A big day

Today was a big day....for Adam it was his turn to get sworn in as Gavin’s apprentice at the Skinners livery company – Luke was apprenticed back in May and as Gavin is allowed two apprentices, today it was Adam’s ceremony. I unfortunately was unable to attend as I had to take Luke to hospital, but I dropped Adam and Jenni off at the station this morning to go to London where they were meeting Gavin. All went well and I am sorry I could not be there.

A big day too for Luke...he had to be at hospital by 11.30am, and on arrival he was shown to his ward. Being a private hospital it was a bit like a hotel – his surgeon said if he did it through the NHS there would be a very long wait and by then the scar tissue forming on the torn meniscus would make the surgery very difficult, with a high chance of it failing, so luckily we have private health insurance and he could get it done sooner. The anaesthetist came to do the pre-surgery check, she seemed very competent – he was having a general anaesthetic and not a spinal block as they did at his previous surgery in Switzerland. She said it is such a painful procedure that they always do general anaesthetic for this procedure in the UK. 

Then the surgeon arrived – we really like him, and have every confidence in his ability.  He is a bit like a whirlwind, but today he slowed down and patiently explained the procedure. It seems it is a rather more complicated this time around. An ACL reconstruction requires a graft of hamstring to be taken from the back of the leg which is then used in place of the torn ACL tendon. Last time the hamstring was taken from the damaged leg, but this time it has to be taken from the good leg as the hamstring on the damaged leg has not had sufficient time to thicken up since the last surgery 5 months ago.Being a repeat surgery, I thought it would be easier, but because Luke has had was is classified as a ‘traumatic failure’ there was a chance that in addition to the usual ACL construction the surgeon may have to graft  ITB (connective tissue on the side of the lower thigh) to strengthen the reconstructed ACL even further, which will result in a large scar, which of course has more risk of infection. 

I went home while Luke was in theatre (over 2 hours) and returned in time to see the surgeon after the surgery. He was very pleased with how it went and thankfully did not have to cut into the ITB which would have been very invasive with a much longer rehabilitation time. We saw Luke as he came out of recovery and so far he is feeling fine.

So what's the very large teddy bear all about? Adam and Jenni went to Thorpe Park (a theme park of thrilling rides) after the ceremony this morning, and as it is very near to the hospital I picked them up from there before going back to the hospital to see Luke. Adam won this teddy bear - he had to hang on to a swivelling bar supporting his own body weight for 2 minutes and was the only one who could do that, so he won this big bear!