Arthroscopic Anke Surgery

Well I finally had the surgery a few weeks ago at the Hospital for Special Surgery and it went well for the most part. I went in around noon and they were running ahead of schedule so they took me in earlier. You know you're at the right place when that happens.

The pre-operating procedures are numerous. A number of nurses and doctor's would ask me a bunch of questions and some were very redundant. They even took a permanent marker and marked which ankle I was going to have the surgery on. I guess it would be a travesty if they went into the wrong foot. I got into my scrubs (are they called that if you are the patient?) and they hooked up an IV into my wrist which feels like a constant pinching but not too bad.

Dr. Elliott and the anesthesiologist said they would do the following things:

1. A sedative through an IV
2. A local anesthetic in my left leg to numb my leg
3. A spinal anesthetic injection in my spine which would numb my entire lower body. The spinal freaked me out naturally but they said it would be different from an epidural because it would be a very tiny needle that would permeate the spinal membrane and administer the anesthetic.
4. 2 small incisions in my left ankle where the camera and other instruments would go.
5. If they found damaged cartilage, it would be shaved down or removed. Any exposed bone would be drilled into to create small fractures and promote growth of fibrocartilage and blood flow. The cartilage that grows back is not the same type of cartilage I used to have which is a bummer. However, from what the doctors tell me, it would allow me to "do the things I used to do with little or no pain." Not sure what that means, but hopefully it'll be fine.
6. A needle into my hip bone would remove progenitor cells and then they would be injected into the effected area in my ankle. According to the Dr. Elliot, this doesn't do any harm but could do some good in promoting growth of the right type of cells. There hasn't been any research supporting this but is harmless and I opted to try it out.
7. Finally, they'd patch me up and put a cast on my leg which would stay on for 2 weeks.

When they took me into the operating room, it was quite the scene. I've never been in one before but there were all sorts of monitors and cameras all over the place. I was freezing because the vents and fans were on full blast and I was barely wearing a blue sheet for clothing.

They started with the sedative through the IV and said I would feel it in about a minute. After about 30 seconds, I remember saying, "whoa, there it is!" That was it, I don't remember anything except when I woke, they were putting my cast on. Then I remember saying "That was fun, I could do that again." Naturally, the anesthesia was still in full effect and I was delirious.

I was out of the hospital in the same day but barely have any recollection of that day in hindsight because of the anesthesia. They gave me some pain killers for the next few days and advised that I take aspirin every day for 6 weeks to prevent blood clots in my heart.

Well that's it, I hope this proves to be useful information to anyone considering the same type of surgery. Feel free to contact me about any questions you might have. More details to come about the recovery process.