The Good & Bad Of My 4th Knee Surgery

[Spin Teacher]

Good:
1. Still alive, that's aways a plus.
2. Apparently they fixed the 2 damaged areas of my cartilage.
3. Pain pills....a lot of pain pills. :D

Bad:
1. Once inside the doctors discovered my knee was worse off then they had thought. The arthritis was pretty severe, and I'm only 28. I'm also getting low on cartilage period.
2. Doctor said I'll proably always have pain, and may need shots to help keep it manageable.
3. Probably have to give up my favorite passtimes & hobbies in the near future. At least limit them...depends on how recovery goes.
4. Can't drive for 2 weeks.
5. Just got a 6'5 semi-pro basketball player to sign up on my team, and our league starts in 1 week.

[SWEET DYNAMITE]

Oh No! OMG that is alot that went wrong with you (sorry to hear).

My hubby is a muay thai champ & he has a similar problem in his right hand & that out him out of fights for good.

[Ox]

Glad to hear you're doing fine there Spin!

Sounds like knee replacement surgery is in your future. It's one thing to hurt your knee and still have enough cartilage left and it's quite another thing to have too little left.

[Jocasta]

Wishing you a very speedy recovery and hope you get some relief from the arthritis. My brother in law has recently had surgery on his second knee with arthritis problems; he's a lot better for it but I can appreciate what you're going through from his experience.
Keep looking at the good things if you can.

[Plastic Flute]

Feel better Spin. Sounds soooo painful.
Kate shhhhh on the stallards, not nice to show off like that here.

[Jocasta]

I'm a bad person.

[Spin Teacher]

Thanks all, I'll be fine. The worst part will be having to possibly give up basketball. Especially when I just locked up the best player in the area. My original goal was to win every league in the area...I've won 3 already, but I had another 3 to go.

[Val]

It's a good news Spin.
When I broke mine, the doctors put in it two screws to fix it well. I broke a bone called tibial plateau and today with the damn physiotherapy, it's fine again.

HEY SPIN!!!

Why didn't you wish a happy birthday to me yet? You are late!

[Plastic Flute]

Originally Posted by Jocasta

I'm a bad person.

Why do I have this sinking feeling that Op will soon be here wearing her Stallards.
Talk about an absolute Joshtopian Bunny Nitemare! No JoshStall.
Poor Spin. Id rather have a spear thrown at me.

[Blackmask]

Hey Spin, good to hear you lived through the surgery. I had large pieces of cartilage removed when I had my knee reconstruction. I was warned that arthritis was a likely outcome but so far I've been lucky and don't have any pain in either knee. When I had medical for my job though the doctor said there was a lot of "creaking". I don't think that a medical term and more just the noise my knee makes from time to time.

I did have to give up the netball and basketball though. It sucked at the time, but for the long term you probably want to keep your knees working and as pain free as possible so it really is worth considering.

[Spin Teacher]

Well I'll probably give it up for good soon. But I'd like to try to keep this team I put together for about 15 more months. If so I'll probably be able to win everything I originally wanted.

[Ophelia]

Aarrgh Spin. That SUCKS! You need a knee transplant.

[Ophelia]

also, wtf is a stallard?

[Plastic Flute]

omfg

[SWEET DYNAMITE]

Originally Posted by Spin Teacher

Good:
1. Still alive, that's aways a plus.
2. Apparently they fixed the 2 damaged areas of my cartilage.
3. Pain pills....a lot of pain pills. :D

Bad:
1. Once inside the doctors discovered my knee was worse off then they had thought. The arthritis was pretty severe, and I'm only 28. I'm also getting low on cartilage period.
2. Doctor said I'll proably always have pain, and may need shots to help keep it manageable.
3. Probably have to give up my favorite passtimes & hobbies in the near future. At least limit them...depends on how recovery goes.
4. Can't drive for 2 weeks.
5. Just got a 6'5 semi-pro basketball player to sign up on my team, and our league starts in 1 week.

Spin, how are you feeling now? Let us know your progress

[Spin Teacher]

Knee is still swelled up, and stiff. Not much pain at all though. I have a follow up appointment 8 days from now with the doc. Just sort of hanging out at the house a lot right now.

My basketball team had a playoff game Sunday against a good team & lost. The other team had a 6'8 guy that played at Wright State, and our biggest guy was 6'1. We lost by 3, and had a chance to tie with the final shot. Not bad considering 5 of our regulars were hurt or out of state, and I had to call 4 subs.

[SWEET DYNAMITE]

Good to hear you are on the mend but spewing about the game. You were at the game? How are you mended? Full leg cast? Wheelchair?

6'8 player? Your joking!

[darko.]

Prepare for a lifetime of pain, Spinno. i see a replacement in your distant future

how did the problem with your knee start? whats the story?!

[Spin Teacher]

You were at the game?

I'm team captain, so even if I can't play I have to show up to manage things.

How are you mended? Full leg cast? Wheelchair?

My leg was wrapped up with bandages for the first 3 days after surgery. Then I took everything off, and I'm getting around on crutches.

6'8 player? Your joking!

Nope, he played D1 ball, and a few of their other players played college ball at smaller schools like Miami University of Middletown. So we did really well considering the circumstances.

Prepare for a lifetime of pain, Spinno. i see a replacement in your distant future

Probably not so distant future...I already knew one would be in my future, but I was hoping to not have to deal with that until 45-50. Could very well be 35-40 though...and I'm 28.

how did the problem with your knee start? whats the story?!

About 5 years ago I was chasing a friend of mine down on a fast break, in a basketball game. At full speed I bent down, and tried to knock the ball away from behind when my knee went out. It hyperextended well beyond a knee is susposed to, and it also bent sideways a bit. It tore my ACL & meniscus with that injury.

When I had a MRI done the doctors saw something they thought was bone cancer in my tibia. However they wouldn't know what it was for sure until they did a biopsy, and they couldn't fix the ACL or meniscus until they found out what it was. So they took out part of my tibia, and found it was nothing to worry about. (that was surgery 1)

A couple weeks later they went back in and fixed the ACL & meniscus. (that was surgery 2) But after a long rehab my knee felt strange, and unstable so I had another doctor check it out only to find that the first doctor did a piss poor job in reconstructing the ACL. This is after 2 months of not putting any weight on the leg, and a couple other months of rehab.

So this new doctor had to go in again and tighten the ACL, and he smoothed some more cartilage out while in there. (that was surgery 3) So after another 2 months of not putting any weight onto the leg, and another couple months of rehab after that I was finally somewhat healthy.

About 4 months ago I was playing flag football, in the rain, without cleats with a bunch of friends. I was on defense chasing someone to pull their flag when they slammed on the breaks to dodge someone. I didn't want to plow into the guy and hurt him so I tried my best to stop quickly, but my knee went out again. I just heard & felt a pop, a lot of pain all the way up and down my leg. I ended up pulling my hamstring, calf & I also tore my meniscus again in 2 places. So back to the doctor for surgery number 4 in which they smoothed out the meniscus problems, took out some cartilage that was floating around in my knee, and took out arthristis/scar tissue and such.

...whew....that's it....

[SWEET DYNAMITE]

OMG! What a story Spin!