Post #1 What is wrong with my knees?!

Bare with me during this blog.  I am currently 6 days out of a two-procedure surgery: Tibial Tubercle Fulkerson Osteotomy and MPFL reconstruction with a donor ligament on my right knee- and still on quite a lot of pain meds.  And let's not lie, I am not the best at writing.  Hence why I went down the medical path in college.  HAHA!

I wanted to write this blog for several reasons.  1) Before surgery I had a hard time finding information about my surgery,  2) I will be having this surgery again on my other knee, and I may want a reminder of everything I felt,  3) To keep myself busy.  I'm pretty bored sitting on the couch all day, waiting for my body to heal.

Maybe someone else considering this surgery will find my blog helpful, since like i wrote before i found little to nothing about the whole procedure/what to expect.  I'll start out by explaining what my knees do: since sixth grade (I am now 24 years old), my knee caps (the patella) dislocate to the outside of my knee.  They used to dislocate while playing sports and would relocate back into place on their own.  As the years went on, there was little reason as to why they would dislocate.  Sometimes during my attempt to sit in a chair they would dislocate.  By this point rather than relocating on their own, they would get "stuck", and i would have to ask someone to rise my leg to relocate the knee cap back into place (since i could not raise them on my own when dislocated).  Both knees had this issue.  I have done physical therapy several different times and have been to numerous doctors, most referring me to physical therapy which was only a help, but not a fix, to the problem.  Occasionally PT would actually hurt them more.

Along with the dislocating patella, I limp.  Sometimes my knees just plain hurt, even if it has been some time since last dislocating.  I don't know why they hurt, they just do.  Usually when i limp i don't even realize i'm limping, i'm just used to it.  But other people point it out to me. 

Within the last year or two the pain has gotten worst.  With my line of work I'm on my feet for 12 hours, and typically walking around the majority of the twelve hours.  After a week of work i am in a lot of pain.  I can't play sports anymore, and i used to really enjoy playing basketball and tennis.  Hiking is another passion of mine; however even though i still do it, i pay for it later, usually with a great deal of pain afterwards. 

Last June my right knee dislocated to a point much farther than it has even done before, and it was pretty hard to get back into place.  That dislocation landed me on crutches for a week, I've never had to be on crutches after a dislocation.  This was a bad one.  Every doctor has told me, once you dislocate it to a certain point it will always go to that point.  With how bad that dislocation was, along with the increasing pain I've been having, i gave up "living with this" and went on another quest to find a doctor who might have a better solution.

Thanks to a great coworker it didn't take me long to find a doctor.  She suggested someone several people in her family had gone to.  I made an appointment for this doctor, who took one look at me and said "I cant help you".  Awesome!  Not what i wanted to hear.  But he smiled and said he knew a better specialist in his orthopedic clinic who would be a great fit for me.  And he was right, as soon as i met the this doc, he knew exactly what needed to happen- and was so confident, i felt confident.  A couple months later i was on this journey to have a tibial tubercle osteotomy and MPFL replacement...or AKA: saw a nice big wedge out of my shin bone, slide it over and screw it down.  Then add a cadaver ligament to the inside of my knee by drilling three holes in my knee, two all the way through to the other side.  Sounds cool, right?

Here's a picture of the tibial tubercle osteotomy.