3rd PT session and More Cabbie stories

Had a 7:30am appointment with Alysa, my physical therapist. Leslie had a busy morning scheduled already with dropping off Annabelle at school, and teaching her first Zumba class at PFX, so I once again left myself to the mercy of Pleasantville Taxi. Today's cabbie story topped them all, when the driver elaborated on an orthopedist visit he once had for a fractured patella (which could have been enough right there). He was handing his doctor the X-Ray films, and the cabbie said he was already little freaked out because the X-Ray tech had simply said "Oh My God, I don't believe this." when handing him his films, without further explanation. As the orthopedic surgeon put up the films, he suddenly exclaimed "Oh my god!" and walked out of the room, returning with some colleagues. It was then he finally learned he had a second set of bones inside his leg. I almost had to keep myself from bursting into laughter (or applause) as he concluded.

Back to the recovery process, I'd had enough free time on my hands in the last few days to survey the myriad of unlikely complications of ACL surgery, and well, of surgery in general. From this I'd come to the conclusion that I spent way to much time on Saturday, fourth day post-op, doing normal stuff like going with Leslie to meet our new tax guy. So by Monday I was starting to worry that my pain and soreness might be indications of blood clots, and my combined fatigue and slight fever of 99.1 might be indication of infection. The news that this complication actually befell Tom Brady (infection) made it seem all the more likely it could happen to me.

The upshot of all this obsessing was that I called for a new appointment up in Mt. Kisco to see Dr. Karas on Tues the 2rd. They have a busy office, but commendably the nurse allowed my subjective, non-medically trained, and most likely ludicrous hunches to be sufficient enough to allow an unscheduled audience with the doc.

At the appointed hour, I got to see not Karas, but his assistant Ed Savarese, who looked at the leg and patiently explained how a person shouldn't fret about blood clots when its normal for a post ACL patient to have pockets of edema in the leg that are sore. I, who earlier felt there was a probability that the wrong movement could send a blood clot hurtling toward my brain, left the office with a new lease on life.