OATS - MACI Sowing my OATS

[ColoradoSnowman]

Hi ColoradoSnowman,
Happy One Month Anniversary!
Hopefully you're feeling a little less tired these days and doing well.
Enjoy the weekend!
@ColoradoSnowman

Yeah I'm feeling considerably better. I rather suspect the culprit was the blood thinners I was on as about 24 hour s after I was was done with the 4 week course, I was feeling much better.

Other than that the OATS recovery is slowwwwwwww. Still in a fixed brace. just nothing to do but wait for the healing to take place. The highlight of the week is that I got to start PT finally. My flexion is >135, strait leg raises, heel slides and quad sets are what I get to do. Hopefully I get the thumbs up from my OP in a couple of weeks to ditch the brace and move on to walking with crutches. I still have high hopes that I will be walking unassisted by 12 weeks.

Other than that, minimal to no pain, just the physical limitation of not being able to bend my knee which makes ambulation and sitting in a chair rather limiting.

Assuming this works I am happy with my choice, but experiencing the scale of physical limitation and temporal scope of recovery, in retrospect I would have given a PKR more serious consideration.

 

[ColoradoSnowman]

6 weeks check in. I just got permission to unlock my brace for use outside the house and take off my brace at home. Over the next week or so I’ll transition to no brace.

First of all it is crazy liberating to be able to walk again after peg legging for 6 weeks. My knee feels a little tight over the incision and a couple moments of discomfort but really other than a slight ache from walking around all day it really doesn’t feel bad at all. A couple of clicks and weird tendon or muscle moving over kneecap feeling events but not pain and they just happen sometimes. Doc says it will take a few days for the new cartilage to get broken in and those knee weirdnesses should pass. I’m hobbling for sure but if I walk slowly enough it isn’t too bad. Of course everything about this recovery is going slow, the PT goal is for me to have a regular gait and be able to do stairs by the end of week 12. I’m hoping to be able to get on a road bike by month 4 and maybe a mountain bike by month 6.

Long long long journey, I go back to work next week, but I work from home so pretty easy to take a break when I need it. Overall the it seems like my experience is less painful than a TKR but disabling for much longer.

 

[Layla]

Yay for progress, ColoradoSnowman! Thanks for sharing your journey here for the benefit of others and so we're able to cheer on your progress.
I wish you the best as you return to work, even though it's at home. Have a great Sunday!
@ColoradoSnowman

 

[Jockette]

the PT goal is for me to have a regular gait and be able to do stairs by the end of week 12.

Be careful with these kinds of goals. We really shouldn’t set dates for these accomplishments while we are recovering. We all heal at different rates and it can be very discouraging if you can’t do these things at the desired date. You may meet this goal, but if you don’t, you will meet it, when your body is ready.

 

[ColoradoSnowman]

Did my 6 week visit this week (an overnight trip for me) and got the super thumbs up from the OP. He said that the donor graft had matched extraordinarily well to the curvature of my knee, that swelling, pain, function, ROM (which is functionally full now) were all well ahead of schedule, and even my scar looked more like 4 months out than 6 weeks. Really couldn't have been more positive.

Gave me the green light to walk without restriction, go up and down stairs, squat, etc. This next 6 weeks is about regaining full day to day function, post 12 weeks is about building back up carefully towards cardio and athletic strength, 6 month mark is where impact and higher kinetic activities can come back online.

So I went for a one mile walk both yesterday and today, slowly, carefully, but no pain, no swelling. It feels very nice to move freely again, hauling around a leg in a fixed brace was exhausting.

 

[mendogal]

Fabulous!!!!!

 

[Layla]

Great news, Colorado Snowman!
Sounds like you have a good plan to slowly get back to all that you love. Thanks for sharing the positive update.
Have a great week!
@ColoradoSnowman