After many frustrating months dealing with my health issues and barely training and running, I finally had a date with my surgeon to repair the torn medial meniscus in my right knee on August 19. Here’s how my strange day went down.

For someone as detail focused as I am for most things in life, I’m quite ashamed to admit that I had surprisingly few details about the in-and-out arthroscopic surgical procedure I was about to receive after I arrived at the hospital. This has probably as much to do with the hectic and complicated work schedule I’ve kept in the weeks leading up to my surgery as it does with the routine nature of the procedure I was having done. There was no pre-op visit after all and other than a very brief discussion with a nurse a few days prior to tell me when to start fasting and when to show up, I was largely in the dark about everything. The pre-op MRI was equally vague and inconclusive. While it was clear I had a medial meniscal tear, the surgeon was unsure of the full extent of my injury and the required procedure, and preferred to retain some creative freedom in the event I was opened up and things looked worse than anticipated and a more aggressive course of action was required.

Shortly after going through triage and getting gowned up and assigned a bed, I met with the anesthesiologist and surgical team, who provided me with a general outline of the surgical procedure and timeline that would ensue. I was informed that they planned to use a nerve block, which would greatly assist in pain management and partially eradicate the need for pain medication post-surgery, in advance of a general anesthetic.

At 10:20, I was wheeled into OR prep, where I was administered the femoral nerve block. The nerve block procedure, which I watched with very keen interest on an ultrasound screen next to my bed, consisted of gingerly inserting a needle into my upper thigh that penetrated through the muscle tissue until it reached the femoral nerve near the femoral artery (which could be clearly seen in the ultrasonic images contracting with my heartbeat). When the needle was maneuvered into the right location, an analgesic was released into the nerve in controlled doses to effectively block the nerve from sending and receiving signals, which resulted in numbing much of my leg, including the knee.

At about 11:00, I was wheeled into the OR and asked to hop from my gurney onto the surgical bed, and within a couple of minutes I was fully strapped in and connected and ready to go, so the mask was positioned over my face and I drifted off to la-la-land and the arthroscopic procedure started.

At 12:45, I woke up in a recovery room adjacent to the OR. I felt no pain or discomfort in any way. My nurse asked how I was feeling and I responded coherently that I would only feel better with a coffee in my hand, and she laughed and said “you’re clearly doing just fine”, and proceeded to wheel my gurney into another recovery room outside the OR for additional observation.

By 13:28, I was happily listening to music and answering work emails to the great despair of my family and co-workers. The over-under on my first work-related activity post surgery was set by the Vegas oddsmakers at 16:00, so clearly the under was a winner and that’s a sad testament to my inability to shut off from work for even a single day. We’ll clearly need to address this deficiency in future posts.

At 13:45, a nurse came by my bed and informed me that I would need to demonstrate that I could walk and go to the bathroom in the upcoming hours as a precursor to my release. Without hesitation and desperately wanting to break out of prison, I pulled myself off the bed and stumbled around the corner like a wounded ape to the washroom to pee. When I returned, I was informed that although my walk “lacked grace” my will and determination made up for it and I was going to be discharged.

At the time of my release at 14:28, and despite my knee being twice its regular size due to swelling, I walked out of the hospital under my own power with no support and I’d not been given so much as a single Tylenol at that point for pain. Modern medicine is truly astounding. I was also informed prior to leaving that I would be in agony once the nerve blocker faded over the course of the next 12 hours or so, and I was provided a prescription for Dilaudid, a morphinian opioid. It was also strongly recommended that a pill be consumed whenever I started to feel the first sensations returning to my leg.

By 22:00 on the day of my surgery, the nerve blocker was holding strong and I’d only consumed two Tylenols since I returned home in the afternoon, despite increasing soreness and stiffness in my leg. Would this be a sign of good things to come? Stay tuned.

14:28 – Walking out of the hospital under my own power without a single Tylenol in my system