the time and my knee feels almost strong.  I can go up stairs with no problems; coming down is still odd because I'm at about 100 degrees of bend.  It is still stiff after I have been sitting in one place for a long time, but perhaps that's just the body's way of telling me to get off my butt and move. 

I think I'm gonna live.

UPDATE 6 WEEKS POST OP

Feeling pretty strong, but not 100%. 

UPDATE 7 WEEKS POST OP

Dr Bywaters said I was good to go on vacation. I have full extension and I can flex 127°. The swelling is hard for someone who doesn't know which knee was operated on to tell. Some of the quad muscles are still atrophied and it feels funny going down stairs. I do moderate cardio. I still feel that it is pretty far from being able to ride a hard effort on a real bike, but we are leaving on vacation and I'm going to walk and hike as much as I can!

Birthday fun

I used to hate having a birthday in the summertime because all my friends at school who had school-year birthdays got all the glory.  Now it's the best because: summer parties!

Drew busted his chops to get the yard looking fabulous for a friendly get together in honor of another year well and Happy Flag Day!

While he was toiling, I was tending to other important things, like getting myself ready

Jeeze my feet look skinny.

And making birthday pie

A ceramic pie bird in the center of one of the double crust fruit pies. The bird is formed so that steam from the filling can enter the hollow inside of the bird and come out its mouth, thereby venting the pie and eliminating the need for cutting slits in the top crust. It worked great.

 I made three: peach, strawberry rhubarb, and sweet potato.

My friends gathered to enjoy the pies and humor me with a game of Cards Against Humanity in the backyard

The "Card Czar" of each round had to wear the flag hat as my birthday request. The hat makes everyone look so cute!

There were no pies left and I lost count of how many bottles of wine we drank. Drew laughed so hard at the game that he said his tear ducts were dry on Sunday.

Sunday I requested a ride on which I could try out my new seat dropper post. Friends rode down Corvair trail in Deer Valley with me.

Fun new toy that dropper post.

Then dinner at Vinto in PC.

Blowing out the candle on my birthday scoop of ice cream.

Another year around the sun. Life is good. Can't complain.

Holidays Together! Part III

New Years

Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas AND New Years together? No way. Way.  Drew had New Years Eve and New Years Day off.  We had plans to xc ski and watch the torch parade at Alta ski resort, but the temperature was between 0 and 20 degrees F up in the mountains, so we bagged that idea and rallied some friends for a drink at the new bar/restaurant at 9th and 9th and then dinner at Mazza restaurant.

 It was New Year's Eve, after all.

 Yummy cauliflower something.

A good meal/time.

Drew and I stopped by our neighbor's house after we got home.  Good thing we were within walking distance so I could stumble home later! We were asleep before midnight.

Extended Holiday

January 2 is close enough to the New Year to call a holiday so we took a joint day off to get up to Park City to snowshoe around some cool areas.

Not an actual holiday, but we'll count it

Our friend Andy was celebrating his 40th birthday on Jan 4 so he and wife Rhonda stayed at the condo in Vegas to enjoy some slightly warmer weather.  Drew and I joined them for a day to help celebrate with mtbs on dirt and, later, all-you-can-eat sushi.

 My Christmas present from Drew - Giro winter riding boots. So toasty.

So Good We Go Back for More

Back to Salt Lake for me and all over the place for Drew for a few days of work.  The air quality was deteriorating rapidly so when the loads on the planes looked light I bombed back to Vegas for about 24 hours for some more dirt, this time for short-sleeve riding out at Bootleg canyon.

Snow's Still Good so Live It Up

So here we are in mid January with a pretty nasty streak of poor air quality in the Salt Lake Valley but crystal clear skies in Park City and the mountains. We've been getting out either solo,

Me xc skiing at White Pine Nordic Center

with old Navy buddies...

 Drew in Lambs Canyon with Murph

  Artsy iPhone pic by Drew

The snuggle-y blanket of "fog" in the valley below is our nasty smog layer

or together snowshoeing up Mineral Fork of Big Cottonwood Canyon.

 Snow on structure!

 Water crossing. You can't do this here in April.

Another artsy iPhone pic by Drew

So now we both go back to work in earnest and end our happy holiday run.  It was sublime to be able to spend so many special days with Drew over the past month or more.  I'll try to remember that when he is traveling for work and bike racing in the next few weeks.  At least I'll have time to get more blog posts done.

Holidays Together! Part II (Christmas)

This would be our first Christmas with just the two of us together at home ever in the 10 year history of us.  When I was growing up the youngest of seven kids, Christmastime was, of course, huge.  It wasn't all about lots of presents, although we had our fair share, it was about family time together eating, playing games, playing cards, going to church.  Drew's family, although smaller, also put an emphasis on family time.

Drew is an airline pilot. He flies a lot. He likes to chose when he flies for pleasure.  He tries to chose the easiest and cheapest time for us to fly to see family. That time is not Christmas!  This year, although he had a few days off around Christmas, we chose to focus on our immediate local family - that is, us, the cats, and the bikes.

Christmas Prep

Because we were going to be home, we decorated the house in a big way for the first time in 8 years.

Our tree wasn't tall enough to use Drew's full height advantage for the #1 task.

All done. I love our little tree!

Looks pretty at night too.

So the house was decorated, but there were the usual holiday hassles,

The post office was a zoo!

And holiday baking

 All to get ready to have a quiet Christmas at home.

Christmas Eve

We rode our mountain bikes on Thanksgiving, so why not on Christmas Eve!  Utah had not seen appreciable snow since November so we bundled up and rode from our house on the Bonneville Shoreline Trail.  We were not the only friends out there.

 Ran into Sally and Karl doing the same thing.

As you can see in the previous photo, the weather had been moderately warm for Dec 24, but not sunny.  All that cloud cover paid off when the sun sunk to the horizon. We were treated with the most amazing sunset imaginable.

 Note the Christmas lights on the house in the center of the photo. So special.

 The short days of winter drove us home to a very quiet dinner.  I think we may have had some sort of veggie patties again, which might be becoming a tradition.

White Christmas Day

Those clouds from Christmas Eve held snow. Lots of snow.  After a cozy Christmas morning opening gifts from family and friends far and wide while sipping espressos by the fire,

we ventured out into a couple of feet of NEW FRESH POWDER!  During our first couple of years together, before home additions and winter bike races starting hogging our time, we snowshoe'd a lot.  With the beautiful fresh new snow, we decided to relive those early days and headed up the mountain to Lamb's Canyon. 

At the lower end of the trail, someone had broken trail in the fresh powder.  About a mile in, we ran into that solo man with no snow shoes.  Crazy! After that, Drew had his work cut out for him breaking trail in ever deeper snow.

 12"-18" of deep powder- that's hard work!

It was a true winter wonderland.

And not flat.

Breaking trail is slow going.  We tried to make it to the ridge line between Lambs and Millcreek Canyons, but we were running out of daylight, and gas, so we turned around about a half mile from the ridge.  It got pretty dark on us, but we were prepared.

We ended the evening with a some sort of tasty vegetarian crock pot concoction. 

Post Christmas

Drew had a few more days off after the 25th so we continued with the quiet home evenings/outdoor theme.  We enjoyed a hike on the Bonneville Shoreline Trail, where three days earlier we had been riding.

Mid-hike phone calls give Lucy a chance to take goofy pictures.

There were movies in the newly completed basement media room with the family,

and tormenting the family with Drew's Christmas present to himself.

Fresh air, cozy times, and entertaining cats together with Drew are three reasons this was the best Christmas I can remember!!