Five-days after I last wrote in my blog there was a sloppy, snowy puddle in a dark stairwell at one of my sites. I should’ve been more careful, because a 15-year-old who I was walking out after our session fell there 20-minutes before. I helped him up. He had scrapped his shin. I thought “Don’t wear Crocs.”
Except that the stairwell is really dark when it’s overcast, so I didn’t see the puddle and fell at the base of the staircase. My leg went under and behind me. The knee hyperextended. All my weight fell on it. I had to awkwardly pull my leg out from under me. I tried to do the group that is scheduled, but my knee just kept swelling. I had to call our Human Resources Department and then get a case number and head to Urgent Care.
Although it happened on the 3rd, I had problems with the insurance adjusters. I didn’t get a MRI until the 30th. The Physician’s Assistant called me yesterday. It’s three things. Two are old things. One is brand new. I have damaged all the cartilage behind my knee cap.
I have severe osteoarthritis. This diagnosis isn’t shocking. My leg was in a full leg plaster cast for 14-months as an adolescent. I didn’t get a walking cast for a long time and then had to rehab my knee for a couple of years.
I have chondromalacia. I was born knock kneed on my left leg, and then getting hit by a car and having 7 fractures was largely unhelpful.
I will finally see the Physician on Friday. However the Physician’s Assistant told me that what is likely is that he’ll send me to the Orthopedic Surgeon for a consultation.
I’m in very good physical shape for 50. I have a realistic, yet mostly positive outlook. I think if I’m being honest with myself, it’s really a matter of timing and figuring out the best way to get a total knee replacement down the road or sooner.
It’s been very sad for me to do a super long hike quickly and then be like someone in her 70s coming back down. I am so slow with downhill anything. This issue has been going on for a long time. Now, it’s so much pain that I haven’t been able to bike to work, run on the treadmill or do the elliptical, had to quit bowling and couldn’t be on either of the kickball teams this spring.
Oof. Any thoughts?
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Ouch! Knees are such fragile things. In last night’s Twins @ Red-Sox game, I watched the Red Sox player Triston Casas taken off the field on a stretcher with a “significant knee injury” after stumbling on first base trying to beat the throw (which he did but then had to be replaced by another player). My knees sometimes give me problems, and I’ve never used them for much of anything but walking.
Age is such a nasty thief but so is fate sometimes. Sounds like the latter has stolen from you before. Hope you heal quickly and well!
Mine isn’t age. It’s the old line in “Raiders of the Lost Ark.” It’s “mileage.” I was hit by a drunk driver the day before my 14th birthday. My left side was pretty well crushed.
That sounds horrific. Coming from someone who will be 70 this fall, the horse’s mouth, age makes it worse.
Hoping you’re on the mend. I’m almost done with PT for my torn meniscus…it’s no joke
I am so sorry that you tore a meniscus. Even bruising mine in 2022 cause my trip to ME being very difficult.
I’m crawling out of my skin not knowing if I can cycle. Stairs downhill are a nightmare.
I’m afraid that due to the three conditions–all of which are permanent–that it’s going to be a matter of WHEN I replace my knee. I can’t not hike forever.
I’m thinking of you!
I appreciate that so much. I’m glad that you have completed PT and I hope that you are on the other side with some semblance of baseline.
Ugh, I hope you’re on the mend as well!
You spent a long time in a full leg cast i am just getting used to mine and am surprised at how people react to it. Did people wat to touch yours?
No, there was a triangle wedge in it and you could see dried blood. It was made of old school plaster