So...I made this giant plan, right? I pretty much gave up a year of my life to fix this stupid knee thing. I had everything in place, all the characters lined up, & this massive, intricate web of steps ready to push into motion.
Anticlimax alert.
Then I woke up from anesthesia to be informed that all the tendons in my knee were, in fact, fine. Big, chopping surgery with drills & such was not performed. Arthroscopic exploration (which surgeon did say nothing was 100% till that) revealed that all of the issues stemmed from an intra-articular cartilage tear, just under the meniscus. Which.....
Wait for it.
There is currently no available solution for.
I sat in my bed in puzzlement, looking from lifeshighway (BFF) to nurses to leg & back to lifeshighway.
What?
What happened instead was that the surgeon debrided (read: power sanded & sucked out) all the loose cartilage edges & built up inflammatory tissue (a lot!), wrapped it up & sent me home, now neatly moved into the "oop, can't fix, no longer interesting surgical case" category.
It's not a bad thing that I now have a two-three month recovery instead of an eight month one. But now I'm sitting here with this heap of plan in my lap going, Heh. Now what?
After the nerve block wore off, I spent Saturday in a whole new world of pain I didn't even know existed (thank cod I requested the stronger drugs), was dragged to salvation by two amazing friends, had insane explosion of plan remnants yesterday in "you can't make this shit up" realm, & now on Tuesday am just resting till I go back to work & PT next Monday.
Long term prognosis: I am now a horse. We will try maintenance HA (hyaluronic acid; at least I'm a nice enough horse that I get the expensive stuff) injections & I will rebuild muscle around the joint. I will then just manage flare-ups until someone invents a solution.
Lifeshighway & I remain scratching our heads from the abrupt departure from expected occurrences. I've been putting this thing together since late summer, building up to it, building up to it, ready to get my solution, then WHAM-O! Just kidding, you'll be fine by February, except not really. Now you're just another person with a bum knee.
Have fun with that!
Anticlimax alert.
Then I woke up from anesthesia to be informed that all the tendons in my knee were, in fact, fine. Big, chopping surgery with drills & such was not performed. Arthroscopic exploration (which surgeon did say nothing was 100% till that) revealed that all of the issues stemmed from an intra-articular cartilage tear, just under the meniscus. Which.....
Wait for it.
There is currently no available solution for.
I sat in my bed in puzzlement, looking from lifeshighway (BFF) to nurses to leg & back to lifeshighway.
What?
What happened instead was that the surgeon debrided (read: power sanded & sucked out) all the loose cartilage edges & built up inflammatory tissue (a lot!), wrapped it up & sent me home, now neatly moved into the "oop, can't fix, no longer interesting surgical case" category.
It's not a bad thing that I now have a two-three month recovery instead of an eight month one. But now I'm sitting here with this heap of plan in my lap going, Heh. Now what?
After the nerve block wore off, I spent Saturday in a whole new world of pain I didn't even know existed (thank cod I requested the stronger drugs), was dragged to salvation by two amazing friends, had insane explosion of plan remnants yesterday in "you can't make this shit up" realm, & now on Tuesday am just resting till I go back to work & PT next Monday.
Long term prognosis: I am now a horse. We will try maintenance HA (hyaluronic acid; at least I'm a nice enough horse that I get the expensive stuff) injections & I will rebuild muscle around the joint. I will then just manage flare-ups until someone invents a solution.
Lifeshighway & I remain scratching our heads from the abrupt departure from expected occurrences. I've been putting this thing together since late summer, building up to it, building up to it, ready to get my solution, then WHAM-O! Just kidding, you'll be fine by February, except not really. Now you're just another person with a bum knee.
Have fun with that!