MPFL Reconstruction + In Time With You!

Day 7 post surgery.
My sore throat, cough and flu have miraculously been cured and my stool is no longer green!
Everything seemed so much better. Pain in the knee is not much, just some cramps in parts of it or when I try to sit with my leg faced down (it doesn't hurt when my leg is elevated.)
The knee is also a little less swollen but still very incredibly swollen. Still aren't getting the strength to walk without the crutches yet but I'm hopeful about walking without them on the coming Wednesday to have my follow-up checkup at SGH.

I'm getting hairy again. Moustache, eyebrow and leg hair are growing at an unimaginable speed and are unstoppable. Now I look like some caveman stuck in a cave with nowhere else to go.



This was how my leg looked like on Day 0 post-surgery:



My knee was wrapped around by a large bandage and held in place by a huge knee brace.


It's funny how my cousin and Song Hua gave a disgusted look when they talked about knee braces - they thought that knee braces which they saw worn on other people on the streets are actually having spikes that pierce through their skin. Omg. That was such a horrendous sight! But no, I'm here to clarify that knee braces are worn by simply strapping them on not piercing through skin.

Wanted to show you the dressing I had now after the big bandage is removed at Day 1 post-surgery but decided not to, since it might gross you out. (I'm such a good friend I can't deny. lol.)

So at Day 1 post-surgery (Tuesday), I was ready to be discharged that afternoon. As the estimated hospital stay was until Wednesday, my parents didn't take leave for Tuesday and had to trouble my cousin to take care of me for the rest of the day. (Yes, she just resigned.)

Before being discharged, the surgeon came by to check on me. He told me how he did the surgery and that my knee will be significantly better after that, at least it won't be popping in and out like it used to anymore.


A diagram of my MPFL (Medial Patellofemoral Ligament) Reconstruction:





Due to the many subluxations throughout the years, my MPFL is badly torn (a Grade III tear).
Before the reconstruction could begin, a knee arthroscopy had to be done for the removal the loose bodies (pieces of torn ligament) and a clearer and accurate view of what's inside so there will be 3 incisions of few millimeters. Next he took my hamstring tendon and made it into a ligament and hence you have what's called as an hamstring autograft. Then he made small tunnels with few mm depth into the patellar and implanted the graft by fixating it with dissolvable screws.

Hence now my patellar is fixed and wouldn't be as mobile as before. Recurrent dislocations will rarely happen in most cases thankfully but I promise to be careful and do more physical therapy exercises to gain strength. (Right now we aren't so sure about how successful the operation was until weeks later although the success rate is 93%. Most people who recovered relied on lots of physical therapy exercises and yoga to regain their lost confidence and upper thigh strength in everyday activity.)

So jia you le!

I have been watching dramas, playing The Sims, reading books and blogging to pass time. Really can't wait to go shopping again! I used to be able to know what movies were screening every week but I didn't for the past week and only know them through younger bro when he was about to head out for the "Ah Boys to Men" movie!

After Material Queen, I went on to get a glimpse of Easy Fortune Happy Life and since the first episode caught my attention, I focused on the remaining episodes!





And after that, I investigated on why Mao Mao and Chuan Sia asked me to watch Running Man by watching it.




Okie, I know now why it's so popular. The creators are witty and creative. Every "mission" in the show shows tremendous effort in making it work and the participants, each being very different from one another has a different approach to accomplishing it. I especially love the part where they turned their backs against and became wary of one another in the last stage when they found out that only one of them gets to win the race! Lol.




Now I'm down to watching In Time with You after knowing that it won 7 awards in the 47th Golden Bell Award ceremony, including Ariel Lin winning the Best Female Lead and Chen Bo Lin the Best Male Lead.



Will review it after I finished. Currently at Episode 4 and so far so cute!



My younger bro is gonna get The Big Bang Theory Season 5 episodes from his friend and I can't wait! I almost forgot how it's like to laugh at every sentence the film characters said after finishing Season 4!