As soon as I got into the pre-op room, they hooked me up on the IV with “relaxing medicine.” A nurse and two anesthesiologists all asked me the same set of questions. (No, I don’t smoke. No, I don’t have asthma. But yes, I do enjoy more that four drinks a week.) The anesthesiologists adminstered a nerve block, which interupts how pain signals are sent to my brain. From the knee down, my right leg was numb. Once in the opearting room, I got the general anesthesia by way of a face mask. I remember two seconds of that. Enter: La-La land.

The surgery took two and a half hours and along the way, the surgeon stitched up some meniscus, as well. I was so sleepy that I felt no pain until about 12 hours later when I screamed out for pain killers. I woke up to a ginormous locking leg brace that covered up a three-inch thick wad of Ace bandages that wrapped around my knee. I also woke up to the sensation that a juiced-up Manny R. just had a homerun derby on the back of my knee. My hamstrings hurt the worst.  But there’s hope…just one day after surgery, I’ve already lowered my dose of pain meds (just one pill every six hours, as opposed to two pills every four hours), started light excercises and have been doing four hours a day in a passive motion machine.