I guess this story stretches back awhile. Not sure how much of it I may have told before, so I’ll start from the beginning (at least of this chapter).
I was playing soccer after my car accident for a couple weeks (after a short break—I’m not that crazy) and at one point, I was running and felt a sudden flareup in the back of my right knee. Yes, the one that’s surgically repaired. I subbed out of the game immediately and was able to hobble over to the side of the field under my own power, but I was able to do that when I tore my ACL the first time.
That was my big concern: I might have retorn it. Over the next few days, I’d feel pressure against the back of my knee sometimes. Without the ligament, there’s no support to keep it from hyperextending and it felt like that’s what was happening. I scheduled an appointment with the knee specialist as soon as I could and spent the next week being almost positive that I’d need surgery again.
As it turned out, I didn’t. He had me lay down, then took my lower leg and pulled it, turned it in different directions, moved it all over the place… nothing hurt. The graft felt completely stable. That being the case, he thought maybe I had a swollen tendon in my knee and that’s what was causing the problem. That wasn’t great news, but it was better than what I’d expected.
I remember back when I first had swollen cartilage behind my kneecap a couple years ago—I ended up on the sideline for a long time and when I came back, I started off in goal so I wouldn’t have to run around too much, then got kicked and ended up with the torn ACL. Consequently, I wasn’t going to push anything. I’d rather spend more time recovering than push my luck and screw things up even worse than they already are.
Note the date: it’s September 13th. That’s approximately five months after I first felt that flareup behind my knee. Mind you, it’s never hurt much, it’s been more of a nuisance. However, it still hasn’t gone away. If I step or turn in a random direction, I’ll still feel pressure against the back of my knee.
Things were put into motion because of a visit to the physical therapist (my left shoulder healed up after treatment, but when my right shoulder started hurting afterward, I tried chiropractic and massage therapy—it felt better, but it’s still not “okay”). It was during my last PT visit that I asked him what the problem with my knee might be.
I started off by clarifying that I knew the conversation wasn’t part of my treatment and I wasn’t asking for a medical diagnosis or anything. I went to law school, I know he could get in trouble by unwittingly forming a doctor-patient relationship and giving me bad advice about something. He probably wouldn’t have cared if I hadn’t said anything—I’ve been there enough times—but it never hurts to be cautious for his sake.
So I told him about how it happened when I was running, it never went away, doc thought it might be an inflamed tendon, etc. First, he had me stand in front of a table and push up onto the ball of my foot ten times. Nothing. Aside from the fact that most inflammation would happen on the outsides of the knee, using my calf muscles should have put some stress on the tendons there. Nothing.
When I laid down on the table on my stomach, he pressed down lightly against the back of my knee and that felt like more than nothing. He wrote down a note for me to look up on the Internet: popliteal cyst. (It’s more commonly known as Baker’s cyst, but “popliteal” sounds way cooler.) According to the symptoms I’ve been feeling since April, there’s a distinct possibility that the physical therapist was right. However, I won’t know for sure until the results of the MRI come back.
As soon as I found out there might be a problem other than an inflamed tendon, I called the clinic. (There’s no point in taking a break and letting it heal if it’s not going to.) My usual doctor had a pretty packed schedule and I wouldn’t be able to get an appointment until the following week. So that’s what I did. (We were talking after I left the clinic yesterday and she told me that every time she sees my name on her docket, she wonders how I hurt myself playing soccer this time.)
I told the whole story to the doctor and mentioned the suggestion about a popliteal cyst and she pointed out that it’s also called a Baker’s cyst. Nice to know she knows what she’s talking about, right? So she printed out a few sheets with some information that includes a list of possible treatments, but stuff like icing and taking ibuprofen might be effective for the first few weeks. After five months? Not so much. The other alternatives it mentioned were having the cyst drained or having surgery.
However! We needed to be sure that the problem was indeed a cyst, so I talked to the person at the front desk and we set up an appointment for me to get an MRI within a couple hours. (I didn’t expect “sooner is better” to be quite that effective, but I had no problems with not waiting.)
I went to this other medical center and they have an MRI unit in a trailer in the parking lot. I’m not kidding. It looks like a small mobile home, but it’s packed with a lot more equipment. So they had me change into scrubs for the scan and brought me out to the trailer.
Mind you, I’ve been in an MRI tube multiple times. (Technically, I suppose some of them were CAT scans when the epilepsy specialists wanted to take a look at my brain.) I think I’m running about a 50% rate between staying awake and falling asleep. Even though there’s loud drumming or clunking inside, they put a warm blanket on top of me and I nod off anyway. That’s what happened this time.
Once the scan was done, they pulled me out and said the doctor would have the results within two to three business days, so she’ll call me when she gets those results and we can talk about how to address the problem. I’d say waiting for the results is a little nerve-wracking, but it’s really not. After waiting five months, another day or two isn’t that big a deal. Figuring out how to get things fixed up so I can play soccer again? Awesomeness.
