Paula Routly: The Ups and Downs of Recovering From Knee Surgery

It feels like an eternity since I messed up my left knee. Roughly three months have passed since I felt a strange new pain in there. I spent most of the winter hobbling around, hoping it would heal on its own, and wrote about the experience in this column on March 4, right after an MRI confirmed a large tear in the medial meniscus might require surgery. Afterward I heard from enough readers to know: I’m not alone.

Suddenly all the stories we reported in our 2024-25 series “This Old State,” about the graying of Vermont, are feeling more and more personally relevant. This week’s cover story, investigating Vermont’s low birth rate, continues our current “Gen Zero” series about the state’s lack of young people. It’s yet another reminder that, at 66, I’m approaching the opposite end of the demographic spectrum.

At the end of February, my doctor at Evergreen Sports Medicine gave me a short list of three potential orthopedic surgeons. I called them all to find out who could see me soonest. The first two guys were booked until May 15 — more than a two-month wait — and their assistants couldn’t say when they’d be able to operate.

Dr. John Begly could see me a month earlier — perhaps because, although he is employed by the University of Vermont Medical Center, he performs surgeries at Central Vermont Medical Center in Berlin. Having to drive that far was a little inconvenient, but nothing compared to the prospect of spending the summer in physical therapy. Evergreen scheduled the consultation with Begly for April 15 at CVMC’s orthopedic center in Waterbury.

A couple of days later, I called his office to make sure everything was in order. Was the referral complete? Check. Had Vermont OPEN Imaging sent over my scan? Check. Could I get on a waiting list? Sure.

Early the next workday, my phone rang. There had been a cancellation. Could I come in on March 11? Yes! Naturally, I had googled Begly and liked the fact that while a resident at NYU Hospital for Joint Diseases, he had been the team physician for Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. Here in Vermont, he’s the team doc for Vermont Green FC.

Begly looked at my MRI and laid out the options. I chose the knife. He had an unexpected opening on April 2, in three weeks. I spent the rest of March “prehabbing” for surgery — exercising as much as I could, despite my bum knee, in hopes of bouncing back faster.

Stupidly, I thought recovery would be a breeze, or at least a positive slope. It’s more like the stock market — up and down every day.

In fact, I was so eager to get my knee fixed, I didn’t think too deeply about what I was doing. The staff at CVMC noted that this was my first real surgery, with anesthesia. It wasn’t until I was in a curtained room in Berlin, under an inflatable space-age blanket, repeating my name and birth date to anyone who asked, that I started to get nervous.

I had a meniscectomy, as opposed to a meniscus repair, which was good news: I could put weight on my leg immediately. The day after surgery, I went to the retirement party of our longtime employee Michelle Brown. After that, though, things got real. I spent too much of April on the couch, doing ankle pumps, icing and binge-watching “ER.” I’ve since added physical therapy sessions, home exercises, quality time on the stationary bike and, more recently, laps in the swimming pool.

Stupidly, I thought recovery would be a breeze, or at least a positive slope. It’s more like the stock market — up and down every day, with the promise of long-term gain. Despite the efforts of responsive, caring medical professionals, every seeming improvement is followed by some mysterious setback. It is swelling? The war in Iran? Who knows. Walking today hurts more than it did right after my surgery — even with a high-tech brace. Sleeping is hard, and when I get out of bed in the morning, my knee feels worse than it did the night before.

It didn’t help that I threw my back out two weekends ago — one of the downsides of not getting regular exercise. I took action: went to the chiropractor; got a massage, electric muscle stimulation and dry needling; and lay on an old-fashioned heating pad for a few days. During that time, I would have given anything to have knee pain only. Like most humans, I can’t seem to remember an important lesson: Uncomfortable as things are, they could be worse.

It’s spring. As sunny days return and I see walkers and bikers back on the streets, I’m hoping that my winter of physical discontent is on its way out, too.