1st Follow-Up Appointment

I had my first follow-up appointment on June 9th, 11 days after my Microfracture surgery.

Waiting for the doctor at my first follow-up appointment

The office was running a little behind schedule so I had to wait awhile which normally doesn't bother me but considering there was nowhere for me to prop my leg up, my knee started throbbing pretty quickly and I was, to say the least, extremely uncomfortable.  Luckily they called me back right as I was wishing I had thought to bring my pain medication with me.

When the doctor first came in he was carrying a stack of papers, which I thought was odd. But he sat down and asked me how I was doing, how my knee was doing, blah blah blah.  I told him I was doing better than I expected.  At this point, the swelling had finally began to subside and I was getting a little range of motion (ROM) back.  Key word: LITTLE.  He didn't seem too worried about it since he wanted me to start physical therapy soon anyway.

Next, he broke out that previously mentioned stack of papers which included a bunch of pictures he took during surgery.  He walked me through each of them, showed me that my ACL and MCL looked great.  Looking back, I can see he was trying to build me up before he tore me down (not intentionally, of course--he can't help that I have the knees of a 90 year old).  Then he showed me all of the loose bodies that were floating around my knee.  Not only were there little pieces of cartilage like he expected, there are also pieces of bone.  I was trying so hard to listen to what he was saying I didn't think to bring a piece of paper to write everything down (or perhaps I should have recorded him or something).

There were several areas where my cartilage resembled crabmeat.  There were signs of arthritis in the tibial spine, trochlea and medial condyle.  Also, there was syngvitis laterally (no idea what that is but I will consult my friend Google here pretty soon). And more importantly, there was complete cartilage loss on the lateral condyle as well as the medial femoral condyle.

***Sidebar: More of a note to myself than to you but lateral = outside of knee and medial = inside.  Femoral = upper and tibial = lower... I think.  Please correct me if I am wrong, I am still getting used to all of this medical terminology.  I am expecting to speak fluent "doctor" before the end of the year.***

Dr. O'Daniel performed the Microfracture on the lateral condyle, where the cartilage loss was the most significant, however, he is less than confident that the procedure will take and here is why.  In order for a Microfracture to work, there must be clean margins.  These margins help to hold that "superscab" in place and without them, there is a very high chance that it will not form and even if it does, it will most likely not remain in place.

Anyway, Dr. O'Daniel did say that the surgery was not a complete waste.  If anything, the removal of all of that floating junk will provide me with some minor relief.  There are additional options for me, however, he did not feel comfortable performing (at least he wasn't too proud to admit that).

More on this later... this post is getting really long.  SORRY!!