Needy Knee

I need all of you out there in the cyber world to send happy thoughts my way tomorrow morning at 8 AM. I had an MRI on my knee last Wednesday and tomorrow I meet with the orthopedic surgeon to determine whether or not surgery is necessary to fix the part of me that’s broken.

When I was about 13 years old, I was diagnosed with juvenile rheumatoid arthritis and was told a regular intake of ibuprofen would soften the pain and I would eventually outgrow it. I saw an orthopedic surgeon every six months to have regular x-rays taken of my knee and my spine- I also suffer from scoliosis (yay!) As luck should have it, I stopped growing shortly after my double diagnosis so no further testing would be necessary beyond the x-rays and exams. Id like to add that this was not before I had a twelve inch needle stuck under my knee cap to drain the fluid trapped in my joint. This fluid is usually a clear or yellow in color- mine was black. Does that give you any idea of how much pain I was in? Maybe, maybe not. But it was awful- the procedure and seeing that fluid.

A few weeks ago my knee started to bother me again- no injury, no incident, it just hurt all over again. I called my pediatric orthopedic surgeon to get a referral to one more equipped for my grown up- but not any taller self =). After an initial exam, a round of x-rays and a strong suggestion of taking 800 milligrams of ibuprofen each day, the Dr. asked me to come back for an MRI. He would need to see more of the inside of my knee to determine what the real problem was. Its possible I have either bruised or torn meniscus.

And thus this leads us to tomorrow. Obviously Im hoping I wont need surgery but I feel a little torn (no pun intended). If surgery is not an option, that means Ill need physical therapy. Which I did for YEARS and YEARS growing up. Sure, it helped at the time, but once I stopped going, my knee was back to its old shenanigans. So no, I dont want surgery, but I do want to have a fully functioning knee and to be able to walk up and down stairs without cringing or perhaps Ill actually be able to run someday like Ive always wanted. Im hoping that the 13 days of yoga will have strengthened my knee in some small way but if its that easy of a fix as that I will kick myself for waiting 14 years to start taking classes!

Im really pretty nervous. Think happy thoughts.