I Kneed This!
It’s funny how we self-diagnose, because we know our bodies so well - only to find out, we really don’t. A couple months after I dialed my walking habits up a serious notch, going from a 3–3 ½ miles per day average to a 5–6 miles a day average, in early January I noticed a twinge on the inner side of my right knee. When it persisted, it reminded me a lot of when I sprained my knee a number of years ago, right before softball season started.
At the time, I thought it might have been something worse, but the doctor then had said it was a sprain, and how to treat it, and that I could play on it with a knee brace, as long as I could stand it.
I proceeded to have my best season at the plate, hitting a ton of doubles and triples, which required a lot of running. I went through a lot of ibuprophen that year, and the sprained knee never got a chance to heal up until the season was over, 120 games and 7 months later.
The days after games were brutal. While playing, it never really bothered me, because of the adrenaline of the competition, I just blocked the pain out.
Of course, that was about 7 years ago, but since it felt pretty much the same this time, I figured, do the ice, the ibuprophen (as needed), wear a brace (this time I opted for a compression sleeve), and keep on walking!
That worked for a couple months, but when the knee pain recently started waking me up at nights, and seemed to be going to a higher level of intensity, especially when I was driving, I finally broke down and went to the doctor — just to confirm what I already knew, I told myself.
He looked at it, did a little ultra-sound on it, then sent me for X-Rays. Then he sent me for an MRI. Now, he’s sending me to the ortho guy for likely surgery. Turns out I have a significant medial meniscus tear — easily fixed surgically, with a relatively short recovery time. He also said that there appears to be no arthritis going on in there, and besides the meniscus tear, my knee looked really good for a guy my age.
He gave me a shot of cortisone to tide me over until the surgery gets scheduled. It took a number of hours to start having an effect, but for the first time in two months, I’m not feeling the knee pain. What a relief!
My wife kept saying, “get it checked out. You don’t want to let that go too long, if it’s something more serious than a sprain. I know — I waited too long with mine.” You’d think by now I would have learned to listen to her about such things. She encouraged me to get my hearing checked. That led to discovering all kinds of interesting things in my inner ear, and ultimately, successful inner ear surgery, a hearing aid, and no more vertigo.
She encouraged me to get the sleep study done, which led to a CPAP machine, no more snoring, and much better sleep at nights, resulting in much improved overall health.
I should give myself some credit — I eventually did listen to her, and got to the doctor for the knee. Without her prompting, I would have just kept walking my daily miles on it, and continued to make it worse. Now, I can get it fixed, surgically, then after a little recovery time, be able to walk at will, pain-free. What would I do without my wife? I shudder to think the thought!
Until then, I’m going easy on it. I’m taking a break from the hikes. Not to worry — it will just give me more time to write! I’ll use Lyft a little more, and get rides to meetings, instead of driving myself, and take some medical telework. I see the surgeon on Friday, when I’ll find out for sure if surgery is recommended, and try to get it done sooner than later, if it is.
