Another Surgery... Sheesh!!!

The doctor called and confirmed what he thought: I have a torn meniscus.

Let's all learn a new word together, ok???

In sports and orthopedics, a tear of a meniscus is a rupturing of one or more of the fibrocartilage strips in the knee called menisci. When doctors and patients refer to "torn cartilage" in the knee, they actually may be referring to an injury to a meniscus at the top of one of the tibiae...

Given I haven't done anything in the past year, I don't think I got this while sitting on the couch. Meaning... it probably happened with the accident.

Now, the meniscus won't heal on its own. It doesn't receive enough blood, so I've been told. Therefore, it has to be repaired via surgery if you want the pain to subside.

Given some people gripe at me whenever I show them any sort of "medical" images, I'm going to put them in links. You can look if you want. But don't yell at me if you're grossed out. And no, these aren't pictures of mine... I haven't seen them yet. This is what he described to me that I found on the web...

First, this is a healthy meniscus: Link

However, this is more like what mine looks like. The "bumpy/pimply" part at the top is the bone with arthritis on it, which I also have: Link

Here's the plan...

For the next month, I'm going to continue with Physical Therapy. I started that today (upcoming blog). Both my doctor and therapist believe the techniques I learn can help alleviate the pressure I'm putting on that knee. Less pressure=less pain.

In mid July, I'm going back to see my doctor. Most likely we're going to have to schedule a surgery... probably for August. When he goes in, he'll do several things:

1. Repair the meniscus.
2. Smooth out the bones to try and take out as much arthritis that he can to improve my quality of life.
3. Scope the knee for any bone fragments, which I probably have.

After that, more physical therapy. Let's just say I really discovered how "behind" I am today given what I experienced in PT.

So there you go... 3rd surgery on the knee coming up.

Oh yeah, he said that drill bit really made for some interesting pictures. To answer the question if he'll remove it? No... he'd have to filet the knee to get to it, and this is arthroscopic surgery. That means he'll go in through at least 5 small incisions instead of opening up that scar again.