Knee Knews

Currently Listening Hot Fuss By The Killers Track 5: All These Things That I've Done see related

No, I don't have that CD, but that song was the only one I recognized on the radio as I listened to the headphones that let me know when the MRI was over.

I saw the orthopedist on Thursday, and he offered a new guess as to what's wrong with the knee (one that makes perfect sense and is probably absolutely correct), and I had an MRI this morning so he can confirm it. The new guess is that I did most of the damage TWO YEARS AGO when I tore the muscle in Russia, and I tore the meniscus.

Of course, I had no idea what a meniscus is, so I looked it up on-line:

The meniscus is a term used to refer to one of two parts of the human knee. The knee contains a lateral meniscus and a medial meniscus, and both are cartilaginous tissues that provide structural integrity to the knee when it undergoes tension and torsion.
--From Wikipedia: The On-Line Encyclopedia

Apparently, once the meniscus is torn, the fragment can become dislocated and jam the joint, causing swelling, bruising, soreness and stiffness.

That sounds about right.

The bad news is that the meniscus doesn't heal, so if the diagnosis is correct, the fragment will have to be surgically removed. Thankfully, the standard for such a procedure is arthroscopic, so less muss and less fuss than it would have been a few years ago.

So we'll find out the final word on Monday, when the orthopedist has looked over the MRI scans. In the meantime, I can hold on to my record of never having broken a bone (it's not feeling like it anymore anyway; I can put weight on it without the splint and even bend it a little more).

The Open-MRI itself was little weird, though. Just being electromagnetic radiation, you wouldn't expect to feel anything, but after a while, it gets tingly. And the table you lay on moves - very slowly and automatically, so you're not sure if you really are feeling something move until you're in a different part of the machine. It wasn't bad, just... weird.

The situation is still rather bizarre - though the give-outs that the knee has had since 2003 (mowing the lawn last summer, carrying my laundry last fall, and now the bad incident last week) can be accounted for by the lack of structural support for the joint, I still can't explain the original tear two years ago. The orthopedist did say that crouching or kneeling does lend itself to meniscus injury, but it's not like there was any strain on the leg that would have caused a tear when it happened. Some of the other Золотьия щищки (our camp "team" name - it's pronounced "Zolotiya Schischki" and means "Golden Pinecones") had said that, given what we were rehearsing when it happened, maybe the devil just didn't like being mocked.

There's a detail in the Space Trilogy I've been re-reading which, after occuring in Perelandra, remains significant in That Hideous Strength: At some point in a hand-to-hand battle with a possessed agent of the devil, the hero, Dr. Ransom, was apparently bitten on the heel (though the character himself does not recall it happening), and the wound never fully heals, even continuing to bleed after he's travelled all the way back to earth. Back in May, Kyle, my future roommate, apparently stepped on something sharp (though he himself does not recall it happening), and his heel refused to stop bleeding. He compared it to Ransom's heel (apparently having found me, who knew the books, just so he could make the reference). Well, Kyle, I've got you beaten - my diabolical injury really and truly can't heal!

Okay, that was a weird little spiel. Sorry about that.

Anyway, the knee's feeling better and we'll see what has to happen with it before I go back to school after the follow-up on Monday.

In other news, life is good. Things at home are quiet and work continues to go pretty well. I grilled lunch for the campers yesterday, making two dozen pieces of chicken that apparently turned out really well. Grilling is great... it's a completely productive way to basically play with fire.

So things are quiet and good and something like getting better, so I'm happy, though, as usual, I'm excited for school to start again. Only a month until it's time to go back, move into my room, and start a new year. Woohoo!