MY ACL STORY: The Week When I Finish....

Remember this!

Hello Everyone :)
Week 13:
I've actually done it.....
I've finished college for good.....
I had my last 2 exams this week, and they didn't go too well but I'm just so thankful to finally have college out of the way - especially after the year I've had! Now I am free to spend my summer as I wish (which will consist mostly of sleeping).
Recovery wise things weren't too great this week, but I'll explain later on in this post why.

I started at the ACL class this week. This is a special class where all of the ACL patients at my physiotherapy place come together for an hour and work on their recovery together, whilst listening to some "hype" music. The room is set up with 10 different stations, ranging from the cross trainer to balance boards and all that comes in between, and we then go round in a circuit spending 3 minutes on each station.
However, because my physiotherapist was ill this week, I was left with another physio who ran the class too - but he didn't know what I was good at or what I struggled with. So he basically just observed me the whole time, rather than helping or encouraging me. So I didn't really enjoy it too much as I feel like I work better with a bit of encouragement.
Also my knee was super wobbly this week. No matter what I did it just wobbled like crazy! It was incredibly frustrating, especially when it came to doing the jumping from side to side and then balancing on my operated leg on the trampette as it was too wobbly to even balance. Also when I was doing the step ups and step overs on the step box my leg wobbled and ached so much. The physio seemed to think it was because my knee was tired which would explain the wobbling.
After this session, I had quite a lot of pain in the muscles around my knee and it ached really bad. Hopefully next weeks session will be better because right now I'm not too keen on this new class. I'm not sure if it's just because I don't like change (and this is a big change for me), or because my knee was tired, but I'm really hoping this feeling goes away for next week.

This is going to sound so random, aha, but this week I had a dream that I could run - like a full on sprint! But when I woke up and I still couldn't run I was so so upset :(
It'll happen soon, I just wish it would hurry up. I haven't been able to do it for around 10 months (since I first injured my knee). It's funny because before the injury I was never that fussed about running, but I think it's that thing of whenever someone tells you that you can't do something, and it just makes you even more determined to do it. I think running is like that, because I'm not able to do it and now I would do anything to be able to.
But I will get there!

My scars poking through my ripped jeans aha ;)

So this week was another boring one because I spent a lot of my time revising and trying to get my last 2 exams out of the way, but now they are so hopefully I'll start being a lot more active and fun aha ;)
This week I also wore jeans for the first time since the operation woo hoo! I probably could have started to wear them a while back but I love my jeans to be super skinny, which then requires the skinny jean dance (girls, you know the one...) But I finally did it, I'm getting back to normal, slowly but surely!
If you would like to read my experience of my other weeks post-op, then you can find those blog posts here. 
Feel free to leave me a comment if you've been through this (because I could use all of the advice and knowledge), or if you just feel like leaving a comment :)
Stay positive and keep on being you x

MY ACL STORY: The Week When I'm Discharged....

I love this a lot!

Hello Everyone :)
Week 12:
This week just kept getting better and better as the days went on; in terms of recovery, revision and being a fan of a particular band ;)
So if you couldn't guess already, I finally had some more physiotherapy (in fact 2 rounds of it) and they both went well, and then I went to a concert WOOP WOOP! But there will be more on that later, and maybe even a whole other post dedicated to it - who knows hey?
I also had another exam this week which was English Literature, and I know that I messed up on one of the questions but I managed to remember all of the quotes I needed to, and I'm done with this subject forever so I am very happy!
3 down, 2 more to go :)

I'll start with the physiotherapy.
So the first round happened in the beginning of the week and my physio was finally back and I was more than ready to get going again.
This week I tried some new exercises that revolved around the exercise ball. The first new exercise was more of a re-work of one that I had already been doing. Firstly, you put your feet/ankles onto the ball and lie on your back. Then you roll the ball in slightly towards your bum with your feet, and then lift your bum off of the floor and hold for about 5-10 seconds. This exercise is great for working the hamstrings and you can really feel the pull that it gives you.
The second new exercise was a completely new one. First you sit on the exercise ball, then you have to roll off of it until only your head/neck are resting on it. Your knees should be bent at a 90 degree angle and the rest of your body should be resting in the air. You then hold this position whilst holding your arms up in the air and bring one down to each side. This should be done for about 20 seconds. This really works your core muscles and the hamstrings again.
After doing these exercises my physio told me that he could see how much progress my knee had made and how much stronger it had gotten since beginning physiotherapy, so that made me very happy! Although after this session, I did feel an incredible amount of pain in my knee and muscles in my leg. But once I'd had some ibuprofen and some CyroCuff time, the pain soon went away.

I seemed to find my second physiotherapy session this week a lot harder than the first, as I nearly fainted. I was doing a lot of steps and squats with weights and after abut 10 minutes I started to feel very light headed and dizzy so I took some time out and had some water. I did this for about 5 minutes and then I was ready to go again. This feeling may have come from being stressed from exams or maybe just exhausted as I am pushing myself very hard with exercises and revision at the same time.
But despite this, my physio remained positive and told me that he thinks I'll do really well in the ACL class (which I'll be starting next week) and that I may show people up in it haha! So that definitely cheered me up after the bad start.

My (close to) 3 month post-op appointment was this week too! I was really nervous about it, but I think that may be more to do with the fact that I don't like hospitals, rather than being worried about my knee.
Once I was called into the room with my surgeon, he got straight to work. He brought me up onto the chair-bed thing and tested out my new ACL (for those of you who have been through this, you know the kind of tests I mean!). So I had to bend my leg - as far as I was comfortable with - then he sat on my foot and pulled against my bent knee. Straight away he noticed how much stronger it was as my knee didn't really give - if that makes sense? Like it put up more of a fight? Anyway, then he felt all round my knee and normally on my right side (where I had the meniscus damage) there would be a lot of pain, but there was absolutely no pain!

You can see the staples really clearly and a screw in the
right of the picture.

He then sat me down and showed me the pictures from the actual surgery and from my X-Ray and they were SO cool! They took pictures before and after putting the new ACL in place and it really is so amazing the things that surgeons can do nowadays! I was also shown a picture of the meniscus that had been repaired. It wasn't a total rip in it but they thought that they may as well repair it whilst they were in there, so that was also cool to see.
Then he asked me if I planned on going back to gymnastics, and I said yes because it is a massive hobby of mine. But then he told me that if I go back there is a 50% chance that I'll do it again in either knee in the first 3 years. So obviously that terrified me, but it's given me a lot to think about. He then told me that I need to wait 9 months from my surgery date anyway to go back to high impact sports, so that can be my thinking time.
However, after all of this, he then discharged me properly and fully from the hospital for my knee surgery, wooo hooo :D

This week I also went to go and see 5 Seconds of Summer in concert, and they were so so so so amazing!!! I'm not going to go into too much detail about the concert as I plan on doing a post all about that, so you have that to look forward to ;)

The AMAZING 5 Seconds of Summer in their element :)

So this week was probably one of my favourite weeks (ever) as I finished learning about Wuthering Heights, I got to see one of my favourite bands live, and I got discharged from the hospital..... So it was all in a week's work ;)
I would also just like to point out the fact that ONE DIRECTION FINALLY ADDED NO CONTROL AND 18 TO THEIR SETLIST!!!!! I have been waiting for this day ever since the On The Road Again Tour started and that day finally arrived and there was so much happiness!
If you would like to read my experience of my other weeks post-op, then you can find those blog posts here. 
Feel free to leave me a comment if you've been through this (because I could use all of the advice and knowledge), or if you just feel like leaving a comment :)
Stay positive and keep on being you x

MY ACL STORY: The Week When I Exam....

Hello Everyone :)
Week 11:
This week I have been incredibly boring (yet again), but it's the middle of exam season and all of my time is spent either revising, rehabbing my knee or sleeping, so please forgive me!
There was no physiotherapy this week either as my physio was away from work, but that doesn't mean that the exercise stops :)

Something to remember when going
through this process!

First things first, this week wasn't all smiles :(
I went round to my friend's house one evening this week and she has dogs - so I was already skeptical about going round in case they jumped up at me or something like that. But things were going fine, until another one of my friend's started playing with one of the dogs. She had a bone and was trying to throw it in the opposite direction but it hit my knee instead! And then the dog jumped up at my knee, resulting in me crying from all the pain.
It was lucky that I had brought round the CyroCuff to give me some sort of relief, but my oh my did that hurt!
I guess it was the scar tissue complaining again - as it always is!

I also had my first A2 exam this week, which meant that I have just been revising like crazy!
The exam was Media Studies which is probably my best subject and the one that I felt most confident with as I have already achieved a grade A in my coursework meaning that I would have to screw up pretty badly in this exam to not pass overall!
It went extremely well and I managed to remember everything that I needed to, result! I love it when you feel like all of the revision that you did actually paid off :)
2 exams down, and 3 more to go.

The beautiful Hayling Island :)

So this week is a very short post as I really didn't do much worthy of writing about!
The physio exercises are going well, and I'm really trying to work my knee as much as I can to get something from all of the workouts, so that includes upping the reps and adding weights to certain exercises to build up the muscle and strength.
I also took a walk along a (pretty much) deserted part of the beach on Hayling Island whilst the sun was setting. It was truly beautiful, and it felt good to be able to walk all of that way and feel almost no pain - although I must add that the stones were very difficult to walk on but I gave it my best try!
If you would like to read my experience of my other weeks post-op, then you can find those blog posts here. 
Feel free to leave me a comment if you've been through this (because I could use all of the advice and knowledge), or if you just feel like leaving a comment :)
Stay positive and keep on being you x

MY ACL STORY: The Week When I'm Boring....

Hello everyone :)
Week 8:
I'm not even gonna lie, this week has been proper boring, and I sincerely apologise for this post because it may bore you to tears.
Anyway, the reason for this boringness is because I had my first exam of the year, so all I have been doing is revising like crazy! The exam was AS Ethics, which I was re-taking from last year because I did awfully. And it went surprisingly well, so I was glad that I did spend a lot of my time revising as I felt like it actually paid off and wasn't all for nothing.

This week I had another physiotherapy session where I progressed to some exercises using props. Last week I was doing the same exercises but just on their own. So I was doing the bridging exercise on its' own. But this week I did it with an exercise ball under my heels/legs. This meant that I could really work my hamstrings and could work on my core muscles to keep the ball in place - without moving it too much.

Great things take time :)

Another exercise that I did last week without a prop was balancing on my operated leg. But this week I balanced on my operated leg whilst holding a football in my hands, with my arms out straight. I then had to lift the ball above my head, then back out in front of me, and then I had to turn to the left and to the right holding out the ball - whilst balancing on my leg. I had to repeat this 5 times. I also did this exercise on a blue foam block - so the surface was uneven and really tested my balance! By the 5th time, my leg was quite wobbly but at no time felt like it could give way.
The third, and final, exercise that I did last week without a prop was the sit-to-stand. But this week I was given a 1kg ball to hold out at arms length in front of me. This was so that my muscles really started to work again in my legs. By the 15th time doing this, my legs and arms were shaking like crazy!
In this session my physiotherapist kept saying to me "this is too easy for you", and then he'd find a way to make it harder. This made me feel as though I was really trying to push myself, and as though all of my exercise at home was really paying off.

I went out on a few outings this week, these included going to see Pitch Perfect 2 (which was amazing - maybe better than the first one?!) and going with my friend to get her nose pierced.
On both of these outings I wore a knee support to compress my knee and to help me feel some sort of comfort. I found that wearing this made me feel a lot more confident when walking - with it still feeling quite wobbly.
Walking is still quite difficult, and I'm still slow, but I know that with more time spent on my knee it will get back to normal.

I told you that this week would be incredibly boring *yawn*, and if you made it this far then I applaud you!
I'm not taking as much Ibuprofen anymore because there isn't as much swelling or pain in my knee, which is amazing! The only time I feel like I need it is the day after physio when I feel some muscular pain from the strain in my hamstrings.
If you would like to read my experience of my other weeks post-op, then you can find those blog posts here. 
Feel free to leave me a comment if you've been through this (because I could use all of the advice and knowledge), or if you just feel like leaving a comment :)
Stay positive and keep on being you x