Yep, it’s a head-scratcher, all right. I thought getting the scans done would provide some answers. I was wrong.
I got an appointment with the specialist on Wednesday, so I picked up the MRI results from the clinic on Tuesday afternoon to bring to my appointment. (What’s funny is that they told me I was supposed to sign for the results—maybe I have a trustworthy face, but the person at the desk ended up leaving the form paper-clipped to the envelope instead of taking it off for me to sign.)
So I brought it home and curiosity got the best of me, so I opened it up to take a look. I opted not to look at the images on the CD and instead read through the report from the radiologist. Depending on your viewpoint, the news could be interpreted in two ways. First: it didn’t show anything. My knee looks pretty much awesome. That’s good. However, that also doesn’t explain what’s wrong with it. It may look really nice on the MRI, but I know there’s something pushing against the back that’s there in the right (surgically altered) knee and not the left.
When I went to visit Dr. Lewis (the specialist and knee surgeon who cut me open the first time), I told them that the news was mixed: it didn’t show anything, so it didn’t provide any explanations. They ended up having me get some x-rays done (they wanted me to change into some of their cheap linen shorts, but I’ve gone through this stuff enough to wear soccer shorts underneath my jeans). When Dr. Lewis looked at the results of the MRI and the x-rays… not a clue what the problem is.
I shouldn’t say that. There might be a problem, but it might not be a problem and it still probably wouldn’t explain what’s wrong. When he looked at all the scans, my knee looks really healthy. There are no obvious problems, though on the inner part of my knee, there’s a lighter part that might indicate something wrong. It’s not light enough to show a tear in the meniscus, but it might be something wrong. He figured that if we scope it, there’s a 50/50 chance that he’ll find anything.
Which means we have a potential issue, which probably wouldn’t affect the back of my knee regardless. Truth is, one of the options he gave me was to just ignore it and go back to playing soccer again, see if something happens. The other options he gave me were a cortisone shot (which wouldn’t do much more than relieve any pain I’m feeling… and it doesn’t really hurt, but it’s annoying) and arthroscopic surgery to see how the 50/50 odds pan out.
Thus, I opted to have him take a peek on October 31st. (As as added bonus, if I’m feeling whacked out from painkillers, I can answer the door and scare all the little kids looking for candy.) Trust me, ignoring it was reeeeeeeally tempting, but there were two reasons why I decided to have Dr. Lewis poke around inside my knee.
First off, the curiosity factor. I could let it go, but that wouldn’t provide me with any answers, especially the deal with the back of my knee. Ignorance may be bliss, but whatever this thing doesn’t like being ignored very much. The second (and more important) is that one of the signs of a tear in the meniscus is the knee locking up. If it suddenly stops moving, it might be pinching the tear and the knee stops to prevent any further damage. Something like that, anyway.
Looking back a couple months ago… or maybe more than a couple months… my knee did just that. I was running across the field and it locked up as I was striding forward. Again, it didn’t hurt and seemed like an inconvenience at the time, but if it’s a sign of a larger problem… yeah, I want to have Dr. Lewis take a look and see what’s going on.
So on Halloween, there are two likely possibilities. The first is that he won’t find anything and I’ll be stuck with (._.)? for a long, long time. The second is that there’ll be a small tear or something wrong and he might have to cut away some of the meniscus. That’s not necessarily a good thing—I’ve got a limited amount and it won’t grow back—but at least it won’t cause me any problems in the future (I hope).
In the meantime, it’s tempting to play soccer for the next couple weeks until surgery, but I’m totally out of shape at this point. I haven’t been on the field since April and haven’t had a decent amount of exercise since then. I guess maybe helping to move lots of furniture and stuff like that might help, but that doesn’t provide much cardiovascular exercise, so if I try running around, it wouldn’t be long before I’d be a somewhat muscular wheezing puddle of Shawn out on the field. Probably not such a good idea, but we’ll see what happens.
In the meantime… I just hope the only confusing things I have to deal with in the future are based entirely on Managerial Finance. And in theory, I’ll be able to find answers to those.
