Hello guys, I’m Ari and my life is kind of crazy. For starters, within the last six months, I’ve had three knee surgeries… one in October 2023, one in December 2023, and one in February 2024. Let’s back up a little bit. For those of you who don’t know, I have scoliosis, or a curved spine. This condition can not only affect one’s spine alignment but also hips and gait. In my case my legs were actually two different lengths which made my spine crooked. It was so bad that it became painful to walk or even be on my feet for more than an hour. Not like the kind of pain you get when you overuse a muscle or when your body is tired, but it felt like my hips were locked. When I’d try to walk or stand longer than normal, I would literally get stuck and have to shuffle my feet until I could sit down and relax for a while. Due to this situation, after much discussion and a few months of preventative physical therapy, in late August of 2023, I found out I would need to have surgery to lengthen one of my legs. Considering that this was my first surgery ever, I think it’s safe to say I was nervous and unsure what to expect.
I had always heard other people talking about the anesthesia, the IVs, and everything in between but I had never experienced it myself. Nonetheless, whether I was ready for it or not, on October 26th, I went under. The procedure was about 45 minutes and I was in recovery for about an hour. Coming out of anesthesia is strange for sure. From gaining feeling back in your body to blurry vision and hearing muffled, indistinct conversation, it’s an interesting feeling indeed.
Once I came to, they brought my parents in and took me up to my room. Now something to know about me is I will, under any circumstances, do what I can to get to the sporting event on any given day. The reason I’m telling you this is because there was a football game the day of my surgery and after I woke up from my surgery the first thing I asked my surgeon and parents was if I was going to be able to get to the game.
One thing they don’t warn you about when going to your room after surgery is the dizzy feeling you get while you’re getting rolled through the hospital halls. It’s not like the dizziness you get from spinning but it feels like the whole building is swaying from side to side as you’re going through it. Now I’m not sure if that is just because I had been out for the past hour or so or if it’s because of the meds they gave me but it is not a fun feeling (not like any of this is fun, but you know what I mean). I will say, although it’s a weird feeling, it’s not AS bad the second and the third time. I’m not sure if it was the case the first time but I do know that for the second and third time, after we got to my room, they actually let you sleep for a while uninterrupted. To be honest the first few hours after I got to my room was the most sleep I got in my whole hospital stay. From the constant beeping of the monitors to random spasms at the incision sites, the hospital room wasn’t necessarily the best place to relax.
For my first surgery, I was only in the hospital for one night after my surgery. After I was able to go home, the road to recovery began. I was out of school for two weeks post-op and I was stuck on the couch for a solid week and a half of that. Another thing I did while at home after my first surgery was get good at using crutches and let me tell you, they are not for the weak. Take it from someone who wanted to be on them as a little kid just for the attention or whatever, they are not all they’re cracked up to be, especially for six months…
Let’s play a little game, it’s called how many shows and movies did Ari finish in two weeks. I’ll give you some time to think about your answer. Think you got it? The answer is too many! Mind you I was home ALONE for a majority of that time and I couldn’t really go outside and shoot hoops so I watched pretty much all of Disney+ and that month’s rotation of my TikTok for you page instead. There was also a lot of Uber Eats while I was home, like A LOT. Finally, the week of the 13th, I was able to go back to school. It was an adjustment for sure, I went from being the fast, pushy walker that everyone was trying to catch up to, to having to be the one trying to keep up with my friends. That same week I started my first session of physical therapy since the summer. Unfortunately, it wasn’t very successful… After about two and a half months, it was time for surgery number two.
The other thing I had to do while home after my first surgery was lengthen my leg. Now I know that might sound weird but I’m not kidding. I had this machine that had a giant magnet in it that connected to the rod in my femur that pushed my bone apart a millimeter at a time. I had to do this three times a day for about a month and a half. It took about two minutes each time and although I couldn’t feel it happening inside, there was a noticeable difference after a while. In fact, that is also part of the reason why my first surgery was unsuccessful. This was because my bone was growing faster than my muscles and tendons could keep up with, therefore what made my leg bend and straighten was not moving at the same speed, or at all for that matter.
My second hospital visit wasn’t TECHNICALLY a surgery, but the process and recovery was similar if not worse so in my eyes it is. It actually was a knee manipulation procedure. This is when they put you under and fully straighten your knee and put it in an immobilizer. In my situation, my knee had been locked at about 40 degrees since surgery one due to muscular atrophy. Because of said atrophy, my surgeon was unable to straighten my leg resulting in me waking up in a FULL leg cast. Coming out of anesthesia that time was worse because I was told that I would be able to start relearning the walking thing. That was not the case. Instead I had to be fully immobile and casted for a week.
Not trying to sound dramatic but that was probably the worst week of my life. For those who are reading this that don’t know me, I am a pretty small person, 5’3”, 105 lbs or something. After this procedure I lost about 15 pounds. Not only was I not eating but I was also not sleeping or moving, it was rough. My lack of sleep was due to the inability to get comfortable when I had a giant piece of plaster on my leg. I was also, to be honest, pretty depressed at that time because I hadn’t done anything for about four months, I was completely reliant on my family members to do pretty much anything, none of my surgery or physical therapy was working and I was just ready for it all to be over.
About six days of the… experience that was having a full leg cast, it was time to go get it off, finally. Getting it off wasn’t that bad, it was a little scary considering that they had a literal saw that close to my leg, but it’s just there to cut the cast and not my leg and they made sure I was aware of that. In fact, the casting people were great about making sure that I was comfortable and that I knew that nothing was going to happen so big thanks to them.
Unfortunately, as the days went on after I got my cast off, my leg slowly went right back to the position that was in before my cast. The tight muscles, the inability to straighten or bend my leg, all of the things. That being said, we had to make a decision, either start physical therapy again and hope that the therapists can get the muscles to work or go under again and have them cut my tendons so that my leg will straighten. That conversation resulted in us kind of doing both. I did physical therapy for about a month and a half after my second surgery. It was the same place with a different therapist and to be honest, she was a big part of getting me ready for my third surgery. She was aggressive when she needed to be, she tried her best to get my muscles to work when they didn’t want to, and honestly she just always did what she could and more than what most people wanted to do to try and help me not have to have another surgery.
But, despite all the work and multiple attempts to avoid it, February 13th, 2024, I went under again for my third, and hopefully final surgery. This time, they went in, took the rod out of my femur, and cut the tendons in the back of my hamstrings that way my leg would straighten on its own. To give you a better visual, think about taking the screws out of a door hinge and how it just moves freely afterwards. That’s kind of what my leg did after the surgery. For this surgery I was in the hospital for a week I believe. Within that week, I missed my school’s winter dance, Valentine’s day, and like three basketball games. Now for the third time, I was promised I’d be able to walk after the surgery… and although this hospital stay out of all of them included the most aggressive in-hospital physical therapy, I was still on crutches when I left. I didn’t even start learning how to walk without them until about a month ago. After a week of check-ins by the nurses, having to plan when I use the bathroom 30 minutes in advance so the nurses and my mom can help me, and all the other “fun” stuff that comes with being in the hospital, I was finally able to go home. I bet you can’t guess what I started up again after I got home? That’s right, physical therapy, yay!
This round of physical therapy has been aggressive in a different way than any of the others. This is because it has been less about strengthening the muscles that haven’t been used in 100 years and more about getting the muscles stretched and my knee bending and straightening the correct way. There’s been a lot of screaming involved but there have also been many milestones hit. After about six months of being on crutches and unable to fully flatten my left foot, I am happy to be able to say that I have now been crutchless if you will, for a little over a month. Although it has been a long, difficult road, I am FINALLY starting to get back to somewhat normal and I think others are starting to notice as well.
From the inability to get to the restroom on my own to having to take the most disgusting pain meds I think honestly the worst thing about recovering from surgery for me was feeling like an inconvenience to my family. But on the other side of the coin, I am also so grateful for them. From helping me get to the restroom in the middle of the night, to my mom pushing me around in a wheelchair in DC so I don’t feel left out, to me coming home from all of my surgeries with a care package from my dad, I really am lucky to have such an awesome support system.
Yes I’m grateful for all of my friends too. I’m not going to name names but thank you to all of the people who have helped me to and from my classes, who have come with me to get lunch while I was on crutches and couldn’t use my hands, and finally, although I make it seem like I don’t like it, thank you to all of my friends who have made up ridiculous nicknames for me as I hobble around school.
Ultimately, it feels like, despite taking the long way, things are starting to work and along with a final monthly check in with my surgeon and some more physical therapy, I am on the road to being a normal person, physically, by the end of the summer. Ari out.
