'Snowing' my knee

Waiting for a Dr. Visit

The emergency room doctor told me to wait 5-7 days for the swelling to subside and to then go see my regular doctor.  During the 5-7 days the most important part was no weight-bearing at all.  I should take Vicodin as needed and also 800mg of Advil 3x daily.  I should also apply R.I.C.E: Rest, Ice, Compression, and Elevation.  I did it all: iced my knee, kept the immobilizer tight when I wasn’t icing, kept the leg up, and rested.  I work at a computer so it was relatively easy for me to be sedentary.  Did I mention that my knee looked more like a grapefruit than a knee?  I quickly realized that Vicodin wasn’t for me…it slowed me down without offering relief from the discomfort.  I tried it some nights to help me sleep, but honestly, a glass of scotch was more helpful than the Vicodin.

First Dr. Visit

I waited 4 days to schedule a Dr. Appointment, which turned out to be a bad idea.  By then my doctor wasn’t going to be available until day 9 after my accident.  Thankfully I listened to my Mom, who has had a lot of orthopedic issues: “Go to Tria, that is all they do and they do it well”.  I called my insurance and found that Tria was in-network for me and also that I didn’t even need a referral; even better, there was a doctor who could see me sooner than my own physician.  So, on day 7, I went to Tria.  Dr. Gorman examined me then had more X-rays done because she was concerned about the posterior of my tibia-femur joint.  The new X-rays showed that I had a compression fracture of the tibia; luckily, it was between the two weight-bearing areas.   She ascertained that I needed an MRI.  She also warned me that we were going to find a disrupted ACL and told Kammy and me a bit about the procedure.

Old stairs and crutches = no fun

MRI

I’d never had an MRI before.  That sure was a long, noisy, somewhat uncomfortable experience!  Now I know what they mean when they say an MRI is awful if you’re claustrophobic.  I’m glad it was my knee and not my head in there!  Even so, I was in the ‘tube’ up to my mid-torso.  I got to wear some heavy headphones with a bunch of channels of bad music piped in.  (I could choose my bad music genre but it didn’t help much.)  I went in late on a Friday evening, one of the last of the week.  Of course, I’d have to wait ‘til Monday to get the news.

Second Dr. Visit

Monday morning we headed off for a 9AM visit with Dr. Gorman.  It took a while in the examination room because, apparently, they needed some lead-time to get the MRI processed and ready to look at.  Finally the doctor came in and showed us the results.  MRIs are pretty cool; it’s amazing how much you can see with them.  Less amazing was what we saw, which was the bad news that she was expecting…I had a ‘Disrupted Anterior Cruciate Ligament’, which meant it tore right through.  The unexpected news was that not only did I have a compression fracture of my Tibia, but also one in the Femur.  Thankfully, both were in non-weight-bearing parts of the joint.  Even better, though, was that neither resulted in any loose bone-fragments anywhere so the procedure for them was to just let them heal.

She went into more detail about the whole process.  First, I will have to recover from the initial injury.  Bones must mend; swelling must go down and I’ll have to regain the strength I lost from being immobilized the past week and a half.  Then, in 5 to 6 weeks I’ll have ACL Reconstruction surgery and have to start healing all over again.  She told me to get started on ‘prehab’ ASAP, and also referred me to a surgeon, Dr. Fetzer.

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Posted by Greg on May 29th, 2011 :: Filed under ACL Files
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