How long is the recovery process?

[Anita P]

Hi everyone,
I'm new to the site and would like to take a moment and thank whoever' idea this was to make this support group. It's great to have the support of my family and friends but it's so wonderful to be able to talk to those who are going through the same thing. They don't really understand why I'm sad or frustrated with the situation sometimes. I'm relatively new at this and have several questions for yall if yall don't mind. Exactly how long is the recovery process? I'm student and would like to get back to my rotations but I was told that I'll be on crutches for 3 months. Has anyone gotten off their crutches sooner? Also what about the immobilizer? How long do I have to wear that? I'm sorry for all these questions. I should have asked my doctor but I was so groggy after the surgery I doubted I could've put together a complete sentence. Thank you so much.

[Mary]

Welcome Anita, I think the recovery process varies greatly from person to person based on where their GCT is and just a lot of other individual factors. My GCT was at my proximal tibia and my surgery was over 14 years ago so my memory of it is not very fresh but as best as I can remember I was on crutches for maybe about 1 month and a knee immobilizer for maybe 2 weeks. I had probably 6 weeks of physical therapy also. I walked with a limp for probably 4-6 weeks and I also had a lot of inflammation of the peroneal nerve which was affected by the surgery and the proximity of the tumor to it. Because of this I also had a foot drop which took months to totally return to normal. I was very faithful about doing all the exercises and resumed my own normal exercise schedule as soon as possible. In spite of all that my left leg lost some muscle mass and is still slightly smaller than my right leg. Now 14 years later the only effect I really have is that my knee pops out of position sometimes and scans show a small joint effusion but I pretty much do everything normally. Initially they thought I was going to need a total knee replacement but because of my age at the time they decided against that although they said that I might need one in the future. Hope that helps. Our tumors were in 2 different bones (although both near the knee) so our cases may be quite different but good luck with the healing process and getting back to your rotations.

[Anita P]

Hi Mary,

thank you so much for your reply. Hopefully my recovery will go as well as yours and I'll be able to get back to doing the things I love soon. I've been in the immobilizer for almost 4 weeks now, two weeks before the surgery and almost 2 weeks after the surgery so I'm anxious to get out of it. Plus sitting in my room all day is driving me crazy. I love to read but you can only read so much. I have another question for you. My leg has been feeling pretty good this week with minimal pain so I tapered my vicodin 5/500 to half a tablet. However, I've been more vigorous in terms of movements with my legs and last night woke up in pain almost on par with when I had the surgery. Is this normal? Also regarding PT, do you do anything to help you with the pain? I rather not take vicodin if I didn't have to. Thank you so much!