November 4th I meet with the surgeon. He takes a look at the incisions and the knee itself. He has me do a leg lift and asks a couple of questions and for the most part that was my appointment. That morning I was able to put all of my weight my leg. I asked the doctor about any limitations to weight bearing and he said I was all set, as for strengthening I needed to proceed slowly.

One very interesting thing did happen at the doctor’s office; he asked if I had seen pictures of my knee. I said not from this last procedure. I was expecting to see scope pictures like the previous ones I have seen and can’t total understand. I was very wrong, he pulled out two regular developed pictures of my knee. It was very cool and a bit gross.I was wrong about the scars on my leg, I am so used to the very long scars from reconstructs of the past that I just assumed that the larger scar on the left of my knee was from the reconstruct and the two smaller ones were for the reconstruct. Well, the long one is for the cartilage replacement. The pictures show that part of the knee being pulled open and you can clearly see the large area of my knee that is missing cartilage. The second picture shows the knee after they have sown on the periosteal patch but before they inject the Carticel. Not only was I blown away by the pictures but how small the scars are now for the reconstruct. I am going to try to get a copy of those pictures at my next visit (mid December).

I went to work that afternoon only for a couple of hours to tie up some loose ends and then headed home. Once home I practiced walking around the house until the boys came home. That night was the last home football game for the High School so I figured I would take the boys to the game and daring as I was go without crutches. All of the games I went to last year I would park at the Middle School which is behind the stadium and there was a small gate behind that you could get into the stadium through. I made the assumption that the gate would still be open, I was wrong, it was chained shut. I was forced to walk around to the other side of the stadium and then back again to get into the bleachers. I had to do the same thing at the end of the game to get back to my car. The next morning I was hurting quite a bit from overdoing it. The funny thing is that my calf hurt a lot more than my knee did and I think that was limiting my walking ability more than the swelling on my knee. Regardless of the pain I had to suffer through for those couple of days I Was Off Crutches!!