Day 4: History Continued

Continuing from yesterday... I have the final event to review.  It happened in February.  The 19th I believe. Micah was in York applying for a police officer job opening and Elliot and I were home by ourselves.  It was a Saturday morning and in no hurry to be anywhere. It was the time of year when I start to think, "Hey, if I work out 5 minutes a day I could look great by summer time."  Yeah... I tell myself that pretty much every year. And I do work out for 5 minutes. Everyday. For about a week. And then a month later I do the same thing. So, on this particular day I put Elliot in his swing and went to the basement to work out hardcore and become lean and toned. For 5 minutes. I decided to work out my legs and I specifically remember doing mostly squats.  Then I went upstairs feeling great about myself and ate a nice healthy breakfast of baked oatmeal with Elliot.

After breakfast I took Elliot to the bathroom to wash his hands. In our bathroom you have to turn completely around to your right to get the hand towel that is hanging on the wall behind you. So, after washing his hands I made the turn to my right to reach for my towel.  With my right foot planted.

And then it happened.

I was on the floor screaming in pain, trying to reach down to hold my knee,

but at the same time not actually wanting to touch it.

Something was different this time.

It felt way worse then any of my other experiences.

I was concerned that if I actually felt my knee I would find that it was still dislocated and would have to physically pull it back into place.  Still yelling pathetically,

"ow!, ow!, ow!, ow!"

over and over again I realized that poor Elliot was also screaming.

I was pretty sure that I had protected him when we fell.  I don't think his head hit the floor.

About that time Winchester came in and started barking at us and somehow I found the situation hilarious, though I couldn't find myself capable of laughing.  Just something about 1 adult, 1 baby and 1 dog all "yelling" in unison and all for different reasons... I, because I was in pain. Elliot, because he was scared to death, and Winchester, because heck, if they're doing it, why can't I?

I managed to crawl past Winchester into the hall and opened the basement door.  I yelled at him over and over again to go downstairs. He was way to curious about this situation to want to do that, but he obeyed after a minute or two.

~INNOCENT~

Than I crawled into Elliot's room, still holding onto him with one arm, and tried to read him books through my sobs to calm him down.  He was so scared and upset.  After a few minutes he stopped crying and I crawled over to his crib and pushed him up over the side and then grabbed his hands to let him slowly drop into the crib.

I crawled to my bedroom to get the phone and called my parents to come. After that I called my family doctor and explained what had happened and how it felt so different this time, almost like I had chipped a bone. She told me to go to the E.R. right away.
The pain I felt that day was definitely different. It landed me in a knee immobilizer for 4 weeks, during which time I lost all muscle in my quads.  The orthopedic specialist I went to told me that most people don't recover from this type of injury.  It's sort of the "last straw." He explained that the muscles surrounding the knee were fairly week when I injured it and that allowed the knee cap to dislocate further then the other times that it had happened.  If only I had been more serious about staying in shape, this may have never happened.

I went through 7 weeks of physical therapy and felt like I was making a lot of progress. I was sent home with a routine that I could continue until my muscles were back to, or even better then, what they were before.  This was in May. And it was right around this time that a small bone spur of some sort formed on the right side of the knee. At my last P.T. appointment I asked what it was and he didn't really know. He said that it was probably something that my body created in order to protect my knee from this type of injury. He was slightly mesmerized by it and basically said that it seemed to be no big deal.

I now know that that little "spur" is actually called a plica.  A natural part of the knee that became aggravated because of the injury. Within a month after finishing P.T. it became so uncomfortable that I stopped all at-home therapy exercises. It didn't take long for me to realize that I would never be active again as long as that thing was there. And even if we removed it there would always be the possibility of injuring it again. Every day is a risk that it will happen again. To either knee. By the fall months I was consumed by the thought of it dislocating.  Every step down.  Every turn. Every walk with my son in my arms. Every time I passed by the dog.

So here we are. It was a difficult choice because I knew that I was basically choosing to put myself through all of that pain all over again. Little did I know that the pain would be worse.