...And that's just the cold hard truth.
Bill and I have been playing on a co-ed softball team this spring/summer, and it has officially become too expensive of a sport for me to partake in. At the beginning of the season, I hit the ball, took off to first, fell, scuffed my knee....no big deal. Got up shook off the embarrassment and went on with my game. Yes, I got out at first....I didn't even make it to the base. :)
Well, come to find out, that "fall" was just a preview of what was yet to come on down the line.
June 22, 2011
I fell, yet again, running to first, but this time, apparently, my knee locked up, propelling my body forward with the momentum of me running. It wasn't pretty. I would imagine it looked like some dramatic fall on replay in slow motion. Because I felt like I was falling in slow motion. I got this nice GIANT road rash...strawberry...whatever you want to call it, and the outside of my left calf immediately began to swell and bruise. The strawberry stung like hell, and I was sure my whole leg was gonna be blue come morning. But, I could walk on it just fine, so I walked it off, just like any other player would have done and got back in the game. I played outfield one more time, and thankfully I didn't have to bat again.
I went home, cleaned it up, iced it, yada yada yada....exactly what I would have told one of my athletes back in my trainer days. I hobbled around for the next few days, even went the the lake and camping. I thought that that strawberry was NEVER gonna stop oozing and scab over.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
At week one, I decided to go to the doctor, because my knee didn't seem to be getting any better, although the strawberry was finally trying to scab and heal. They did an x-ray to double check that I had not broken my tibia, which is a non-weightbearing bone, and being able to walk or not would not have been a sign of it being broken. Well, it was not broken. So, they sent me on my way.
At at about week 1 1/2, I still had a weird feeling about my knee. I was still able to walk decently on it, but to stand still was very uncomfortable when I put weight on it. And my opposite hip was starting to get fatigued as I bore my weight on that side to take the pressure of that left knee. I starting reading up on my symptoms, and decided I needed to see an orthopedic. I had a suspicion based on my research that I had done soemthing to either my meniscus (at least one of them) or ACL. I texted our Athletic Trainer that services our school, and she was able to get me in to the orthopedic doctor that she sends our athletes to, which is also the orthopedic for the Naturals minor league baseball team here in town. So, I was confident that I was going to be in good hands.
At week two, I saw Dr. Doughtery. After the normal knee tests and x-rays, he concluded that I definitely had torn my lateral meniscus, and possibly my ACL. He said my ACL was "testing" to be unstable, but the tear in the meniscus could be giving that false indication due to how and where the tear was. So, he ordered an MRI.
I had my MRI on Friday. It took about 30 minutes. I was really excited to get it out of the way...I wasn't expecting to get that appointment so quickly. So, I have my follow-up to get my MRI results this coming Wednesday. I found out that my doctor does his surgeries on Thursdasy and Fridays, so I am really, really hoping that he has room to get me in this week. I am getting very close to time to be getting back in my classroom, and the sooner I can get this part out of the way, the better.
Anyway, just an update. Will update as soon as I have some new information.
