{"id":67,"date":"2011-06-05T06:08:58","date_gmt":"2011-06-05T06:08:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/greg.lyonkingdom.com\/?p=67"},"modified":"2011-06-05T17:23:49","modified_gmt":"2011-06-05T17:23:49","slug":"meet-the-surgeon-mon-mar-14th","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/greg.lyonkingdom.com\/?p=67","title":{"rendered":"Meet the Surgeon (Mon, Mar 14th)"},"content":{"rendered":"

On Monday March 14th<\/sup> Kammy took me to meet the Surgeon who would operate on my knee.\u00a0 I\u2019d heard some people comment that orthopedic surgeons tend to have horrible bedside manner so I was curious to see what mine would be like.\u00a0 The Surgeon was interesting, and completely willing to discuss whatever I brought up.\u00a0 Nice, and more importantly not horrible<\/em> by any definition.\u00a0 He talked over the MRI and X-Rays with us, discussed once again the fact that my ACL is disrupted, and that it would take about 5 or 6 weeks for my leg to heal up and swelling to go down enough for surgery.\u00a0 The plan would be that I\u2019d continue physical therapy and RICE, come back in 3 weeks and at that point we\u2019d set a date for surgery.<\/p>\n

There was something else too: As he was explaining the surgical process he told us that there are 3 choices for where the tissue comes from to create the new ACL.\u00a0 Two come from my own body and one comes from \u2018dead guy tissue\u2019 as he put it.\u00a0 The two choices from my tissue are either patellar tendon or hamstring tendon.\u00a0 If it\u2019s dead-guy it\u2019s patellar tendon.<\/p>\n

\"the<\/a>

it's always a gamble<\/p><\/div>\n

I like to find a professional I can trust and then follow his advice.\u00a0 So, I asked the doctor which he\u2019d recommend.\u00a0 He was hesitant to suggest one over the other\u2026said it was truly my decision.\u00a0 So I asked what some of the advantages of each are.\u00a0 He explained that with \u2018dead guy\u2019 tissue there is a 10% chance of rejection and 8 month recovery.\u00a0 With my own tissue, a 5% chance of rejection and 6 month recovery.\u00a0 He also pointed out that I’d be able to get back to normal life more quickly with \u2018dead guy\u2019 graft; days instead of up to a month before I was up and about.\u00a0 He didn’t make any mention of zombies at all…<\/p>\n

Next I tried a different tactic; I asked him which he\u2019d choose if it were his own ACL being reconstructed, but I was in for a surprise\u2026he told me he\u2019d elect not to have the surgery at all!<\/em> I have to say that threw me for a loop for a minute.\u00a0 Then he went on to explain.\u00a0 He\u2019s sedentary, he goes to the gym (because he knows he should), he goes to work, and he sits on the couch.\u00a0 He continued by saying that he even knew a few active people who elected to forgo the surgery; that by exercising and being careful they could do lots of things without an ACL.\u00a0 Downhill skiing, playing soccer, etc. didn\u2019t really count among the \u2018lots of things\u2019 however.\u00a0 Then he did say that for \u2018guys my age\u2019 he\u2019d, if forced, suggest \u2018dead guy\u2019 tissue just because we have a life to get back to.\u00a0 He also said that if for some reason the tissue didn\u2019t take that the surgery could be re-performed\u2026there would just be a time set-back.\u00a0 Also, he mentioned that even if I chose to use my own tissue that there would be donor tissue standing by in case of any mishap.<\/p>\n

Then we talked about the really amazing part.\u00a0 ACL stands for anterior cruciate ligament, yet all of the choices for tissue grafts are tendons.\u00a0 It turns out that ligaments cannot be grafted, but tendons, when grafted into places where ligaments belong, gradually get converted to ligaments by our bodies over the course of several months.\u00a0 Is that not the coolest thing ever?\u00a0 (Well, OK, there are definitely cooler things, but that is amazing!)
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

With that he sent me of to continue my PT and consider my options\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On Monday March 14th Kammy took me to meet the Surgeon who would operate on my knee.\u00a0 I\u2019d heard some people comment that orthopedic surgeons tend to have horrible bedside manner so I was curious to see what mine would be like.\u00a0 The Surgeon was interesting, and completely willing to discuss whatever I brought up.\u00a0 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/greg.lyonkingdom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/greg.lyonkingdom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/greg.lyonkingdom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greg.lyonkingdom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greg.lyonkingdom.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=67"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/greg.lyonkingdom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":88,"href":"https:\/\/greg.lyonkingdom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67\/revisions\/88"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/greg.lyonkingdom.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=67"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greg.lyonkingdom.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=67"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greg.lyonkingdom.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=67"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}