Ooh I say Matron.....

I have been AWOL for what seems like an age. There is a reason, we had been very busy trying to get jobs done in the garden because we knew that Joe was going to be out of action for a while. Last Friday Joe was in for an op on his Anterior cruciate ligament, ACL for short. Basically it's one of ligaments in the knee which in short acts like a stabiliser in the knee joint. Joe did some serious damage to his knee last year in the UK when he landed badly on his knee. It was sore, he said at the time. It turns out he had not only torn the meniscus and damaged the cartilage in his knee, he also broke part of the kneebone. And if that wasn't enough he had all but severed the ACL. How he kept walking is beyond me, you know what they say....'Where there's no sense.....!'

 Photo courtesy of Wikipedia

Early this year he had an op to tidy up and repair the meniscus and cartilage, the surgeon at the time didn't want to do the surgery on the ACL, due to the long recovery period and Joe was coping quite well at the time. But over the last few months it has been causing problems, particularly at work as it is pretty demanding. Sometimes he can walk miles at the power station and as there are something like 16 levels, there are an awful lot of stairs to climb.
On Friday Joe was in for the op, he was first down and had an overnight stay. He was back home Saturday afternoon and apart from one fall backwards that evening, him, crutches and co-ordination are not a match made in Heaven, he's been making good progress.
This was how his leg looked on the Saturday morning when they removed the bandage and just before they took out the drain... (Don't look if you're squeamish!)

Yesterday he had a visitor, Dr Sue arrived with medical supplies and a bag full of laughs, the best medicine of all. It certainly brought a smile to Joe's face, I wasn't so sure about the bell (see below)!

Mmm........

 Damitol......

 Today (Tuesday) He's feeling heaps better, and much more mobile although he has to realise that he's not going to be fully mobile for some weeks yet.

Today he had a shower and changed the dressings and I took this photo a short while ago. 

The staples come out on Friday and he starts seeing the physio next week, he does have a leaflet with some basic exercises and he's doing those and icing at least 3 times a day which has really helped keep the swelling down.

I've done a fair bit of reading and some sewing over the last few days and I'll do a catch up post soon.

That's all for now

see ya