Thursday, March 25, 2010

Out of Surgery today, still a bit groggy

Well, it doesn't appear that being a Celiac affects surgery for an ACL much, but I did find out quite a bit about the medical process. Every step of the way, I've told every medical professional and coordinator about my vitamins/supplements and that I was a Celiac. (. I wore my Awareness run t-shirt more than once). It must have been at least 10-15 people. Low and behold, I'm being prepped for surgery, I am doing one last review and Celiac is not in my surgery records! We fixed that.

Probably all well and good as things went fine, but what if they had to transfer me to a hospital?

Anyway, at least my anesthesiologist had a sense of humor and said, "I promise I won't feed you bread while you're asleep."

I wanted to publicly thank all those who prayed for me and had me in your thoughts. Given the amount of damage my surgeon saw in my MRIs that first week, I am doing much better than average. Please keep it up, maybe these nerve blockers will wear off and I will be able to feel my leg again soon!

Friday, March 5, 2010

Another two weeks of wait and see

I went to the orthopedist today. The swelling, while much better, is not to a point where it makes sense to operate yet. Of course, one big question was about whether being a Celiac affects this at all. Celiac doesn't seem to bear much on the issue, as there isn't much to worry about from a donor tendon in the way of rejection for the autoimmune side. On the medication side, I will need to talk to the anesthesiologist, but again, no expected issues there. I was really glad for my wife's moral support and for writing my questions down.

I did leave the surgeon with the first few pages of the Celiac medical package from our local support group, which he scanned with some interest.

He did authorize me to again try to gently cycle on my computrainer, so I may try some of that again this weekend to see how it goes. He suggested mucking with the seat height to give some gentle encouragement to the knee flexibility. At first I thought it would mess up my setup, but upon reflection I think the move would be for the greater good.

Thanks to everyone for your kind comments as I work through this.