Before deciding to go for the surgery, I thought it would be best to take one more opinion at least. Going by the suggestion of my friend's father, I consulted Dr. Praveen Basanagoudar at the Sagar Hospital.
At the hospital, I was amused by the fact that his room number was 14, which is my shirt number! There was something more interesting on that floor. Another patient waiting for the doctor pointed out to his companion that the room which should have had the number 13 had number 12A instead! I guess that the occupant was a superstitious doctor and that was why he had the number 12A printed on a paper and pasted over the existing number plate, which probably had the number 13.
When it was my turn, the doctor had a look at the MRI and confirmed that the scans suggest a tear of the ACL and that I'd need a surgery to fix it. Then he performed a test on my knee, known as the anterior drawer test, which showed that my knee was definitely unstable. I must admit, it wasn't an easy thing to see my leg move forward, the way it did! He too said that I'd have to wait for two more weeks at least to get the surgery done. This was because the bony contusions had to heal, I had to get a better range of motion (ROM), i.e, I had to improve the bending of my leg and increase the strength of my hamstring. To achieve those, he directed me to the physiotherapy department, where I would be taught quad sets, straight leg raises and wall slide exercises. I had to perform many repetitions of those, twice a day.
The doctor then explained the ACL reconstruction procedure in brief. He told me that the torn ACL will be completely removed and a new ACL graft would be inserted and held in its place using screws. There were two ways of making a graft to replace the torn ACL: one was the patellar tendon graft, which was what the first doc suggested, and the second was the hamstring graft. He told me that he prefers the hamstring graft as the post-op pain is lesser in this case. With a patellar tendon graft, there would be some pain in the area from where the graft is harvested but that wasn't the case with a hamstring graft. I would have to be on rest for four weeks after the surgery, during which I'd have a lot of physiotherapy to do. I would have to wear a knee brace for that duration. The time required to get back to sports was a minimum of six months. He also told me that some people can live with an ACL tear if the muscles around the knee, like the quads, were bulky enough and could provide stability to the knee. And if I didn't intend to get back to active sports, I could most certainly avoid a surgery. However, me being still young, he suggested that I get the surgery done.
With another ortohpaedic confirming the need for a surgery, I now had to decide where to get it done. I was inclined towards Sagar hospital. Colleagues suggested that I get a third opinion in Hosmat, known for dealing with sport related injuries, and that I should go there even for the surgery.
And so I went to Hosmat the following day. The doc there started with the examination of the MRI scans. Looking at the MRI, he said that the ligament wasn't torn and that I wouldn't need a surgery. I was surprised! Then he performed the anterior drawer test. Again, the leg had a huge lateral movement. That, he said, was a sign that the ligament was torn, although the MRI didn't seem to suggest that to him. So he advised me to take another MRI scan after two weeks to confirm the tear. However, he did add that it was likely that the ligament was torn; else my leg wouldn't have shown that amount of forward translation. He too suggested physiotherapy and said that would heal the bony contusions.
So everyone pointed towards a surgery. I had to get it done. It was now a question of where. I abandoned JOC as an option. I preferred Sagar hospital over Hosmat. Sagar hospital was close to my house too, unlike Hosmat. But I decided to postpone the actual decision for two weeks. All docs wanted to wait for a couple of weeks and the bony contusions had to heal. I decided to consult the latter two docs after that period and then decide on where to get the surgery done.
It wasn't just the leg that had to get better in two weeks, I also had to prepare myself mentally. What I initially thought would take ten weeks to heal, it looked as though it could take potentially ten months. I had to be braced for it. I had to face it.
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