The good, the bad and the ugly

Well the good news is it is not my anterior cruciate ligament causing problems in my knee - YAY

The bad news... it is worse than the anterior cruciate ligament - :-(

The ugly? treatment requires two operations, one to clear out the cartilage and bone fragments floating around in my knee, especially the one that is about 1.5cm in diameter, and to harvest some healthy cartilage cells. The second operation will be about four weeks later, once the lab has grown me a new cartilage using the cells harvested in the first operation, and the new cartilage will be put back in my knee. I will be in hospital for up to four days, then SIX WEEKS on crutches aaarrrgggghhhh. The initial recover is twelve weeks long, then I have another nine to twelve months of rehab before it is considered over.

I seems that I have snapped some cartilage off the patella bone and that is why I still have a lot of pain walking, my bones are rubbing against each other. There is the option of just cleaning up the mess, and moving the bones slightly so that they don't rub, but the surgeon thinks that will lead to osteoarthritis in a few years and eventually a knee replacement. So even though it is a long process, I think the one we are going for is the best option long term.

So I am not a happy camper, although, I am much happier today than I was a few days ago when I first heard the news. Tomorrow I go back to see the surgeon to make the bookings etc and get a time frame. I will be happy once I know when it will all happen as I can then see and end to it.

In the meantime I will keep on losing weight, that should help my recovery as there will be less load bearing on my knee once the operation is done, and I will spend some time making sure I have everything for the start of term ready for next year for the kids, and a huge stash of scrapbooking supplies, as I plan to do lots of scrapping in the six weeks I am house bound after the second op.

As for the po1int counting last week was really good until I got to Friday night - dinner out with girls from school, Saturday - too much wine and cheese with DH after tea, and roast lamb on Sunday which was really really good. The days were goods, but the nights were just a bit over the top. Mind you I weighed in on Friday morning at 79.9, and I am still the same this morning (Monday), so hopefully my diligence through the week has seen me through a few heavy evenings.

So that is my sad saga for the week LOL.