Another Shot ACL...

When I decided to take this trip abroad for a year, I told myself that I wanted to experience all aspects of life in another country. The good, the bad, and everything in between. What’s the fun in running home every time something goes wrong? Of course, it’s comforting to know I have that US option, but going home was not what I wanted to do when I found out I had to have knee surgery on my ACL and meniscus after my spill on the Austrian slopes.

Being an Italian citizen has many benefits. One of those being access to universal health care. I set up the operation with a surgeon who is a family friend. It was important for me to have someone who had worked with athletes before and since he had worked with the Rome basketball team in the past he knew an athletes mentality. He also seemed very sure of his skills, so I felt pretty comfortable with him.

Now, I’ve already had two ACL repairs in the past (both on my left knee) and they took less than four hours of hospital time to complete. That included paperwork, prep time, anesthesia, actual surgery time, and post surgery recovery. Here in Italy things are a bit different. I headed to the hospital four days before the actual surgery. I was told it was important for me to show up early so that I didn’t loss my spot in the lineup. I was given my own comfortable room with a balcony. The food was good and the nurses were very nice, which made the transition to hospital life a little less stressful.

The tests started immediately. Chest x-rays, blood and urine samples, EKG...let’s just say they were very thorough. Every day started the same. 5:00am temperature check. Yes, that’s right...5:00am!!! I’m definitely more used to seeing my clock read 5:00am as I’m coming in after a long night. Not waking up at that hour. After that came the 6:00am needle in my stomach. Next, the 7:00am making of my bed (I would get out, they would make it, I would get right back in and rip the sheets off...it didn’t seem like it was necessary, but they did anyway). 8:00am breakfast. After breakfast I would go back to sleep until around noon. Quite a start to the day...

Waking up 5:00am is bad enough, even when you go to bed at a decent hour. Unfortunately, I had some other outside factors that prevented an early nights rest. Here’s the list of things that kept me up at night...
-The Light: My room had a window that looked into the next room, which was the nurses office. They were in there 24 hours and left the light on all night. There were blinds on the window, but they did nothing. (NOTE: After a few days they did put something in front of the window to block the light.)
-The Horn: Each person on my hall had a button by their bed that was linked right to that nurses office. Whenever they were in need of assistance, all you had to do was ring the bell and the nurses would come help. Aside from this horn ringing every half hour or so, all day and night, the noise that it made was reminiscent of Jim Carrey’s “Most Annoying Noise in the World” from Dumb and Dumber. It’s the kind of noise that is impossible to get used to and is especially pleasant when you finally get to sleep only to get woken up...again and again.
-The Screaming Woman: At the end of my hall was an older woman who seemed to be having a tough time. Like any normal person, her screams of “AIUTO!(HELP)...AIUTO!(HELP)...” worried me the first few times. I hoped that the nurses would do something, but apparently they weren’t as concerned as me. I’m sure the nurses deal with these types of people all the time, but it was a first for me.

It only got better from there. The night before the surgery I was assured to get absolutely no sleep at all. If you’ve ever had surgery before you’re aware of the no eating day prior to surgery rule. I hate this rule with a passion. Needless to say I enjoy eating...quite a bit. So these types of restrictions don’t go over well with my stomach. Yes, I was hungry but along with that some genius also came to my room to fix one of the lights...and they fixed it all right. They did such a good job that the lights in my room wouldn’t go OFF anymore. Awesome! Any hopes of getting rest were shot.

GAME DAY: 5:00am IV needle put in arm. Five hours before surgery. Why so early...Who knows. I was offered a local anesthetic, but I prefer getting knocked out completely when I have surgery, so when I wake up everything is done. (I’m not a huge fan of watching the surgery happen. I always think I’m going to twitch and do something to ruin the surgery). The last thing I remember was the inside of my mouth feeling cold and then saying a drawn out, “Ciaoooooo, Ciaooooooo” to the nurses and surgeon as I closed my eyes. When I finally did wake up, I thought they hadn’t started yet...

When I got back to my room I was hooked up to a bunch of tubes. A couple running from my arm and one drainage tube in my knee. Over the course of the next few days I stayed attached to those tubes as they gave me my necessary antibiotics and anti-inflammatory medication. The drainage tube was new for me. It was hooked to this plastic bottle and collected the blood and other fluid that was pumped into my knee during the surgery. It was pretty nasty. By the end I had collected about a Gatorade size bottle of “stuff” from my knee.

The first night after surgery, I was told that I had to take a pee or else they would insert a catheter to help out. Needless to say, I was having none of that. I stayed up all night with a little bottle by my bed trying as hard as I could to get it done. Just to let you know, for whatever reason it’s not easy to pee after surgery. Finally, at 4:00am, after hours and hours of just sitting there with that bottle, I did it...hallelujah! I was able to avoid the catheter!

The removing of the drainage tube was something I wasn’t quite ready. When they removed the bandages, I saw that the tube had been stitched into my leg. After removing the stitch, the nurse had me take a deep breath in and breathe out hard. On that release he pulled out the tube. It happened so quickly, I didn’t have time to react. I couldn’t believe how deep it was! I’m probably exaggerating, but it felt like the tube was a good few inches into my knee. Once that last tube was out, I was finally able to get out of bed and move around on my own. It was such a relief to not be attached to anything.

Before I left the hospital the surgeon told me that it looked like I had torn most of my ACL a while back and just finished it off while skiing. I was a little surprised to hear this considering I competed without much problems. I did have a pretty serious injury on that knee in 2007, but I didn’t think I had torn anything. With my other ACL tearing at the start of 2008, I guess I was basically training for the summer of 2008 with both ACL’s torn...fantastic.

I’ve been released from the hospital now, and I’ve already started my therapy. Right now I’m doing about 3-4 hours of therapy a day. In some way it feels like I’m training again. Hopefully, I can get back on my feet as soon as possible and continue my travels.

Overall, it was much different experience than the previous surgeries I’ve had in the US and it’s something I won’t soon forget. There is more pain this time around, but it’s nothing I can’t handle. I have to thank the doctors, therapists, nurses for their help over the past week. Of course, I also have to thank my family out here. I can’t tell you how much help they have been through the whole process. I would have never been able to have this surgery out here without them.

NOTE: Believe it or not, this wasn’t my first surgery in Italy. When I was five years old, I had a strange cyst the size of a grapefruit removed from my stomach. I spent about two weeks in the hospital and I ended up missing my first couple weeks of kindergarten. Hopefully, this is the last surgery in either the US or Italy...