Bear with me, I am feeling very sorry for myself.
I injured my knee at the end of November, I slipped and my left leg decided to go in the wrong direction from the knee. It was agony and I immediately knew I’d done something serious.
Anyway to cut a long story short, it turned out that as well as soft tissue damage the bottom of my femur had crashed into the top of my tibia and essentially crushed it. Due to the way it healed (basically now missing that part of bone) my knee no longer locked, and even after it being in a brace for months the surgeon told me that the only way I would ever be able to walk/run/move again without my knee going backwards was to either wear the cumbersome hinged brace for the rest of my life or have an upper tibial osteotomy. I opted for the latter, the aim being that I get back to full normality.
The op consistered of taking out a wedge of my tibia below the defect, repositioning the head of the bone, filling the wedge with bone graft (both artificial and harvested from my femur) and securing it with a titanium plate and screws. Pretty hardcore.
During the op they gave me a nerve block, which lasted a good 48 hrs, masking the pain. So when I was recovering in hospital I was both comfortable from that plus was being given regular strong painkillers. When I got home I was in agony. I was prescribed oramorph on top of the other painkillers I went home with and I was mainlining them all for quite a few days, thety also put me in a full length cast to give me more support (although later had to put 2 cuts in it to release swelling).
I had no idea I would be in so much pain, it’s been like nothing I’ve experienced before, not even back to back childbirth on syntocin. I’m on less painkillers now but that’s partially due to them causing me additional problems such as sickness and bunging me up (ah fun and games). I am basically tied to my bed as we live in a townhouse with many flights of narrow and windy stairs which are a nightmare to negotiate, even on my bum, and no loo on the ground floor. I’m getting little sleep and although it’s early days (10 days post op) I am finding it hard to see much improvement and am really worried that as I’m in a cast I can’t try to gently exercise bending my knee as basically all the literature says should be done post op. I will have physio once I can weight bear - so in about 4-6 weeks, my surgeon insists everything is as it should be and I do trust him, It’s just so hard to believe that I’ll get anything near back to normal in my current state.
I’m so worried that I’ve signed myself up for a lifetime of pain and a knee that just won’t bend.
I am completely dependent on DH at the moment, we have a wheelchair and I’ve been out once but it was an absolute mission. Plus my leg is stuck out in front of me and I feel very vulnerable. I am trying to take my mind off things with reading, movies, cross stitch but the pain is very distracting.
If you have read this far you need a certificate or something. This is mainly a self-pitying rant, although I’d love someone to come on and say “ah, I had the same and am now completely pain free and training for a marathon” 