Day 33.

Another day at the gym. This week I've been doing 40 minutes on bike or elliptical.

I've been doing legs every other day. I've been doing equal weights with each leg to keep them even, even so my right leg is only slightly behind my left leg. It's just a bit more difficult, but not by much.

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Then I decided to do a group effort and see if I could be better than the sum of my parts.
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Knee is just a bit stiff. Tonight at Yoga I had near full flexion. Kneeling on it wasn't too difficult nor were any positions.

Damned Dirty Politics

There's politics. There's home owner association politics. There are office politics.

There's Rugby politics.

And then there's Medical politics.

You may think that there's one way to do an ACL repair. How hard could it be? Slice, Dice, Fix, Stitch, Rehab.

As an Engineer I've seen how my teachers taught a subject to how I apply it at work. How the equations were balanced, variables used, even equations used. Some people I know love to use A=pi*d^2/4 rather than A=pi*R^2.

Orthopedic surgeons, from what I've seen, are no different. What school they went to, who their teachers were, and where they completed their residency and I'm sure a wide number of other variables. From surgical procedures to post-op to recovery and rehab. 3 surgeries and I haven't had any two exactly alike.

Cryo-Cuff, Over-night stay or no, block or no block, weight bearing after surgery, locking brace, I could go on...

And as I'm finding out with my last surgery these just aren't different methodologies, these are strongly opinionated convictions. All of it stemming from doctor #2, Dr Shelbourne of the Shelbourne Knee Center. He's heavy into research and his own way of doing things. He seems to be well known in the ACL repair 'business'.

When I went in for my third consult and my first PT session after the third surgery, both know of Dr Shelbourne and of his methods, and both had opinions, and I could tell what sort of opinion it was.

I'm still not sure the point I was trying to make of this post. Other than: Everything you read on this blog may not coincide with what your doctor is going to be telling you. It may be different than what you read on other blogs of similar nature.

Just like with real politics, there is no clear cut right and wrong. Do your own research. You're not going to drop $10k on a brand new car without doing some research. You're not going to redo your kitchen without reading at least two different opinions on how you should do it. Your ACL surgery should be no different, even if it's two doctors at the same practice.