Of Blown Knees, Crutches, and Blogging…

When I met my wife in 1991, she was a mere 23. She had a nasty surgical scar on her left knee, so I asked about it. Two years earlier, at 21, she’d had reconstructive knee surgery to replace a blown anterior cruciate ligament. She told me what an ordeal the rehab was.

Now, I was (and am) no stranger to orthopedic injuries. I’ve torn up my left ankle something like 30 times over the course of my life, including twice badly enough to have be in a cast for more than a month. If I look at it funny, it goes. I once sprained both ankles at the same time. THAT was fun. I broke my left leg playing pick-up football in 8th grade, and I’ve broken a finger playing basketball. I also suffer from severe, chronic tendinitis in my right elbow from years of playing baseball, and I’ve also suffered from acute achilles tendinitis in both legs. I pulled a hamstring playing softball 17 years ago, and it still bothers me regularly. I’ve dislocated my left pinkie finger so badly it required surgery and will never be straight again. I likewise dislocated my left big toe, and my nose has been broken. I had arthroscopic surgery on my left shoulder in March 2005, and I still can’t even think about swinging a golf club. However, I guess I’m lucky, because I’ve never had knee trouble.

Susan has more than made up for it.

In 2002, she had an accident at work, fell from an unsafe ladder, and tore the ACL in her right knee. That took another reconstructive surgery and then a second surgery a couple of months later to remove a scar tissue lesion that formed. Because it was a worker’s comp claim, it took six weeks from the injury to the surgery, and she had so much atrophy in her leg from being in an immobilizer for that long–plus another several weeks after the surgery–that her right leg is still significantly less muscular than her left and probably always will be.

Then, last Thursday night, after a very rainy day, she went to let our dogs out. We have concrete steps from our back door, and they were very slick from the rain and from the fact that the ground was so sodden that the dogs had tracked liquid mud. She went to step down with her left foot, and it went right out from under her. Her left knee caved in. I took her to the ER, and the attending was pretty certain that she’d torn at least one ligament, and perhaps more. However, they can’t see soft tissue on x-rays, so there was no way to tell for sure.

I took her to see the orthopedist yesterday. He saw a lot of wobble in the knee and is quite certain that the ACL–already reconstructed once–is gone. The only question is what else went with it. She had an MRI yesterday, and we find out on Friday morning just what happened. No matter what, she’s going to need reconstructive surgery on that knee AGAIN–the only question is just how much will need to be done. I’m hoping that the surgery can be scheduled for next week to get it over with, but that’s not up to me.

After that, of course, comes lots of painful, miserable rehab.

In the interim, in addition to my own job, my responsibilities for Ironclad, and everything else I do, I now have to worry about pretty much everything else around the house, too. On top of it all, I have a sinus infection. My point in telling you all of this is that with limited time available and too much to do, something may have to go, and that something may have to be some of my blogging activity. I regret that a great deal, but there really isn’t much that I can do about it. Please be patient with me, and I will do my level best to continue to post. Please don’t be surprised, though, if there are gaps, or if posts are shorter than what you might otherwise expect from me.

I was supposed to do a presentation on Stuart’s Ride with J. D. tomorrow night for the Gettysburg Civil War Roundtable, but I backed out of it because I didn’t think it was a good idea to leave Susan unattended under the circumstances. J.D.’s going to handle it alone–quite competently, I’m certain.

In the meantime, I will keep you posted as to her progress.