The Second Knee Surgery

Dr. Lavender decided on a manipulation, and a surgery to clear out scar tissue, and culture the tissue for infection, to rule that out. He said it was necessary, as well as doing a scope, where he cut back into poke holes to clear out scar tissue under my knee cap, and a culture to be run on those tissues to check for infection. He also sent me for a nerve conduction test before the surgery, and consulted another specialist, to make sure my nerves would hold up for the surgery, and to make sure another surgery was the best solution. I also had an allergic reaction to the derma bond used on my incisions to close them up. It caused hives to appear down my leg, and around my knee. It also made the wounds peely, and flaky. I was given cream to combat the reaction, and I was able to get that cleared up. 

     June 28th 2020 was my second surgery. He did a manipulation, and cleared out scar tissue.  The labs from this surgery revealed no sign of infection, but he did determine that I had arthrofibrosis. Six weeks out of my second surgery I was still only up to about 65 degrees on a bend, at my next follow up appointment he told me he didn't think I would get more than 90 degrees of flexion. Just enough bend to get in and out of a chair, and that’s it. On 7 /23/ 2020 he wrote a letter stating that “ Ms. Forrest is currently disabled from work secondary to her injury to the right knee, and surgery. It is likely that she will not reach maximum capacity once she is fully improved after rehabilitation. Will will address this with a Functional Capacity Evaluation for her disability rating when time is appropriate.”  He also recommended a CPM (certive passive motion)machine, to try to help me gain as much range of motion as possible. For 21 days 8 hours a day it was my job to make my knee bend. They give you a machine to strap your leg into, and bend it for you because its to painful to do yourself. Essentially a home torching device.  The pain was excruciating, I had to bring the machine to Physical Therapy 3 days a week, on top of my normal schedule, and they had to put me in a second room because my screaming, and crying was upsetting the other patients. On top of that I was using the machine 6 hours a day. I actually have logs in a diary that I took to keep track. For a whole month that was my job, to get this knee to bend, or it would be stuck, and I would never bend it again! It took a lot of work, and with the Grace of God helping me through that I finally started going up in my range of motion, and managed to get to 135 degrees on a bend! Dr. Lavender called it a “Miracle”. He did not think I would get that far. Although a huge battle was won, the war against my arthrofibrosis was not. I was still having issues,  Many tasks were still challenging, and I had lost a lot of muscle, and my pain, and scar tissue affected my ability to complete all my exercises at physical therapy. Specifically, my bent leg lifts. There was a loud audible crunching sound that concerned my physical therapist, to the point he recommended I don't do that exercise anymore, especially since it became painful to do so after a few days. So Dr. Lavender recommended a third surgery called a debridement of the knee. He told me before I went under that the x rays and MRI's did't show anything but he would try his best. Well to his surprize when he got in there he realized I had a large amount of fresh scar tissue. Because it was so fresh it wasn't showing up on imaging. So he removed it, but the third surgery had more consiquence. It did nerve damage, and made my VMO very weak. My quad never fully activated after the third surgery, and I was unable to do half squats anymore, and the pain was abnormally severe.