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My ACL Surgery Experience – Day of the Surgery

My surgery was scheduled for 9am on Monday morning.

My girlfriend drove me to the hospital for 7am. Once there I registered and got changed into my “fashionable” hospital gear! My favorite was the hat!

Once I got changed into the gown I was sitting in a chair hanging out with my girlfirend and waiting for the anesthesiologist.

The meeting was fairly straightforward and I got wheeled away to start the process. I left my girlfriend in the waiting room and got wheeled into the anesthesiologist location.

The assistant gave me an IV and to be honest, that was the most painful part of the surgery. And it wasn’t even that painful.

He tried to stick the IV into my hand but it hurt and I flexed my fist and the needle popped out. So they had to do a different spot on my forearm. Which felt much better.

After that they put on a gas mask on me and gave me some sedatives. I felt very awake but I did not feel any pain.

The reason they gave me the gas is because they had to stick a needle into my leg (right near my dick) to block my nerves in the leg.

This nerve block was optional but it would really help with the pain on the first day.

Because of the sedative I felt NOTHING when the needle was going in. I felt my leg twitching as they hit the nerve but it didn’t hurt at all.

After the nerve block I was still awake and they wheeled me into the operating room.

The last thing I remember was saying hi to the doctor and then I was out cold.

Recovery Room

I woke up in the recovery room. The nurse told me I woke up 25 minutes after my surgery. I felt some pain in my leg like 4/10 and the nice nurse gave me some pain killers into my IV and I felt better.

I remember the first thing I said to 2 nurses was “I need a joint.” The second thing I said was “Was the surgery successful?” They said “Yes.”

I chilled in recovery for about 1-1.5 hours.

The surgery took 1 hour and 40 minutes apparently.

The doctor came and said hi. He said the surgery was successful. He told me I had the thickest hamstring graft he has seen in a while. Something like 9mm. He said my knee would be very stable.

After the recovery room I got wheeled into the secondary recovery room where I started the day. My girlfriend came and saw me. We were hanging out for about 30 minutes waiting to be discharged.

A nurse came and talked to me about how to take care of the leg. It was in a straight leg brace.

I got wheeled out into the parking lot and got in my girlfriend’s car. She drove me home.

Thank You to My Girlfriend

My girlfriend was awesome. She stayed with me for 2 days and helped me eat, shower, etc… She really made the first day easy for me and took care of everything.

I am very happy she was there.

I showered by using a garbage bag around my leg.

Because of the nerve block I was pretty pain free the first day.

We watched a bunch of episodes of “The Apprentice” and we passed out.

That’s it for “day of the surgery”

Key Points

The only painful part was inserting the IV and honestly it wasn’t that bad.

My doctors were very nice so I was lucky.

I was pretty pain free because of the nerve block.

That’s it for day of the surgery. Thanks for reading. If you have any questions comment below.

I am writing the post for the next day after surgery and it will be up soon!

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