The Meniscus Tear That Was Over There

The day I ran my first half-marathon, or wait, should that be "the" half-marathon since there has only been one?  Is that one word, "first" a subtle indicator by my swiftly typing fingers that I intend to run more races of half-marathon or longer length?  It's really depended on my knee for a good while now.  My right knee, that started hurting with a pain I liked to call at the beginning, "a little dinky pain" but turned into something much more later on.

November fourth and we're running in the race and pain appears and I've never had pain in my knee before.  And then it goes away several miles later.  But it comes back.  "Damn this pain, what is going on?"  Then it goes away again and we finish the race and, oh yeah, we rock, and I forgot all about the knee.

But it didn't forget about me.  The pain came back from time to time.  I had discussions with my neighbor who is a physician and we agreed I should try NSAIDs because it didn't sound like it was  damaged.  I had had no damaging event.  So I took Advil and Aleve as needed or in preparation of a run.  But the pain followed me.  Not every run, but some of them.  And other things like sitting in certain positions and it would hit me hard when I stood up.  Sometimes, after a run it would hurt the rest of the day.  Was I injured?  Was I injuring myself more?  Did I want to know if it meant I had to stop running?

Yes, I did want to know.  I had meniscus repair in 2004 and it was completely successful, I had to look for scars to remember which knee it was on.  Guess which one?  The one with the newly bothersome, non-dinky, situational knee pain.  Damn.

After having to stop running twice due to pain that bothered me so much I couldn't pretend nothing was wrong, I made an appointment with my surgeon from 2004.  An X-Ray and his mobility tests showed nothing wrong.  He talked to me about my physical activities and speculated I was dealing with a phenomenon that happens to athletes who focus on one sport.  Did you hear that?  He said, "athlete."  At almost forty-three I didn't hear the next two sentences because just over a year ago climbing stairs was a tiring event and my friends like to tell me how I'm old. 

Where was I?  Ah yes, athletes who don't cross train perhaps as much as they should.  So go get some exercises from this sports medicine physical therapy group and do some other activities like biking for a month to see if it gets better.  But...if it gets worse, call back and he'll have an MRI called in.

I was skeptical.  I believed it was a meniscus tear because of how behaved.  And clearly I have vast tracts of knowledge in both medicine and orthopedic surgery.  So I must be right.  Then, I got sick.

Two weeks and no running.  Not much of anything but resting and nose blowing.  When I'm better I can't help it, I need to run.  I need to see if my muscles have done some correcting with the time off as suggested.  That was the day I ran and ran and debated running even more but eventually came in at ten miles.  And all without pain...until the moment I stopped running.

I walked in the house, took walking steps and, OW! What in the world? OW!  I had to limp.  I limped for over a day and my knee didn't want to be bent.  Damn, I had hurt myself and I am a stupid oaf and I should have known better and it's got to be a meniscus tear.  Damn.

The next day I call and get an MRI scheduled.  And then, while I waited for the scheduling office to call me back, the pain went away.  The scheduling office isn't moving at a fast pace, phone calls ensue, my son has abscess surgery and I forget about the MRI and then I remember and call again.  Oh, and the pain went away.  Completely.  That's strange.

MRI scheduled but I go and run more and nope, no pain.  Or so little that two Advil before the run and I don't need anything after the run and it doesn't start hurting later.  Maybe there's some cartridge that's moved out of the way for now?

I have the MRI and the next day, wait, did I mention I'm about to go on a Ski trip next week and this was Monday?  So yes, MRI on Monday and my dreams of skiing are crumbling.  I get a phone call on Tuesday from the surgeon's nurse, unexpectedly and she says, "I have your MRI results.  You have a meniscus tear.  Can you come in tomorrow for a review of the results and are you available next week for surgery?"

Okay, that sounds scary.  It sounds like my knee is about to fall in or give way or go out or something.  "No, I can't do surgery next week because I'm on a ski trip, but could I still come in and see him so I can understand my limitations before surgery?  Okay, and you have an opening on the 20th for surgery, sure, we're back and I'll take that slot."

The next day as I wait in the waiting room at the doctor's office I am decidedly anxious.  They take my normally very low blood pressure twice because it's high.  The Physician's Assistant comes in to review surgery details.  He explains that I have a "Complex Medial Meniscus tear"   Wait, medial?  No, no, I don't have medial pain (medial is the inside of your knee)  I explain that I have no medial pain, my pain is in a specific lateral area (on the outside of my knee.)

He looks confused, has me put on their examination shorts so the doctor can look at my knee and manipulate it and talk to me.  The doctor comes in, messes around with my knee.  We discuss how I have no medial pain, have never had medial pain, only this one spot laterally.  He says, "come out here and look at this MRI with me."

I look at that MRI and I have a medial meniscus tear.  And apparently it's "complex" but I don't have any problems there.  He said, "Well, good news, you don't need surgery.  We don't treat asymptomatic issues and you're fine" 

So what's with the lateral side pain issues I've been having?  He still thinks that's the problem he mentioned before with the development of the muscles.  So it's cross training and exercises from the physical therapist in the future.

And what about the meniscus tear that wasn't bothering me?  Can I ski next week?  He says, "Absolutely."  And train for more races, I ask?  He says, "I don't see why not."  Can I explain at this point how animated and excited I got?  We were all smiling in the exam room.  I did talk with him about symptoms I should be aware of in the future if a problem does develop.  Clicking, popping, weakness, my knee giving out and, of course, pain.  And so far, I have zero of those.

That was yesterday, so ski trip, here I come.  Marathon?  To be decided...

The Big Boy Update:  Limp?  Two days ago after lunch at the park we noticed he had a slight limp.  Was it sand in his shoe?  Had he grown out of his sneakers?  Was there something smelly in his pants?  It was none of those things and the limp persists, two days later with no apparent cause.  We've asked him what hurts but nothing seems to be bothering him.  Maybe he's adopted a cowboy swagger.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  "Pow Pow"  This means she wants powder.  She's had a diaper rash for several days and the powder feels good.  And now she knows how to ask for it.

Fitness Update: Six and Six more, again.  What with the happy determination that I do not need surgery on my knee, I ran six miles in celebration with Uncle Jonathan yesterday afternoon and then another six with my neighbor this morning.  I packed a lot of happy and relief into those twelve miles.

Someone Once Said:  This is Freedom Hall, my dear. Everyone does as he pleases…then if he does something I don’t like, I kick him the hell out.

Ketchup

Time to catch up on some random topics again.  Little things that don't merit a full blog post, or so it would seem to me.

The Flying Sprint
Uncle Jonathan and I were out running the other day when a man dashed, and I mean dashed by us running at full speed.  I told him way to show us up and he said he was just practicing sprints.  Shortly, he turned around and ran back at normal speed before starting another short sprint.  Last night I decided to practice some sprinting myself.  I started sprinting and I was running fast, so fast, so not-possible fast.  I was running so fast that, just like this quote from Through The Looking Glass where Alice goes down stairs, my feet started floating off the concrete: "She just kept the tips of her fingers on the hand-rail, and floated gently down without even touching the stairs with her feet."   And what was even more amazing was that I didn't get tired.  I was sprinting full out and I wasn't even winded.  Also, I was dreaming.

It's One Car Again
Have you ever had a thought that just popped into your head and on reflection realized it made no sense?  I took our minivan, that desperately needed a cleaning inside and out, to the car wash yesterday.  There was salt and dirt and drywall dust on the outside and the inside had food and playground sand and school mulch and dust all over it.  When I got back inside the car there was so much less visual distraction from all the debris that I thought, "Ahhh, it's one car again."  Yeah, makes no sense, I know.  I will be checking into the mental institution as soon as I figure out where the free one is.

The Two Types of Mornings
Some mornings I wake up to preparing breakfasts, getting children ready for school and having a clean load of laundry to fold and clean dishes to unload.  But some mornings, like this morning, there is no laundry to fold and the dishwasher was emptied last night.  And I can sigh, sit down with a cup of coffee and a honey English muffin and relax while my children make a mess of their breakfast plates.  I like mornings like today.

Australia, The Grand Canyon and that other place
This is not a travel topic.  It's the names I've given the three surgical sites on my backside from the abscess surgery.  "Australia" refers to the one that was an Australian-shaped hole.  It's doing quite well and is not even remotely Australian-shaped anymore.  Go healing.  "That other place" is the very small site that closed very quickly and will most likely not even be noticeable in a year.  Then there is "The Grand Canyon" which was the initial, and largest site.  I now understand how important it is to keep packing the wound for as long as you can because any area that doesn't fill in from the interior will be a divot after the final healing.  Given the size of this main area, it's healing very well, but it's going to some time before The Grand Canyon is less than grand.

The Big Boy Update:  Shoulder Pasta.  Last night after we'd removed his bandage, removed and trimmed an inch of packing and let him play in the bath for a while, we sat him on the counter where he can look at himself while we dry his hair.  He knows all about his "boo boo's."  He was looking at his shoulder, which had about an inch of packing hanging out of the incision and said, "pasta!"  And it did indeed look like pasta.  Shoulder pasta.  Boo boo pasta.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My Birthday Song.  Her brother can sing a line of the Happy Birthday song.  He likes to sing it regularly.  Yesterday on the way home from lunch, I was singing the birthday song in the car.  I stopped and I couldn't believe it, but my daughter can sing "ha pah buhhhh da" and once she get's started, she keeps at it.  It was a sweet and unexpected gift for my birthday from her.  I told my husband about it and later that night in the car we sang, and again, she sang back.

Someone Once Said:  I would rather have your respect than your tolerance

The Very Angry Sunbeam Situation

Going to school, we've hit that time of year when the sun is right in the wrong position for not one, but three stop lights on the way to school.  It gets in the children's eyes, and it stays there while we wait through more than one light cycle sometimes, depending on traffic.

My son was the first to become very upset by the unexpected brightness.  He would complain loudly as I tried to reason with him.  I'd make sensible suggestions such as, "close your eyes," or, "put your hands over your eyes," or even, "hold your blanket over your face."   I'd give demos of these options.  But stubbornness, (or foolishness) prevailed and he suffered through the ordeal.

Now, he seems to have the hang of it.  He will pull the hood down over his eyes so he manages fairly well.  My daughter, on the other hand, grows continually more agitated by the "evil sunbeam situation."  The passenger and driver sun visors don't go down far enough to help her.  She thinks the blanket must be thrown on the floor when offered as a shield and she squints and complains loudly.

Since she's in the middle seat, I can usually put my hand back and block the light, but not always, especially when we're moving.  Today, she had an alternate solution: she took one of her very flexible legs and raised it up so that her foot covered her eyes.

Today was partly cloudy too.  The sunbeams were only half as annoying, but I think she's developed a fear of "the big bright" so she was extra upset, even after we'd turned away from the worst of it.

I'm looking more forward to Daylight Saving's time on March 10th than I usually am at this time of year.

The Big Boy Update:  It was a good potty day, for liquids.  He spent the afternoon in cotton underwear.  I regularly looked for a wet front but all remained dry.  Without telling him where we were going, I walked him to the potty twice and both times he went without argument, and then he used the potty...a lot.  This indicates he can hold it for longer if he wants and that he has some control (or at least that's what I think it means.  When it comes to the potty, I'm regularly proven wrong.)

The Tiny Girl Update:  Lunging Baby Bird.  Yesterday my mother and I made vegetable beef soup.  Apparently my daughter liked it a lot.   She would not only open her mouth wide for the next spoonful, she would lunge at the spoon.  It was very cute watching my father feed her.

Someone Once Said:  She was unblinkingly honest with herself, was her own self-judge instead of looking to others, did not lie to herself—but lied to others without hesitation when needed for kindness or to get along with rules she did not make and did not respect.

The Luggage Consideration and the Bulky Family

Two adults, two toddlers, one ski trip.  How many bags will we need to take on the plane?  We don't know.  I fear the worst.  I envision massive bags and unruly children and a frustrating trip getting to our destination and back home.

But my husband says it won't be as bad as I think it could be.  My concern stems from having to take the extra bulk of winter wear with us combined with the first time we've taken the children on a plane before.

I'm good at not over packing.  And because we're staying in a house, not a hotel room, we'll have a washing machine we can use multiple times through the trip so we won't have to take more than a few days of clothes for each of the children and only a few repeats of ski clothing for my husband and me.  But I can't envision it yet, so I'm in the fretting stage of vacation preparation.

Daddy did some pre-packing already and he says it's going to be much better than I'm thinking.  He's calmed my fears.   For now.

The Big Boy Update:  Without the V.  He can't say the letter V.  Excabator, Ebin (Evan), Oben (Oven), or anything with a V just gets translated to a B. 

The Tiny Girl Chronicles: I have something to say about that.  She's talking more lately.  We don't know what she's saying, but she does.  She babbles at you while looking you straight in the eye.  Fortunately she doesn't get upset that you can't understand her.

Fitness Update:  Six and Six.  Six miles with Uncle Jonathan yesterday evening before the Super Bowl started while daddy made lasagna and six miles this morning with my neighbor. 

Someone Once Said:  A supersaturated situation will crystallize almost instantly.

The Unexpected Ring Consequence

I like to get our favorite Uncle Jonathan something I think he'll like for Christmas each year.  He likes jewelry that's fun, and fitting for a guy.  He's been kind enough to regularly wear the necklaces that I've made him over the years and he's even put up with my children breaking them because a shark hanging from your neck is a powerful little boy lure when you're holding him.

There's one gift I got him two Christmases ago that's had much more of an impact on me than I ever expected it would.  I was out on the vast plains of the internet looking for cool rings and I visited the Human Rights Campaign web site.  They have some great jewelry and clothing and it was a hard pick, that is until I saw the perfect ring: 

Because just look at that ring.  It's both cool and comfortable looking and it has the HRC equality symbol all around it.  I was sold.  And Uncle Jonathan has been wearing it ever since, with only a small break when recently it was "borrowed" by his roommate's son without permission.

The unexpected consequence is that I'm now on the email list for the Human Rights Campaign site.  But they're not bothering me to spend more money on products, they're keeping me up to date on important events across our nation in the fight for equality.

I may have mentioned before that I'm not a big news person.  Most of the news is sad or bad or people being cruel or foolish.  I try to stay in my bubble of happiness, or rather, I try to have a bubble of happiness.  Those who know me know I don't always succeed.  But still, less sad, bad and terrible in my life is better for my overall morale.

But I do read the HRC emails and I am very glad to see that while there are people with a lot of prejudice and hatefulness, there are people who are fighting for equality and there is support from people all over the world in this fight.

I had no idea this one little ring present would have such an impact on me.  Also, all signs seem to show that Uncle Jonathan likes his ring too.

The Big Boy Update:  The trashcan disappearance.  I came into their bedroom after nap the other day to find my son in his sister's bed playing the toddler version of peek-a-boo.  He had their trashcan on his head and would hide his face saying, "Where's Greyson?"  Then he'd lift up the can with a grand grin and say, "Here's Greyson!"  He did this again and again while I changed his sister's diaper and exclaimed surprise every time he was "found".

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  Melting.  I've mentioned her love for the ice and ice machine.  It persists with a vengeance.  When our friend, Brek, was visiting the other week she got a small bowl and put a few pieces of ice in it for my daughter.  And my daughter paid attention.  Now, if she's particularly interested in ice, she'll go to their cabinet with the children cooking toys and get a pot or pan or bowl or cup or lid and take it to the ice maker, put some pieces in it and walk around slowly eating (and getting drenched) by the ice cubes.

Someone Once Said:   Trouble is the normal condition for the human race. We were raised on it. We thrive on it.

The Hammock and The Retarted Child

What a crazy post title.  And yet it's something that I lived as a child.  I loved, and I mean loved with a capital L swinging in my hammock when I was a child.  Initially the hammock was between two trees close to the front door and there's a whole story about my best friend, Jenny, losing her tooth in that swing, but this is about the years later when the swing got moved to the back yard.

I loved that hammock.  I loved it because it was an occupation, practically, when I got home from school during my late junior-high days and early high-school days.  I would take the cordless phone out to the back yard and sit in that hammock sideways, not the traditional laying down orientation, and I'd swing and swing and swing some more.

Part of the reason the swinging was as satisfying as it was was that the two trees were slightly too close together to facilitate a good hammock swing.  The hammock was, as a result, more of a sling than it was a nice place to lie about, look at the sky and enjoy relaxing.  But I was a child and I had no interest in relaxing.  Today, there's nothing I want more than to relax, but I'm pretty sure the word, "relax" wasn't in my vocabulary when I was in my youth.

So I'd sit sideways in the hammock and I'd swing.  I had to have the phone with me because I was a tween or eventually a teen and there were BOYS!  If you noted the capital letters that the word boys was treated with, you have observed an important fact--boys were of utmost importance at that age.

Let's get back to after school and my typical routine.  I'd gather up my cordless phone, a phone from Radio Shack that I remember with utmost clarity, and I'd go out to the hammock, and I'd start to swing.  I loved swinging.  Let me give you an example of how much I loved swinging.  I had a swing with two chains that I attached to a single S-Hook on a tree when I was young.  Wait, how do you swing on a swing that's just hanging off a tree, you might ask.  And I have an answer.

You get in the swing, and then you push off the tree with your feet.  You can't swing in the traditional sense because there's a big tree right in the way.  But you can rotate around the tree left and right.  You can push off, with enthusiasm, and you can do a sort of bounce left or bounce right and you can make a lot of fun from a single tree and a swing with both chain arms connected to a higher point up the tree.  And if you're good, you can do 360 degree rotations as you sweep left our right.  But that was when I was younger, before the hammock days.

So I'm in the hammock, and I'm swinging for hours.  And we have new neighbors.  We found out much later as we got to know those neighbors that they wondered if my parents had a retarded child who went out to swing each day.  Oh, how I laughed at that.

But it did make sense.  I went out to the hammock and I sat there for hours swinging.  I would talk to my girlfriends and boyfriends on the phone and my social life as a pre-teen and teen was quite expansive, but it was mostly played out via that hammock.

I also remember that physically I would swing forward and look left, swing back and look forward.  And I'd do that again and again for long periods of time.  Why?  Because I was looking for my love, crush, boyfriend, you name it, to ride up the road, on the left, on his bike.  Sometimes, I was even lucky enough to see him. 

The Big Boy Update: Where's the Shire?  The other day Uncle Jonathan took him up for a nap.  He came down and asked me if my son was a hobbit.  What?  He said he was asking "Where's the Shire?"  Oh, Ah!  I told him he was asking for his "fass sire" or pacifier.  By the time we went upstairs to give him a pacifier, he was asleep

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  Turn around.  Last night my son was turning around, or dancing, or just being a kid and I expressed how he was doing a good job turning around.  He said to my daughter, "turn around" and lo, she did.  She started turning around in place.  Her comprehension of things and ability to put requests into action is continually impressive.  She understands so much more than she can communicate. 

Someone Once Said:  Life is too long when one is not enjoying now.

The Big Bang Theory Chair

My mother asked me if I wanted a chair they had that they were going to donate otherwise.  I was all ready for this to be one of those, "it's really nice" type of offers when mom started telling me more about the chair and I grew interested.

First off she said, "It's the Big Bang Theory chair."  I said, "What do you mean?" and she explained how there was the same chair that Penny sat in all the time on the show.  I knew that Sheldon had a specific seat that was his and there was a leather chair beside it that Leonard sat in, but I didn't remember any other chair in the scene other than their desk chairs when they were working on their computers.

She explained how it was an older solid wood chair that was placed across from the sofa and leather chair that was regularly in scene on the show.  How is it I missed this chair?  I didn't remember a chair even in that location.  Mom said when I came over next, she'd show it to me and maybe I'd recognize it then.

A few days later I came over and she took me downstairs to see this chair that dad said dated to probably the 1920s.  It wasn't at all what I had in mind.  It was a shortish wing-back chair that was solid and yet comfortable to sit in.  And I had never seen it on the show.  Nope, not once.  Okay, not once that I had ever noticed.  I didn't doubt my mom.

Mom had picked out a spot the chair would work well in our house, and until she mentioned it, I didn't even realize we needed a chair there.  Our guest room had an empty corner, and no chair.  No place to put your shoes on or read a book.  And the chair would be a great fit for the corner.

Did we want to save the chair from donation and put it to use in our guest bedroom where it would be used and appreciated?  Absolutely.  Dad brought it over and here's a picture of it:

I still wasn't sure about the chair in the show because, wouldn't I have noticed it?  I pulled up the first episode on our cable's On Demand list and within the first minute, there was the chair.  The chair I'd never noticed that's now sitting in our guest room.  And like mom, every time I see the chair on The Big Bang Theory in the future, I'll think of mom and the chair that's now sitting in our basement bedroom.

The Big Boy Update:  ChickenFries...and football...and basketball...and hockey.  This was unexpected, and funny a the same time.  We decided to go to a sports bar for lunch the other day and as we prepared to turn in, my son could see the television screens on their porch playing some game or sport.  We explained we were going to lunch and he immediately said, "chickenfries!"  and then, as he looked at the screens he said, "Football!"  We laughed because we didn't expect him to make that leap.  We explained that football wasn't playing now and he immediately said, "Basketball!" and we were again impressed.  Daddy said it wasn't basketball that was playing, but hockey, to which he shouted, "ChickenFries and Hockey!"

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  Congestion almost, hopefully, gone.  Her terrible yellow green runny nose has almost, I hope, gone away.  She had hardly anything yesterday but it came back with a vengeance in extra dark and thick discharge this morning.  Hopefully it will be the last days of the runny nose for a while.

Fitness Update:  Five-and-a-half miles with my neighbor in thirty-seven degree weather.  I overdressed, afraid of being cold and was too hot.  I lost a pound in sweat in an hour.  Next time, I won't wear two shirts and a fleece.

Someone Once Said:  Always tell her she is beautiful, especially if she is not.