Day of Surgery

Well, yesterday went pretty well. Of course, there were a few bumps in the road, but hey, what are you going to do?

The night before surgery, we were going through the list of everything the surgery center had told us. Baggy sweatpants/Shorts, no nail polish, no make up, no body spray, no perfume, no food after midnight.

Some of her teammates stopped over to see her and bring her some gifts, which was great. She wanted sushi for dinner, which was fine with me...hubs wasn't quite as excited.

When we got back I put clean sheets on her bed and she took a shower with disinfecting soap - required by me, not by the surgery center. (Maybe a little crazy, but we will use any advantage for a good recovery) I would have preferred the disinfecting shower to take place the morning of, but Liz wanted to have time to straighten her hair in the morning even if it meant getting up at 4 am to do it. And she did... without a single complaint.

On the way out of town, I stopped and picked up my sister and we were off to Baptist. When we arrived, we registered and within 15-20 minutes, Liz and I headed back to the pre-op area to get ready. The nurse asked us tons of questions and told us exactly what to expect. Liz was funny and made a couple of sarcastic jokes at my expense.


Please, notice the straight hair!

Then the nurse told me about the option for a femoral nerve block. I had read about it when doing my research, but they hadn't mentioned it to me, so I didn't think it was an option for us. I was glad it was an option because it meant for the first 12-18 hours she would have almost no knee pain.

Then the anesthesiologist comes in. He was a calm, mid-50's guy with an English accent. He's going through the drill of asking Liz all the normal questions and pulling needles and gauze pads together out of drawers and then asks how she injured her leg. She said, "Soccer." He stopped what he was doing, looked at her and says, "Socca is my LIFE!" He asked what position she played. They both played center midfield so that gave them even more to talk about. It was probably calming for Liz, but in my mind, I'm thinking, "Umm, about this surgery..." (He was actually very good and would request him again.)

I had to leave when they actually started the IV and femoral block, but then I got to go back to pre-op until they took her back for surgery. The medication made her a little emotional and little loopy. One nurse asked her if she felt drunk and she said, "Umm, I don't know, I've never had a drink before."

Her surgeon came in and talked to her. He marked the knee for surgery with his initials and wrote "NO" on the good knee. He told us the surgery would take about an hour and half, maybe two hours if he had to do some extra procedures.




They came and got her and I started the countdown.

So we went to the waiting room - to wait.

The doctor came out and gave us a rundown of how the surgery went. The ACL replacement went well. He started drawing pictures of her knee and explained that her meniscus was torn in several places. He thinks she had a couple of those tears before the ACL tear and the ACL injury basically shredded it. He had to choose whether to repair it or remover 80% of it. He said that since she is so young, he thought that most of it could be saved. So, he stitched it up, took some blood from her arm, extracted the platelets from the blood and packed the platelets around the meniscus to help it heal. Then he brought out the pictures he took during the surgery. He took a picture of meniscus opposite the injured side of her knee that is fine. And a picture of the stitched up meniscus. I thought it was amazing.


Torn Meniscus


Repaired Meniscus

He gave us some exercises for her to start the following day and said we could see her in recovery in 50 minutes. I started the clock. At 48 minutes, every time someone came out the door and they didn't call "Tank Family," I felt like I got punched. Then it was 60 minutes, then 70. Finally, at 78 minutes, they call, "Elizabeth Tank." As we are walking back, the nurse told us that she is having a lot of pain in the back of her knee. (The femoral block only covers the top and sides of the knee.) When we made it to her recovery bay, I felt my face make "that face" that I make when I see something I am not supposed to be seeing. She was visibly in pain - ALOT of pain. Our English anesthesiologist came over and explained we may have to give her a sciatic block, but they would try to push some IV pain meds first. Her pain level went from 10 out of 10 - to 8 out of 10. More IV meds - 5 out of 10. More IV meds - 2 out of 10. The nurse looked at me and says, "I'm going to step out to give you some privacy and let her get dressed."

Umm, Huh?? Really? 30 minutes ago, we were planning on another block, now we are pulling our car around? In about 15 minutes, we were headed back to Murfreesboro.

We got her home and set her up in the recliner and plug in her polar cooler. It's not working. Reconnect all the tubes and switches... still not working. FRICK!!! I got back in my car and drove back to Nashville to get another cooler. On the ride home from Nashville, I plugged in my iPod and listened to Aretha Franklin's version of "Bridge over Troubled Water" 11 times. That cooler worked - Thank God!

She had some more teammates come by. And her coach and her trainer. Her block was still working and so were her oral pain meds, so she was in a great mood. Before her coach came, she said,"Mom, take this sprite, I don't want coach to see me drinking this." I said, "You just had surgery, he won't mind." She said, "Mom! We are in season."

Her team played a game last night at 8 pm in club's tournament. We were getting updates and she was teary for the first half. They ended up tie-ing. Tonight will be better!

Her block wore off at about 10:30 pm. Needless to say she had a rough night - ROUGH. It's 9 am and she's sleeping now though.

Today - dressing change and home exercises begin. CROSS YOUR FINGERS FOR US!