Healing

Good news. The digit is healing. Thursday night I started Tylersox #2 during Grey's Anatomy. I made it almost to the heel flap. Last night, I did the heel flap and turned the heel. Now I'm into decreases. It's a tad slower than usual, but I'm happy to report that I actually can knit again. After last year's Knee+Tile Foor Incident, I was worried.

What's that? You don't know about the Knee+Tile Foor Incident? My (former) house (the one I'm selling since I'm living at the parents' now) had/has beautiful white ceramic tile in the kitchen/dining room. It's a 12x21 space. Last November 16th, I had dinner out with a friend. We had the first snowfall of the season, a light fluffy non-stick flurry. It didn't occur to me that my shoes were wet after bringing in the mail on the way in.

I slipped. I tried to regain my balance/footing but it was too late. If it were on video, it would be comical. I stumbled and fumbled across the entire kitchen area from one end to the other, careening around, grabbing at furniture along the way in a vain attempt to stop myself. The furniture mocked me and politely scooted out of the way. Even the refrigerator obliged. A Coleman cooler that had not yet been put away properly was what broke my fall and stopped the progression, seconds before I would have gone headfirst into the oven. (Hmm. Sounds like the plot to a Sylvia Plath novel.)

As it was, my balance was completely gone. I landed on my right knee HARD and came to a stop draped over the cooler, which I promptly slid off of. I laid prone on the floor moaning. The commotion created by my uncoordinated journey scared all the cats away. Nobody dared venture in to sniff me and see if I lived or not. My knee throbbed angrily. My first thought as my patella made contact with ceramic tile was "Oh no. This is bad."

I waited for the pain to subside as it usually does.

Hmm. It wasn't subsiding. In fact, it was getting worse. I tried to get up. AAAAAGGGHH! Forget that. I laid there for a good ten minutes before it dawned on me that nobody would find me for days because nobody would really miss me right away. If I didn't return calls, which, ahem, I'm wont to do when I go all hermity sometimes, it wouldn't raise the alarm in my friends. Oh, my kingdom for Life Alert! It should be mandatory for ANYONE living alone at any age. I had visions of starving to death in my kitchen, inches from the refrigerator but unable to open the door, and of the cats gnawing my body for food. That did it.

I somehow got myself pulled up onto the Coleman, then staggered to my feet. I tested each one. The left leg seemed OK. The right? Not okay. It felt like something was floating around in my knee and it hurt like BLEEP. I got to the phone and called a friend to take me to the ER. Then I unlocked my door, dug out my old crutches and some ice, and waited on the sofa.

Long story short, they x-rayed it and found nothing broken. They gave me an immobilizing brace, a prescription for Vicodin and sent me home. I spent five days in a stupor on the couch. I missed one class, but determined on the Fifth Day that as long as I could walk, I could probably also drive my manual tranny Sunfire, and made it to class the following Tuesday. I figured I was OK, and a couple weeks hobbling around on crutches in a leg brace and I'd be good as new.

Instead, I became increasingly more disabled. Excuse me--challenged. Let's be honest here. Crippled. My range of motion was practically nil, my knee wouldn't straighten, and walking... I developed a lurch. Besides all that, it was increasingly more painful. It took a month of complaining before the doctor decided maybe I needed an MRI (that was painful, too).

AHA.

I forget the medspeak, but the result was displaced fragments of cartilege in the knee.

Another month went by before the specialist could see me. My terror of surgery was allayed when he said "we'll go ahead and give you a cortisone shot and some therapy... and we'll do the shot right now so you don't have time to think about it." I was overjoyed and relieved! A shot was all I needed? OK... (as they prepare the shot and prepare me for it) but why on earth would I need to think about it? It's just a shot. Needles don't freak me out that much. It's not going to bothhhhhaaaaAAAAAAARRRRRGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!

[insert blue streak of swearing and screaming here]

I'm sure they heard me in the next building.

NOW I know why they said that.

I felt nauseated the entire night after that. BUT, it worked. I had a couple weeks of therapy; one of the therapist did some manipulation on it, and POP! Suddenly I was able to move it normally again. So far, so good, knock wood. Except, it began aching yesterday while standing at the magazine rack. Just aching and threatening to give out.

Anyway, I'm sure you can see why I'm a tad concerned about the finger. Enough of boring medical drivel. Back to knitting... which is why we came here, right?

posted by Jeanne @ 8:36 PM