The above shot is to show the hammering on the wire since it’s not really visable in the first shot.
Here I am, luxuriating (read: flopped and propped) on my chaise lounge, post-op. It’s like deja-vu, but not really. This surgery was on a body part well below my neck and not, I believe, a contributer to sleep apnea. Although, I did hypothesize to my surgeon that the reason none of my previous forays into this particular body part repair in essence failed previously was due to the fact that I did not breathe at night, hence had greatly diminished my healing power, and he agreed there was a high likelihood I was right. I love being right…or even people suspecting I am right. It just feels so…RIGHT. But I digress as usual. Please do keep in mind surgery was this morning so I’m still in the “don’t operate heavy machinery” zone – which is why I am using a laptop! (ba-dum-bum)
What was it this time? (Believe me, I heard that question plenty) Alas, it is my knee. The left one. But I’m already doing 50% weight bearing (as in 50% of my body weight) and little knee bends (per doctor’s instructions! I promise I’m not jumping the recovery gun!). How did this happen? Well there’s really no easy answer. Let’s go back in time a few years, shall we?
December 1983. Or maybe go back even further to my birth. This story is already too long. I’ll put it in timeline fashion.
Birth: I was born “toeing in” and wore a Denis-Browne splint to turn my feet/legs/hips out.
Not sure if it was tibial or femoral, but nonetheless, I got to wear a lovely pair of shoes attached to a big blue bar. I don’t remember this. I do remember my brother also got to wear one. Not my sister, lucky duck. It is hereditary and my mom actually had casts on her legs to correct hers. Now I don’t know if this contributed to my knee issues, but I figured I’d mention it.
Age 4: Enter the world of ballet. It’s possible Mom put me in ballet just to help with the pidgeon toed swayed back pot belly thing, but the main point is that I LOVED ballet and I was evidently pretty good.
Age 6 (I think): I was accepted into the San Francisco School of Ballet on scholarship, and by age 7 I think I was dancing in the professional level. I got paid (I think it covered bridge toll–this was not the lottery) to perform in various ballets, the primary one being, of course The Nutcracker.
Age 10: One of my parts was as the tail end of the Chinese dragon in Act II. Imagine 5 girls harnessed together under a big dragon costume with only their legs showing. It’s a short piece, but the guy playing the Chinese Dragon Tamer found himself in a little bit of a pickle when he vaulted himself up onto his pole (he would do cartwheels using the pole instead of his hands if that makes sense) and found his landing spot was either the dragon or the orchesta pit. He chose the tail end of the dragon (aka: me) and since I couldn’t see more than the girl in front of me, I had no idea what was coming. Boom! Splat. The costume even came up for a moment and I saw a guy in the front row laughing (not mean laughing but probably surprise that the dude landed on the dragon). ER visit that night, back to performing almost immediately. Years of PT and chiropractics.
Age 14: Lots of factors contributed to my leaving ballet, but a big one was that I was watching more classes than I was taking due to knee pain.
I love this picture of the last full length ballet I was in. Check out the knee brace AND band-aid. My mom was so mad that I hadn’t thought to take them off before the shoot!
Age 18: Left knee surgery. PT rocked me back into recreational ballet shape. I think I would have been good to go.
Age 19: Car accident. Woman ran a red light and hit me while I was turning Left across an intersection with a green arrow. Hit right knee on steering wheel. College student = no money so no treatment until knee started locking and I started falling. It was actually kind of funny except for the horrible sudden pain. I mean, how many 19 year old girls do you see falling out of cars when they are trying to exit when they are NOT drunk?
Age 22: Right knee surgery. (Doc found pieces of cartilage hanging out in joint, one was the size of a quarter – it had been growing for 3 years. I believe the limping and falling thing was probably what tore the Left knee up again. No PT (recent college grad also = no $), which resulted in bad knee tracking which led to shredding the cartilage up.
~Age 26: After trying to take Tai Chi and asking my instructor: Is this walk supposed to hurt? Right knee surgery. Doc said it looked like “shredded crab meat” on back of knee. It’s supposed to be smooth like a cue ball.
~Age 26 6 weeks later: Left knee surgery. Doc found the back of this knee fractured from stress. When I woke up he said “Well, it wasn’t in your head, it was in your knee! It was broken!” 6+ months of PT and they still couldn’t get me pain free. This was when I started REALLY slipping downhill health-wise and still had absolutely no idea that I had Obstructive Sleep Apnea. I think a couple years earlier I’d started getting “treatment” (read: Ambien) for insomnia. And as we all know, you don’t give people with untreated sleep apnea sleeping pills. Almost immediate disintegration of knees Rice Krispy syndrome I call it).
2005: Started Adult Ballet Classes for exercise – no center, just barre. Painful, but no more than stairs so I stuck with it.
2006: MMA/GA (The BIG Sleep Apnea surgery)
2007: WHAT THE–I went RUNNING! My knees were actually beginning to HEAL!
2008: UPPP (The small yet ever so painful Sleep Apnea surgery)
2009: Started ballet again. *joy* Not professional – nowhere near. Just a little (yes, sometimes painful and definitely crackly when I bent, but happy) barre work in the Adult Class, but by July I was Jumping. Unfortunately that also led to falling (with style!…and embarrassment) but I recovered and was back in class (sans jumping) the next week.
November 2009: The infamous Ridge Hike on Oahu. The trail looked like this:
The Trail - uh, what?
I was told it was a 2 hour hike. Yeah, 2 hours…ONE WAY. It probably wouldn’t have ended the way it did, except the group I was with was JETTING up the mountain. Way too fast-paced for someone with problems stepping UP. And if you know anything about patellar knee pain, then you know that down hill is worse than uphill. At 1 hour 45 minutes I was in way too much pain and kinda figured out (yeah I’m slow) that this wasn’t ending anytime soon. I had to turn around and go back (using poor Courtland as my crutch). From that incident, I never recovered and stairs became a thing of the past. Also, squatting (which I do frequently when adjusting chairs and evaluating people for my work) became excruciating no matter how much I stuck my bottom out. It was time to see the doc again.
2010: Stanford. X-Rays. MRI’s.
Today: Left knee surgery. I’ll post those pics later (don’t worry, not gross IMO).
Next Tuesday: Post-Op and PT.
I’m hoping my hypothesis holds water! And I’m also REALLY hoping my right knee doesn’t take a big dump (it didn’t look as bad on the MRI so we’re going to try just PT instead of surgery) and fracture like last time!
Okay that was maybe my longest post ever. Smac Out.
I have no clue what the rose is carved of! It’s a semi-precious gemstone. It isn’t adventurine. I don’t think it is jade. It’s not jasper. Stumped! But it’s beautiful! And I got to playing with the different colored nylon-coated tiger tail which was fun.
I also got an order for my new design in black, so I thought I’d throw them up here. I had to make 3 of them because the first two were not a match. I guess I should make another to keep the odd one company.
