Your ACL Recovery Room & Pre-Surgery Prep

Your ACL Recovery Room & Pre-Surgery Prep

Your ACL Recovery Room: Preparing for Post-Op Comfort and Convenience

Preparing for ACL surgery doesn’t stop at pre-op appointments and insurance forms. One of the smartest things you can do for your recovery is to set up a post-op recovery space before you go in. Once you’re home, you’ll want everything within reach. Your mobility will be limited, and pain or grogginess from medications and anesthesia can make even small tasks difficult.

Here’s some ideas to consider in prepping a recovery room that supports your healing process in those crucial first days and weeks:

Location, Location, Location

Your options may be limited, but give the various options consideration:

• Your Own Typical Room: If this can be set up to work, (or if you just don’t have other options), this choice is already made. Most of us just want to be in our well-known comfortable surroundings. Just consider if this is really best if there are any access challenges, (like lots of stairs), or hard-to-reach resources, (e.g., nearby bathroom).
• Guest Room or Spare Bedroom: Ideal if it’s on the ground floor. No stairs is a big win early on.
• Living Room Setup: Some convert their living space temporarily into a sleeping area. A pull-out couch or air mattress might do the trick. But you don’t want to be too low to the ground. It may be hard to get out of beds or chairs that are low to the ground.
• Recliner Sleepers: Many find sleeping in a recliner easier than a flat bed, especially early on when elevation and knee positioning matter.
• Hotel or Airbnb (Adaptive or Accessible Room): Some people opt to rent an accessible hotel room or Airbnb for the first week. Especially if their home has too many stairs or isn’t easy to modify temporarily. This has it’s own challenges as you’d have to bring everything you need with you. But if you get a room with things like adaptive bathrooms, easier for mobility, it may be worth it if your home is someplace like a 4th floor walk up with a tight bathroom.
• Stay with Parents or Friends: If your home setup isn’t great, it may be worth staying somewhere that’s more recovery-friendly. Going home to stay with parents may be the de factor choice for young people. Some college students want to get back to campus asap, especially if their injury or surgery are just before school. But this might just not be practical or sensible. Besides support, getting around or getting to class may be extremely challenging. For adults, if living alone, it might still be sensible to stay with family if possible. There are certainly people that tough out this period alone. But it’s going to be a challenging time. Accepting that and seeking and accepting help is generally going to be a good idea.

The Essentials: What to Set Up

Whether it’s a full room or a corner of your living area, make it work for you:

• Bed or Recliner: Your primary resting spot. Make sure it’s comfortable and that getting in and out doesn’t require twisting or leg work. Maybe move / reposition furniture if necesssary.
• Wedge Pillow: Optional. Ironically, some people use these for their leg, others for their head. Some have two. When used for upper body, they can be placed either ‘long way’ or ‘more upright’ such that during the day you can use it as back support if watching videos, working, eating, etc.
• Bed Table: Consider a small serving/dining/laptop table that can be adjusted for height and tilt. You can use this for meals, and for a laptop or tablet.
• Nightstand: Place everything within arm’s reach. Meds, water, snacks, tissues, your phone, device chargers, remote control, and anything else you regularly use.
• Urinal or Bottles: Especially in the first couple of days, trips to the bathroom can be tough. Having a urinal bottle (for men or women) nearby can save you pain and accidents. If it’s late at night, dark, you’re in pain and maybe groggy from meds, getting to the bathroom might be a challenge. Especially if it’s not close and certainly if it’s on another floor. A bottle or, better yet, a larger size hospital style urinal can save you a lot of discomfort. You can dump it in the morning. The goal is to avoid putting yourself in risky situations.
• Lighting: Have a lamp or flashlight accessible for nighttime needs. Don’t count on reaching a wall switch. Maybe a small nightlight is appropriate if you can tolerate it.
• Remotes: this may be more advanced or harder to do, but often you can get a remote control for an overhead light or fan system. (You will likely want someone to help install this as part of it for some types of units needs to go in the ceiling part of a fan / light and chances are now is not a great time to be on a ladder and absolutely a bad time to stand on an unstable surface like a bed.)
• Power and Chargers: Keep phone, tablet, or medical device chargers right next to you. A power strip can help.
• Trash Can and Wipes: For wrappers, tissues, or personal hygiene. (And worst case, if meds do make you nauseous, you have a trash can / bucket nearby)
• Cold Therapy Setup: Whether it’s an ice machine or regular gel packs, make sure there’s space and access for cold therapy essentials. Set up an extension cord of the appropriate size before you go to surgery and make sure your system is in working order. Note that these systems need a little bit of room to operate as they’ll probably have vents that will heat up somewhat. In other words, you want them reachable, but they shouldn’t be jammed right up against the bed. (Or anything else.) See more about Cold Therapy.
• Entertainment: Television, laptop, tablet, video game console or handhelds… whatever your preference, budget, setup allows. You’ll want something to pass some time. It’s likely at least the first couple days and possibly the first week you either won’t be able to do much or won’t want to. It’s a great time to binge watch that really bad TV you’ve been wanting to see.

Bonus Items That Help

• Leg Elevation Pillows: Specialty pillows can help keep your leg elevated at the right angle without straining your hip or back. Many have adjustable levels by taking out some of the foam.
• Bell, Smart Speaker, Cell Phone for Texts: If you have someone around to help, a way to alert them without yelling across the house is useful.
• Medication Log or Timer: Keep track of pain meds and other prescriptions so you don’t miss a dose or double up.
• Adaptive/Tear-Away Clothing: Loose fitting underwear and tear away velcro shorts are easier to manage, (especially over a brace), than typical clothes. There’s also regular sweatpants that sometimes may use buttons on side for closure and those can essentially be ‘tear away’ as well.
• Dressing Stick: While these may typically be used by those with various limb challenges, (amputations, etc.), you may find such a tool useful not only for dressing, but reaching some things from your bed for awhile. (E.g., pull a fan/lamp chain, push/pull ice machine at side of bad, pull a window shade, etc.)
• Heating Pad: Usually, your knee treatment will be all about ice. But some may want to use a heating pad if other parts get sore. Or if the ice machine makes the rest of you overly chilled and a blanket just isn’t doing it.

Personal Preparation Tasks

• Trim Your Toenails: Trim your toenails as short as you reasonably can without cutting yourself. It may be awhile before you’ll be able to reach them again. If someone else can do this for you, great. But for your bad leg, it may be challenging to bend it for awhile, making it hard to do this simple grooming task for either foot/leg.
• Have Your Surgery Office Bag Ready: Make sure everything you need for your doctor’s office is ready. You may need your insurance card(s) and identification cards, even if they’ve seen them before. If you have any paperwork related to your surgery, put that in bag. They’ll probably give you snack(s) of some sort afterward, but maybe bring some of your favorites. You might be too busy or nervous for this, but perhaps a magazine in case you’re in the waiting room beforehand for awhile.
• Get Outside if You Can Safely Do So: If you can take a short walk outside or sit on a porch / deck, you may want to do that as it’s possible you’ll be in bed the next couple of days. Not always. Some folks are up and about quickly, others not for a week or more. It’s hard to know. So if you like, consider some fresh air before stuck in the house for a little while.
• Shopping & Meal Prep: Online is great, but make sure you have everything you might need for the next couple of weeks if it’s not possible to get out at all. This obviously includes food, and ideally you’ll do some meal prep beforehand. Whether it’s you alone or a helper, having ready-to-eat or quick microwave only meals is probably easiest the first few days.
• Fill Any Prescriptions: Along with shopping, pick up and prescriptions that are ready or refill any you might need in the near future. It’s just another thing you won’t have to deal with if you’re challenged getting around.

Final Advice

Whatever setup you choose, the golden rule is this: set it up before you leave for surgery. When you return home, you’ll want to go straight to your spot, elevate your leg, and begin your recovery, not be scrambling around trying to find a phone charger or figure out how to prop up your leg. You may have challenges or delays in acquiring anything new you might need. No one wants to waste money or resources, but this is one situation in which you want things all in place beforehand.

Your recovery room doesn’t have to be perfect. But a bit of planning goes a long way toward a smoother, more comfortable start to healing.