Ooops Forgot the Title

The doctor reviewed the X-rays. There are no fractures (whew!) visible but there is some arthritis (yeah, I knew that). He's diagnosed it as a sprain. He said if it doesn't heal up within a couple weeks or gets worse, we can do an MRI. I doubt it will come to that.

It actually feels surprisingly better today than I expected it would—last night it was so stiff and painful I thought I'd be out of commission for weeks. Today I can hobble fairly well. Should I be ashamed to admit this next part? That despite technically being able to walk, I still took advantage of Dad's handicapped tag and the crutches and boldly parked in handicapped today in the lot right in front of Parking & Traffic, then crutched my way to class. Well, I did. And the lot monitor guy sat in his truck and saw me do it. And he left my car alone. I guess I passed.

I imagine by next week I'll be back to risking my life dashing across the busy street, but for tomorrow at least, I'm doing the Big Blue Spot.

I think I learned my lesson when I hurt the right knee in 2005; I was in classes then, too, and did a lot of walking, and found hopping along with crutches was too tiring on the arms and too darned frustrating. After five days of lying prone on the couch in a lovely Vicodin-induced haze with the knee in the air being iced religiously, I took tentative steps, discovered I could walk, and ditched the crutches but left the knee brace on. A month later I was having an MRI because I was still in horrible pain and essentially crippled (I was mobile, but had very limited range of motion, it felt like something was loose inside, and it just felt "wrong"). That's when they found, er, gee, ahem, the cartilege is all broken, and there's a loose piece floating around in there. (Oh, really?) It took another month to get into the specialist's office to get my first-ever cortisone shot and a scrip for therapy. I'd say it's been operating at about 95% since then, which I'll take over being barely mobile.

Oh, this is weird—it just occurred to me that I hurt the right knee mid-month on a Wednesday (Nov. 16, 2005) and the left knee mid-month on a Wednesday (Feb 21, 2007) and snow/slipperiness was involved in both incidents. Huh. Perhaps this is a good excuse for moving to a warmer, snow-free climate. Anyway...

I say I learned my lesson because I stopped babying my knee the moment I could put weight on it, against what the doctors would have wanted, but I couldn't see the point of lying around all day when I could, essentially, walk again. It probably didn't help my knee to do that. So I'll baby the left one. Except, a week from tomorrow, the relatives with the UHaul are coming and I'm expected to be on the other end of a couch, two dressers, a coffee table, and other sundry items and of course, it's the ONLY weekend they can come until mid-July.

Bright side, bright side... nothing's broken (so far), I lived, I was able to park in handicapped...

Labels: injuries

posted by Jeanne @ 2:44 PM