ACL Reconstruction: Part 2

Choosing a Graft Type

So Mike's first opinion doctor gave us the following options for choosing the type of graft to reconstruct his torn ACL: hamstring graft or allograft (cadaver ACL).  I believe the hamstring graft they take part of the hamstring insertion tendon from behind the knee and use that. The allograft is an ACL from a cadaver. I originally thought that would be a good option since it would be equally as strong, but then you have to worry about diseases that come with donor tissue and that option was out. This doctors' office did not offer the option of using part of the patellar tendon for the ACL graft. The PA actually used Jerry Rice as an example; stating that Jerry Rice had the patellar tendon graft and in turn shattered his knee cap. Mike was BEYOND irritated with this since Jerry Rice had his surgery in what year...like 1997. Talk about OUTDATED evidence based practice....haha. And what this PA also failed to mention was that Jerry Rice returned to football 3 and 1/2 months after surgery! No wonder he shattered his knee cap... So we were pretty irritated. And I started doing my own evidence-based research since these docs clearly weren't.

I kept coming back to the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons website stating that the patellar tendon graft is often referred to as the "gold standard" for ACL reconstruction (side note, I love the AAOS website and I literally use it for everything).  I kept thinking   Okay, so how does this one practice not even offer that technique if it's considered the gold standard?? And why are they telling us stories about Jerry Rice from almost 20 years ago... It just wasn't adding up, so thankfully we had the second opinion appointment with the doc who did Kristen's knee.

Without hesitation, Dr. Matthews immediately said he'd do the patellar tendon graft.  He also didn't see an issue with postponing the surgery until after our wedding--great news! He referred Mike to pre-op PT to help with swelling and strengthen the muscles. I wonder what post-op rehab would've been like if Mike had actually attended PT pre-op, but who knows. We went to a PT evaluation at a small clinic near his parents' house and had a horrific experience. I am still contemplating writing them a letter regarding their terrible first impression. But that's another story...

Needless to say, do you research when choosing a graft. You want to choose what's going to be best for you. For Mike, who wants to be able to play sports again...he needed the Adrian Peterson treatment as he would say. If the major athletes get the patellar tendon graft, I wouldn't see why everyone else wouldn't, haha, although that might not apply in all scenarios.

Reno in Progress!

Mike and I have been watching disturbing amounts of HGTV. So of course we were excited to get started working on our condo as soon as we settled! The night we settled we actually went over and painted some samples on the wall to see which colors we liked. Here are some pictures of what we've been up to so far...

Painting 

We celebrated our first night of homeowner-ship with pizza. 

Fun colors for the powder room.

Painting in progress! We chose purple for the bedroom...well Mike actually picked it out originally...He apparently has good taste...haha. 

Choosing a blue accent wall for the dining area...

We chose Denim by Sherwin Williams HGTV line. And I could not be happier about our choice! I thought it would be too dark, but I love it. 

Flooring

After starting to peel up the nasty vinyl that was there we discovered an even more disgusting layer of vinyl in the kitchen. What an adventure it was getting that out of there...

At one point we panicked that the vinyl might contain asbestos, so we bought masks. 

Kitchen Cabinets

Here are the cabinets being primed. I read so many blogs before deciding to go ahead with this project. I followed the instructions on this blog: http://www.livelovediy.com/2013/04/10-easy-steps-to-paint-kitchen-cabinets.html. She made it seem like a realistic process, so I stuck to her instructions.

We have done so much more, but I think I'll wait until I can do full before-after pictures to show everyone the rest! And I hope to eventually get around to writing blogs in detail about some of the projects we completed. :) So stay tuned!

(Almost) Homeowners!

OMGsh OMGsh OMGsh! We are almost homeowners! So exciting and so scary all at the same time. Here's a little bit about how we came across this condo.

So our real estate agent, Susan Souder, is my aunt. She's been a realtor in Howard County for over 30 years. What a huge blessing and advantage it was to have her as our agent! So knowledgeable and so amazing at what she does! So we met with her maybe end of December or early January to get the whole process going. She got us on her email list so we could start getting a feel for what was out there. We would casually look, knowing we didn't need to get serious until around March-April.

Some properties stayed on our list, some went, and after a few months of starting at the list, we finally decided to go see a few. What a fun experience! Some places we'd seen in pictures and liked, we hated in person. And places we'd been indifferent to in pictures, we fell in love with in person. We started to fall in love with a neat condo and decided to put an offer on it. We met with Aunt Susan the next day and went over all the paperwork...boy was that insane. Come to find out that condo had already been sold and apparently the selling agent was still living in the stone ages. Haha. 
We were a little discouraged, and decided to give it a break. Of course the morning after we decided to give it a break, a small townhouse popped up on our automatic listing that was literally across the street from our apartment complex. We love this area, so then we had to go see it! We went and it was adorable and we loved it. So we decided to put an offer on it. While waiting to hear back, Aunt Susan got wind there was a second offer, so then Mike and I panicked. We spent a few hours trying to decide whether or not to change ours and we decided to leave it. Well...they took the other offer. Grr. We were so annoyed. 
Back to square one... Later that week, one afternoon, I was finishing up at work and Aunt Susan emailed me a listing and asked if we wanted to go see it that evening. I took a quick peek and saw it was cute and told her yes! Mike was annoyed and didn't want to go. We got there and it was older and weird shaped. For some reason, though, I kept picturing us there and trying to convince Mike. He was having nothing of it. So we left, discouraged again. 
A few days later, nothing new had really popped up and Mike emails me while at work saying..."I am kind of thinking I liked that last place we saw..." Shocking, he liked it, but didn't want to admit it! So we went to see it again that night. And we thought we could make it work so we decided to put an offer on it! And they accepted! We couldn't believe it! So we really have Aunt Susan to thank for the find and for begging the seller's to allow us to see it on a night they weren't planning to show it. :) 
We are already planning our DIY projects and yep, you guessed it...I'll be blogging about them! I am going to try to be good about it, haha! So we'll see how that goes. 

Here are a few fun pictures from our search: 

This is the first condo we really liked & tried to put an offer on. It had some neat aspects and a loft. 

This was the townhouse we loved loved loved but that went for way above asking price. 

Here is the place we chose! Mike was obviously over looking at it. Haha. 

Our future kitchen! :) 

So settlement is set for May 15th! We are counting the days--we can't wait!