The next day at 7 in the morning the doctor ran in, looked at my leg, bent it at 45 degrees, gave me 4 instructions in 30 seconds, and ran off so fast that I barely had time to ask anything.
I should point out here that Dr. Guzenko is generally always very busy, doing over 800 surgeries a year! and that's why he moves very fast, and fills out paperwork even faster. He answers questions, of course, but you absolutely have to prepare them in advance and memorize the answers well, don't ask twice, you won't have time.
Only 5 surgeons in Latvia do surgeries like mine. At first, as I already wrote, I went to a different doctor, and with him it would have cost 1280 lats. In principle, I could have scraped together that much, but I didn't see a rational reason to. Dmitry Guzenko's reputation is just as good as the first doctor's I visited (and maybe even better), so I saw no point in digging up another 400 lats. Anyway, thanks to the maritime medical center ljmc.lv and the doctor personally for keeping their prices affordable, not just for football players and other oligarchs.
Here are the clinics in Latvia that do anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction.
The websites won't help you much, you have to call. The process usually goes like this: you book an appointment with a knee surgeon. He examines it and tells you when to operate or when you need to come back.
In total, I paid 910 lats for the surgery and the hospital, 7 for the X-ray. Before that I'd already spent a few hundred on doctor visits, trips to Riga, crutches, an orthosis, meds, and so on. Rehabilitation expenses are still ahead. Luckily, I was given $995 for a suitcase lost on a plane (thanks to the LOT company for that) and this money came in very handy. In essence, it turned out as if I'd sold my used stuff at almost full price. Of course, if they hadn't wired the money for the suitcase, nothing terrible would have happened – I just would have had to pay off debts for many months.
On Friday evening, Yura came to pick me up and we headed off to Daugavpils. Luckily, they injected me with painkillers for the road, but it was still rough and a little scary – what if I twitched wrong and tore the results of the surgery. Fortunately, everything went fine – the new ligament must be attached properly.
At home my leg hurt for a while longer, only the painkiller pills helped. Sleeping in the orthosis is especially uncomfortable – I keep having nightmares. An orthosis, in case anyone doesn't know, is a rigid brace that holds the limb in the required position. Like a cast, but made of fabric with metal plates and fastens with Velcro – so it's easy to take off when needed. Plus, it's lighter than a cast, and you can scratch your leg, for example. And the muscles don't atrophy as much as they do in a cast. Honestly, how people used to walk around with a cast is beyond me – I was in one for a few days in the hospital, it was pure torture.
Overall, the surgeon gave me instructions on how to do simple exercises, but very few. In principle, maybe I don't need any more for now, but later on it'll definitely be important to find out more and understand them better. My family doctor gave me a referral for rehabilitation. Our system is a mystery – the state doesn't want to pay for the surgery, but post-op – sure, be our guest.
My medical history says that I need to walk on crutches for a month after the surgery. Sitting at the computer is still uncomfortable – my leg goes numb and hurts. So I set things up cleverly – I set large fonts everywhere I could, plugged my keyboard into an extension cord, lay down on the couch, and started using a 42” TV as a monitor. It's my parents' TV, but it's at my place for now. My mouse is wireless, so there's no problem there. It all turned out to be quite comfortable, especially considering that I spend a lot of time in the Linux console of our new server nowadays, and you can set the font size to whatever you want in the Putty ssh client.
The only catch is that Windows, apparently, can't set different font sizes (or DPI) on two monitors, so I have to adjust each program separately, and then change it back when necessary. In cases where the font size can't be adjusted, you can use the Magnifier program built into the OS.
My mood is generally good, I look to the future optimistically. It's very important to do the rehab exercises to the fullest. Here I slack off sometimes, I could be doing more. Look at other people, sometimes they work out for 4 hours a day. I, on the other hand, watch a new movie every day and do part of the exercises at the same time. Soon I'll be just as movie-savvy as some of my colleagues and buddies. I don't watch old movies much, though – the poor quality is just too visible on a 42” TV. That's fine, they'll take the TV away, all the new movies will be watched, and then I'll have no other choice.
For now my leg only bends 90 degrees, and that's only after stretching it out. I'm not slacking, I bend it further every day, but the process is taking its time. If everything goes well, in a month I'll be walking a little, in two – swimming and actively riding a bike, while running should be started last of all, because of the load on the joint and everything. The leg's functions won't be fully restored anytime soon, 3-4 months at the earliest, and this heavily depends on my rehab efforts. And it won't be completely and reliably healed until at least six months from now; until then I have to be careful.
I just went to a rehabilitologist (a visiting one from Riga, we don't have many locals), didn't learn much useful – just that there's a huge waiting list for free rehab, so I'll be going to the paid one. The doctor was cheerful, though, a skier himself, praised Guzenko and said everything's gonna be awesome – he's confident that the surgery was done well and it'll all heal up wonderfully.