Thanksgiving Injury Update

Well, I guess I had a nice Thanksgiving, as far as it goes. The food was good. So, too, the company.

But when I stepped outside to toss the pigskin with my nephews, I must have made an odd twist or something, because my bum left knee went out.

At first, I thought it was just a residual dislocation that sometimes happens since I blew out my ACL some 5-6 years ago, and which I never had repaired through surgery. But when the "dislocation" didn't slip back into place and when the pain started to well up, I knew something else was going on.

So, my Pops brought me gimping to the ER where I had some X-Rays done. No bone damage and the bone location looked fine according to the doctor; but he surmised, given the real looseness of my knee joint and the pain location, that I probably added an MCL tear or sprain, if not a meniscus tear, to the blown out ACL.

Now, I'm wearing a knee brace, hobbling on crutches, and taking Advil for the pain. But the pain isn't too bad as long as I keep the knee slightly bent and elevated. The hospital doesn't do MRIs for non-life threatening injuries, which I can understand; so the doctor told me that my next step is to see my regular doctor, get a referral to an orthopedist, and see what turns up.

My suspicion is that I will most probably need to go under the knife. It's probably about time that I considered that as an option.

Here I am, just a tad over 40 years old, and with a seriously messed up knee. I can trace the problems with my left knee to a little league football injury some 30 years ago. I was hit square in the knee with a helmet and my knee distended backwards. Ever since then, I've always had problems with it. Surgery in high school to remove a loose piece of bone that had died off and was floating around in there. Then the ACL blowout playing softball some 5-6 years ago. And now this.

At least the Turkey was good!