Wait time: 61 days
time to avoid removal: 4.1 weeks remaining
Monday after May ‘2-4’ Long Weekend
On a call to Scotland speak with Prof Mackay in the morning, who mentioned he’s done 300 over 7 years. He was personable and his depth of knowledge on orthopedic practice far beyond any of the doctors I'd spoken to so far. He mentioned there are more professional football (a.k.a. soccer) & rugby players opting for this, also some pro skiers and skiers from the USA who traveled specifically to keep their ACL.
A consult could be scheduled as soon as Wednesday afternoon and surgery Friday. He suggested to plan at least 2 weeks there up to 6 weeks after, and to approach it like a vacation where I won’t be doing anything. It was also clarified when identified to be an InternalBrace candidate according to MRI (in previous post), a surgeon won’t know for sure until they’re inside the knee to examine the tissue, so depending on what he actually finds, a graft ACLreconstruction may turn out to be the best option, however he’s fairly optimistic; if needed we may do a hybrid: smaller graft & internal graft + keep ACL. For the ACL it depends on disruption of continuity.
An additional 20-30 min may be added to the procedure depending on the MCL (slight slack can move tension to ACL; spoke about the remodeling phase – laxity of system) and retention to natural length, so procedure may be 2-3 hours.
The timeline sensitivity was explained: preference for procedure is 3 – 6 weeks; we’re at 9. Briefly talks about some graft & stats on hamstring show some problems after.
Surgery will be somewhere called BMIRossHall in Glasgow Scotland. I’m fine with this,
I just want my sportsmedicine doctor to be giving me the option not to rip out healing body parts when it’s not needed, which isn’t happening in Canada. Or the USA. Or the UK.
timeline in pic