Ahead of Schedule Means Pure Awesome

SO I got a little taste of excellence in my afternoon bowl of happiness yesterday. One of my clients was referred to me from their surgeon and physio following an ACL reconstruction after suffering a pretty nasty fall telemarking this past spring (14 weeks ago was the surgery date). He had a semitendinosus graft (part of the hamstring muscle was used to re-create the ACL), and was doing pretty well when he first came in 2 weeks ago, no major limp or lack of function. His physio said that he was somewhat behind schedule as far as the strength of his hamstrings and overall flexibility of his knee were concerned, which is why he was referred in to meet with me.

Well, we started working at it two weeks ago, and yesterday he came in fresh from his physio appointment the day before where he was told he’s now ahead of schedule for his rehab protocol and can jump ahead a stage. Hells yeah, baby. Bring on the plyos!! Do you think I was happy? Does Rihanna feel kinda nervous when she’s playing BlackJack and needs another card? I could have jumped out of my skin and did a happy dance right then and there, but I figured that might freak out a few too many people.

As much as I would like to take all the credit for the fantastic results, it was a team effort. His surgeon created the protocol for the physio to use, the physio did her thing and also relayed a lot of information to me to work with, and the client himself had to do the work and make sure he was working within the limits set out by everyone concerned. I’ve worked in integrated scenarios with a lot of people before, and it always helps to have multiple views of the same problem to get the best results, because we’re all in it for the clients at the end of the day.

Plus, working with physios and surgeons makes my job pretty easy, especially when they tell me what to do and what not to do. I mean, I had one physio lay out the entire workout plan for me, sets and reps and all, which kind of made me have flashbacks to junior high when my math teacher handed back all my exams with a Burger King job application attached. Short bus much??

While I appreciate the sentiment, I prefer to get a general outline of what is needed and what to avoid, plus I like to ask as many questions as possible about their surgery and rehab. What kind of graft was it, semitendinosus, patellar tendon bone-tendon-bone graft, or cadaver allograft? Suture wire gauge? Any really cool stem cell research trials used to re-grow ACLs and meniscus on the sides of mice and then implant safely into the client? Okay, maybe not. How’s their hamstring and quad strength? Any patellar tendinopathy?You get the gist.

While I’d love to give a cookie cutter template to use with any ACL reconstruction, each type of graft presents its’ own issues (patellar tendon takes more work on the quad to regain function, semitendinosus needs more hamstring work), and each surgery will need different considerations (internal fixation versus bone grafting), and each referring professional will want specific things worked on more than others. Maybe I’ll touch on that in a future post.

So in the meantime, my client gets to start working on proprioception and light jogging two weeks ahead of schedule, and may actually get back on the slopes sometime before the end of the snow. He’ll probably bust out his own happy dance if that happens, and it will probably freak out just as many people as mine would. Okay, maybe not.