Pity Party

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Well I got back from Anchorage on Friday evening. Been in a lot of pain and feeling sorry for myself most of the weekend, but then I guess everyone deserves a pity party every now and then.

I was trying to remember the dates of the knee surgeries I have had and came up with this time line. The dates are approximate. I didn't get into great detail because this post would end up being a book and the details are rather dry and technical.

I initially injured my knee in January of 2003. I slipped on some ice and tore my Anterior Cruciate Ligament (ACL), and my medial and lateral meniscus cartilage. They weren't little tears either. My ACL was completely severed and I had significant tears in the cartilage.

Surgery #1 February 2003- ACL reconstruction with cadaver allograft, medial meniscus repair, lateral partial mensisectomy.

Surgery #2 (about approximately May 2003) The repaired meniscus did not heal and the knee started locking. They went in and removed the piece that was making it lock.

Surgery #3 (about November 2003) my knee started locking again. they went in and removed another piece of cartilage.

Surgery #4 (Around October 2004) My knee joint started feeling loose and unstable over time. My knee was beginning to hyper extend and uneven ground was scary to walk on. I went in and had the doc test the stability of the knee...there was none. So they went in and did another ACL reconstruction with cadaver allograft again, but this time also did a lateral reconstruction which adds a ligament to the side of the knee for extra stability.

Surgery #5 I start noticing over time my knee getting loose and clunky again. It's not feeling stable anymore which is causing my knee to buckle on uneven ground. Then at the end of august 2008 I had a total failure of the ACL and lateral side reconstruction. In September 2008 they went in and reconstructed the whole thing again with another cadaver allograft.

Surgery #6 I got cellulitis and an abscess over the site of bio-absorbable screws
that are in my knee.I spent 5 days in the hospital and they went in and removed the abscess.

Surgery #7 1/21/10 My knee had been locking, almost daily. Started in December and just got progressively worse. The locking is very painful. I had a 3D spiral CT scan done. Doc wanted to remove one of the screws and scope the joint and check things out. When hey scoped the knee they saw that my ACL is almost gone. Looks like transplant rejection. So now it looks like I am looking at at least one last surgery. They want to replace my ACL one more time, but use my own tissue harvested from my hamstring or patella tendon. I'm not sure when we will do this, maybe the second week in March. That way I will have a few months recovery before summertime. This surgery was a bummer because instead of going in and fixing things they went in and found more problems that need to be fixed later. It was very depressing. I have always tried to be good natured about my bad knee but this time I was really bummed. I have spent most of the weekend moping and feeling sorry for myself.

I have decided that tomorrow I will be better. That it is time to cheer up and head back to work. So I'll charge up the camera battery and start taking photos again...even if I just gimp around town taking photos of ordinary things. This is the longest I have gone without posting in the blog and it feels funny and it's time to snap out of it.

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