Road to ACL Tear Recovery Part 2: The Surgery

Surgery day seemed to come sooner than I would have wanted it to. I dreaded the workout ban that would immediately follow the surgery, but I figured the sooner I got this over with, the sooner I would be on my way to recovery. The day before, Dr. Gar Eufemio's secretary Jona called me to remind me I needed to be at the venue one hour before the actual surgery as well as the 8-hour fast from food and drinks that would precede the surgery.

I arrived at Megaclinic at almost exactly 10 AM on May 6, and my dad followed soon after. I got dressed in a hospital gown and met the anaesthesiologists, who proceeded with preparations for the surgery. I lay down anxiously while waiting for Dr. Eufemio. The last thing I remember before getting knocked out was seeing him enter the room and saying, "Let's start."

By the time I came to, I was in the recovery room, my leg was totally straight and in a brace, with a tube attached to my knee. The first thing that came to mind was the fear of how my knee would be once the pain medication wore off, given that it was already painful then. When I finally got to talk to Dr. Eufemio, he told me it was one of the fastest ACL reconstructions he'd done -- 37 minutes! -- and told me a few things to remember.

This greeted me in the OR :P

I wasn't allowed to remove the brace at anytime yet, and I was to have my first follow-up appointment and rehab session the next day at Cardinal Santos. But Dr. Eufemio, a firm believer in the accelerated approach to recovery from ACL surgery, encouraged me to walk around, even telling me to walk to get out of the clinic. The pain, however, was so bad they had to send me off in a wheelchair. When I got home I forced myself to sleep to forget the pain. Luckily I was feeling quite drowsy, but I kept on waking up every hour or so even into the night. Each time I woke up I felt the pain, I constantly contemplated on whether the pain of surgery and the "forced leave" from my active lifestyle were worth it.

Day 1 of recovery -- surgery day itself!

Road to ACL Tear Recovery Part 1: How Things Came to Be

December 2013 was one of the most eventful months of my life.

After years of chickening out on joining an ultramarathon, I finally finished my first 50k, Bald Runner's Tagaytay to Nasugbu (T2N), on December 8, 2013. I snagged a cash prize for being the 10th female finisher, which made me especially happy because, given the lower back problems I'd been having in previous months, I knew it would be probably be my first and last ultramarathon as well.

With my awesome T2N support crew!

But my celebration was short-lived. Less than two weeks later, on December 19, I had a bad fall after doing a jump during BodyCombat class. My knee locked upon landing, and despite icing the injury immediately afterwards, I experienced severe pain and difficulty. When the pain escalated the next morning, I knew something was very wrong, so I consulted my rehab doctor, Dr. Homer Tiangco, who instructed me to have an MRI done a few days after. Results showed that I had a complete or high-grade partial tear on my left anterior cruciate ligament (ACL), in addition to a sprain and a Baker's cyst. Conservative therapy was an option, but if I ever wished to go back to running long distance and doing intense yoga or BodyCombat again, surgery was the only option. It was an outpatient procedure, and there were many advancements in ACL surgery that allowed patients to recover quite fast. A few weeks later, I consulted my sports doctor and orthopedic surgeon Dr. Edgar Eufemio whom I last consulted when I had lateral knee pain back in 2009. Dr. Eufemio told me that surgery was indeed necessary if I wanted to become active again. But prior to surgery, I needed to make sure my hamstrings were strong enough so I could make a quick recovery.

FAT ASS 2014...with a bad knee

Dr. Eufemio mentioned that I should start strengthening my hamstrings since a hamstring tendon graft would be used to reconstruct my ACL. Since I was regularly attending yoga and BodyBalance classes, I figured that would suffice with a few additional hamstring exercises.

My parents, however, were not as decided as I was. I consulted a second orthopedic surgeon, one who seemed to suggest that conservative treatment for me. By this time, however, I was already determined on getting that surgery; I was not only frustrated about being limited in my recreational activities, I was bothered by sudden episodes of knee pain and locking. For me, it was no longer a question of whether or not to have a surgery; the only question was when.

Finally, during the last week of April, I called Jona, Dr. Eufemio's secretary and took a shot at a random close date. My surgery was to be held on May 6, Tuesday. I had the option to have it done at Megaclinic or Cardinal Santos, but since Dr. Eufemio did ACL reconstruction at Megaclinic more often, I decided to have the surgery done there.