ACL Details

Posted on: 10.01.2004

It may seem that I’m obsessed over my ACL surgery but I’m really not. I just thought I’d post some more details so that others can see exactly what goes on during the procedure. Since I had a completely different experience than others that I talked to, maybe this will shed some light on what I personally had done to my ACL.

The following are actual pictures taken through the scope during surgery. I’ll comment on each picture so you know what is going on:

This is a shot of the cartilage inside and around my knee. The Doctor was checking to make sure that I didn’t have any damage. Thank the Lord I didn’t have any damage at all. If I did the Doctor would have removed some of the cartilage and I would probably have had arthritis as I got older.

This a picture of the ACL itself. It should look like a straight tight line of tendon. As you can see it is limp. It’s busted alright.

This is about mid-way through the procedure after the old ACL has been completely torn out and a piece of bone-tendon-bone has been cut away from my knee cap area. They have just drilled a hole into the two bones between my knee and are putting a guide bar through the top bone. This bar will be driven through the entire leg and come out near my middle quad. It leaves a tiny little needle poke that heals really quickly. I didn’t have any pain in my middle quad at all.

Here’s the guide bar going into the leg. The string is tied to the bone-tendon-bone piece that was taken from my knee cap area.

Here you can see one of the pieces of bone that the tendon is attached to. This used to be part of my knee cap. Eeewwww!

Everything looks good so far. This is what a good ACL should look like. Just one more step and it’s all over.

The Doctor is putting some screws in to keep the tendon in place while the pieces of bone fuse to the appropriate bone. These screws will stay in my leg for the rest of my life.