The Journey Begins...

Hello friends, family and random strangers. Thank you for reading and following my blog as I take you with me on my journey for a new knee. 

Let me start with how I got myself here and what kind of surgery I’m going to have March 16th.  I played fast-pitch softball as far back as I can remember and since I don’t play anymore I’ll brag a little bit and say I was pretty good…so good I banged up my left knee and now have a 2 cm x 2 cm hole in my cartilage.  Yay go me for stealing all those bases which required me to slide all the time!  Anyways…I digress…so here I am after all those years of softball compounded with the fact that I like to ski and workout (those don’t go well with having a bad knee!).  In total I’ve had 4 scopes on my left knee.  The ones in 2002 and 2008 where to clean up my cartilage since as the doctor said “my cartilage looked like a cheese grater got a hold of it” (gross I know sorry about that I didn’t even give a gross factor warning!  I will for future).

 

ACI means autogenous cartilage implantation and yes I’m willingly signing up for this very scifi procedure.  The full breakdown can be found at http://www.carticel.com/patients/treatment.aspx.  Carticel is the company does the ACI and it requires a two step process.  First is the “harvest”, which I had 12/23/2011.  This is an arthroscopic procedure where they take cartilage samples (2 – tic tac shaped pieces) and overnight them to Cambridge Massachusetts where they begin the sci fi process of cloning my cells in a test tube.  It kind of feels weird that there is a part of me that is in Massachusetts, yet the majority of me has never been there.  Ok moving on, the next stage is where they open up my knee (5-7” scar…good thing my Miss America days are over) and they inject my multiplied cells back into my knee where the hole is at.  Ok so now you have the low down and everyone is up to speed.

As I’ve tried to prepare the last few months for this surgery I’ve read a lot of websites, but I have found that the best things to read were other’s blogs.  They gave me the best information on what to really expect and everyone who wrote a blog said it helped them keep sane during the long rehab process.  So welcome to my blog.  I hope it helps those who are facing the same situation I now find myself in, and in the process I get to update my friends and family.