One year ago my daughter gave us a pass to a gym. I went on the treadmill, which I don't ever really remember using before- and I sure did something to my knee after only three times. I went very slow on the treadmill and with no impact, yet I developed this new knee pain along with stiffness swelling and inability to relieve it with position. It was horrible; I had to use a cane to walk, could not tolerate any inclines(or worse declines)
The severity and[persistence of this pain lead me to another orthopedic- one my wife knew from her work as a nurse.
At the first visit, he used words like MRI and arthroscpy which sounded good because he said there was hope to get it better. After my MRI the word changed to replacement because it the MRI was so bad.
The biggest words were bone on bone and ACL deficient along with a bunch of other stuff I had never heard of.
By then it was May and I could not take time off for the summer because of staffing at work; I decided to have it done in Oct but 2-then 3- of my coworkers went on medical leaves so I postponed until 4 Jan 2011 4 days away from today.
So I said that I was going to enjoy the year but it just got worse, not in a the linear downward cycle but the ups and downs but still downward. The wekk after the visit i ddi about the dumbest thing and said the ehck with it and rode like 250 miles in one week, thatw as the end of my knee right there. With the acute pain of few months ago, cycling was the only time it didn't hurt and suddenly when it got better cycling hurt, like every pedal stropke hurt. Not bad pain but n ot fun either.
It has been a year of up and downs and that self doubt that plagued me all year. At times the knee was OK-not even as good as before the year started but OK, at other times I could barely walk and pain. On the one side the argument went like "you are tough you stand the pain" you are too young" never mind the ever present fears of complications,. bad out come. long recovery and the big one for me PAIN.
I finally got all over that and was convinced, at least to myself 100% to go though with it. This was only a month or so ago.
One of the things they say to do is go the dentist before the operation; I did that it was discovered that an old root canal had failed and needed to be removed because it might be infected. Another little twist in this whole thing. Two days before Christmas I had an extraction and went on an antibiotic called clindamycin which tore my guts apart the last time I took it.
yep. Did I mention my fear of dentist, never mind getting a tooth pulled?
All of that went surprisingly well.
Friday, December 31, 2010
The Remote Past
I hurt my knee playing football in 1977-I was 21 years old. On a meaningless play in a meaningless game I intercepted a pass and started running the opposite way, to save a few yards in this meaningless game I stopped quickly-My foot slipped forward on the grass and all my weight went on on knee. That was probably my last play in any sport, at least with a good knee anyway. I was in the Navy then, I got the knee checked out and that was that.
for two years I would keep aggravating it playing sports (did I mention that I loved playing sports? I kept on aggravating it until I had an open menisectemy in 1979. At the time arthroscpy was just being introduced-I knew nothing of it in fact a friend had arthroscopy a year after mine and had much better recovery.
Anyway the knee was never the same after this operation. In maybe 2000 I was playing softball, running in to get a ball and screwed it up. This was diagnosed as a dislocated knee cap(while in fact probably missed ACL tear, i learned much later) and I was on crutches for like 6 weeks and it was never the same. That was the last play I was ever, in at least seriously.
a few years ago I tweaked it and went to an orthopedic, I was hoping to hear words like MRI, arthroscopy, or things like we'll get you fixed up but all I heard were words like arthritis, bone spurs, calcium deposits and the statement similar to there isn't really much to do.
I have been doing OK on it since that visit, using glucosmine type stuff and talking it easy. One year we did a lot of climbing(which I cut out because of knee pain with descending) I rode like 8,000 miles on the bike one year and was able to function with only occasional short aches and pains which usually would be OK after NSAIDs.
for two years I would keep aggravating it playing sports (did I mention that I loved playing sports? I kept on aggravating it until I had an open menisectemy in 1979. At the time arthroscpy was just being introduced-I knew nothing of it in fact a friend had arthroscopy a year after mine and had much better recovery.
Anyway the knee was never the same after this operation. In maybe 2000 I was playing softball, running in to get a ball and screwed it up. This was diagnosed as a dislocated knee cap(while in fact probably missed ACL tear, i learned much later) and I was on crutches for like 6 weeks and it was never the same. That was the last play I was ever, in at least seriously.
a few years ago I tweaked it and went to an orthopedic, I was hoping to hear words like MRI, arthroscopy, or things like we'll get you fixed up but all I heard were words like arthritis, bone spurs, calcium deposits and the statement similar to there isn't really much to do.
I have been doing OK on it since that visit, using glucosmine type stuff and talking it easy. One year we did a lot of climbing(which I cut out because of knee pain with descending) I rode like 8,000 miles on the bike one year and was able to function with only occasional short aches and pains which usually would be OK after NSAIDs.
Introduction
My name is John; this is the story of my knee. I am scheduled for knee replacement surgery in four days; this is my story.
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