Hi Everyone!

First - Thank God this forum is here. I've been feeling so
incredibly isolated for the last 6 days since my surgery with no one
to talk to (with a common point of reference) about what I'm
experiencing and if it's consistent with what others have gone
through. I feel better just being able to make this post.

Sustained my ACL and Meniscus damage on 10.28.04 while playing
basketball in Miami with some employees for a company I am doing
consulting work. The next day, I flew back to my home in Dallas -
got the diagnosis of a torn ACL and ruptured meniscus about a week
later.

The knee was really painful pre-op, especially for the first ten days
post - injury. The orthopedic surgeon recommended that I spend as
much time possible regaining ROM pre-op, because this would help
speed my recovery post-op, which certainly makes sense. I spent
about 90 minutes a day riding a stationary bike at a pretty good
clip, usually covering 20 - 30 miles per session with decent
resistance - but nothing too heavy or crazy.

Before the week of surgery, I was feeling really really good about my
conditioning and the fact that I'd regain nearly full extention of my
leg and decent flexion.

How does that saying go? "The first thing the Devil does before he
brings you down is make you proud" ? Anyways....Surgery was
scheduled for 12/7 at 7:15 am. Six days ago.

Without a complete blow by blow of each of the last six days, let's
just suffice it to say that I've only started feeling like a human
being for about the last 36 hours. Prior to that, I don't know what
the hell I was. I was on the passive motion machine quite a bit
imeediately post op and for the next two days. I was downing
oxycontin like Rush Limbaugh at a Chinese buffet. The pain meds were
so mentally debilitating that I had to stop taking them cold turkey,
and have been controlling the pain with Ibuprofen and ice therapy for
the last three days.

I've been able to sit at my computer and work since yesterday
morning, and I've been outside for short 10-15 minute walks on
crutches since yesterday as well.

I am a self - employed consultant and spend about 75% of my time on
the road. My prospective issue is this:

Short term - I'm due to fly back to Miami this sunday through
wednesday to continue working on the project that I took the hiatus
from this past week due to surgery. Is this too early to fly or to
spend a period of a few days away from any directed physical therapy?
Long-term - Due to my job, I'm not in one place for more than a few
days. It's going to be really tough balancing the need for directed
physical therapy ( which I haven't started yet) vs. the need
to .uh....make money to support my family. I've already set the
expectations with my current clients about my situation and
thankfully they're very understanding. By the same token, not all of
my work can be done remotely from my home office.

To those of you who have chewed this same dirt - can I achieve
similiar results self-directing my PT after an an initial period of
supervision? My goal, like everyone's, is to speed functional
recovery and then work long term to get back to playing basketball,
raquetball, and skiing (say 9 months out?) Can this be done? Or am
I still feeling the lingering effects of the oxycontin?

Thanks for reading my ramble! Good luck to everyone out there going
through this and God bless everyone who has made recoveries and are
helping newbies like me.

Grossmargin