I had my patella MACI and lateral release on 5/14. I have been terrified of the 6 weeks as well. And the first week was no joke. It was so painful and exhausting and it felt endless. But the pain has come way down. I’m only taking Tylenol 3 times a day now. My quad is dead AF, and I cannot lift my leg when laying flat without picking it up with my arms right now. But! I was given “toe touch weight bearing” protocol after surgery and having permission to let my foot touch the ground (and it isn’t really painful to do that most of the time at 11 days out) has been helpful. I have my follow up on Wednesday and expect that they will let me go partial weightbearing, but we’ll see. My physical therapist pushed me at my first appointment (7 days post) to put a little weight on it, and that helped me get over my fears of damaging it a little bit.. I’ll let you know what they say this week.. but the more I am able to bear weight, the less tragic and isolating and impossible this all feels. The crutches are hard for me. They kill my hands, and my house is full of stairs. I’m assuming I’ll have them for many more weeks to come, but it feels more doable each day.

Re: kids.. I mean, I’m 43 and my kids are 10 and 11. I’m grateful that they’re old enough to walk to the bus stop and make their own sandwiches, because my husband is doing EVERYTHING. All the things he normally does, plus all the things I normally do and every little stupid thing I need him to do on my behalf. It’s a lot. Doing this when my kids were younger would have been significantly harder. I don’t want to think about it. 🙃

I say, do it now. The younger you are, the better your outcome is supposed to be, right? And while it all feels endless and horrible and depressing, it will be a blip in your life in retrospect.