So it's time for another progress report and we finally have some facts, rather than speculation, to work with - hoorah! I had my fourth MRI the week I came back from holiday (well, one of my clients does make components for over 50% of the world's MRI machines, so I may as well keep them in business, right?) and saw my consultant for the results earlier today.
The good news? The ACL graft is still there, so with that and the Macintosh support, there are still two sets of static tissue fighting to keep my lower leg in line (with a bit of support form the supporting musculature, of course!)
The bad news? The graft isn't lying completely as it should be (whether that's since the January instability incident or before, I don't know) and that, combined with the fact I apparently have hypermobile knees, means it's likely I'm going to have some level of instability on an ongoing basis.
The challenge now is to limit that as much as possible while getting some proper functionality back, and without giving up the lifestyle and activities I want to pursue.
I suppose we could try another revision surgery down the line if the instability is becoming too frequent and debilitating but, given that my consultant is happy with the bone tunnel placement (so that's not likely to be the cause of ongoing instability), what are the odds of that actually working anyway? And, given the process involved (I could be wrong but I suspect that would need bone grafting before any third attempt, then going through the same wringer again), would it actually be worth it? From my point of view, the answer to that depends on how much ongoing instability actually materialises and how much functionality I get back.
Anyway, trying to set my expectations, I've asked about the activities I'd like to do in the future and there's not a lot that gets a definite no, subject to decent rehab over the next few months: Running - yes; Surfing - yes; Trampolining - no (I'll tackle that one more in another post, I may disagree...); Ski-ing - yes (if I get a proper ACL brace). My consultant also raised the possibility of getting a brace earlier so I can get back to a more active lifestyle sooner rather than later (and prevent any further instability episodes while I'm still trying to get back, I guess?) I've done a bit of digging since I've been home so have a few thoughts on that but will cover those more in another post.
For now, let's just see if I can get past three months incident-free rehab (my current record) and take things from there...