Annika van der Meer: Four years

Today four years ago I had the surgery that changed my life in a lot of ways, but not all changes are bad, after all it did bring me some good stuff as well.

Yes I will always remember that day although back then I had no idea about what had happened. I remember waking up (from my second knee surgery in 3 months) in a lot of pain not just in my knee but in my whole leg. I didn’t know that some of that pain wasn’t normal post operative pain but caused by my muscles dying. I was told that my pain was normal because I just had extensive knee surgery and they shot me up with morphine and more morphine, until I quit breathing, they gave me oxygen to solve that problem.

Eventually my whole leg started to swell and I had a fever, but still they said it was all normal.

When I got home, after a week in the hospital, rehab started but I couldn’t walk, I couldn’t put any weight on my leg it was just floppy, weird, and I couldn't move my knee.

My physio didn’t know what to do, and my kneecap started to dislocate a lot.

I got a full leg cast, which was a relief for me because finally I could put some weight on my leg and get around easier.

Every time they removed the cast my kneecap dislocated again, so I ended up being in a cast for months. I went to the kneecap god of surgeons, if you ask me he was more like dr. House. His first words to me; “that’s a functionless leg” well that was true, the leg was very slim and the knee would only bend 15 degrees, which wasn’t that strange after spending months in a cast. I got another surgery (the third knee surgery in one year) and they removed lots and lots of scar tissue, there was no big anatomical problem what made my kneecap dislocate except for the scar tissue. After surgery I got a device of torture to move my knee, I used it for months and it worked I can bend my knee 90 degrees now.

Well “dr. House” was convinced he fixed me, but he didn’t because I still couldn’t move my leg or put weight on it. He told me I was just lazy (told you dr. House) and I needed a lot of rehab. I stayed 22 weeks in the rehab hospital, way too long! Well to make a long story a bit shorter, the first couple of weeks we tried everything to walk but my leg was just way too weak, the physio over there said your leg is too weak, I know that you did everything you can and you are not lazy, although deep down I already knew that was true it helped hearing it from him. Because I couldn’t walk I got a wheelchair. Well saying I was frustrated and mad is an understatement.

In August 2008 I got a third opinion and this doc was the first one to suggest that the problem might be in my muscles. That my muscles were severely damaged and that it wasn’t my fault, sounds strange because this meant my leg wouldn’t get better but it was a relief to hear that it wasn’t my fault. Eventually a neurologist confirmed this diagnosis with a full leg MRI and a EMG. My muscles are damaged by ischemia, meaning they didn't get enough oxygen during the surgery. I got my first full leg brace, a knee ankle foot orthosis (KAFO), in December 2008 and I started to learn how to walk with it. Because I was almost done with my rehab (they told me it wouldn’t get better, I just had to live with it, they were wrong…….) I mostly learned myself how to walk again.

With my first orthosis, August 2009

From this point everything got a lot better! I got rid of the wheelchair (most of the time, when I can’t wear my orthosis I still can’t walk). Now I’m able to do things I never had imagined doing again. Although four years ago I didn’t knew anything of this and I just planned for a normal ACL recovery…. Well if we knew what future holds it wouldn’t be any fun, I like some surprises! Recently (after I broke my ankle) I got the physiotherapy I needed to walk good, more normal and faster, that, together with the new orthosis I got last December, improved my walking a lot.