Collateral Damage

I haven't really felt like blogging lately. My mind hasn't been in the best place. I found out from the GP a fortnight ago that I had more than sprained my knee. I had torn something in my knee and needed to be referred to a specialist. A week later I saw the specialist who confirmed that I have torn my Medial Collateral Ligament and strained my Posterior Cruciate Ligament  The GP had been a little wrong in his diagnosis of a torn meniscus but not as incorrect as the GP who told me it was just a sprain and sent me on my merry way.

Thankfully after five days of little improvement I took myself back to the doctor to get a second opinion. Who knows how long I could have been walking around thinking my knee was sprained. Unfortunately for me this kind of tear must be operated on, it tore where it joined my bone and has rolled down on itself, I have to have surgery to unroll the ligament and reattach it to the bone. This all has to be done within around four weeks of the tear before the ligament starts healing to itself (another reason I was lucky I went back to the doctor). So this Wednesday I go under the knife. Unfortunately this ligament cannot be repaired via arthroscopic surgery (key hole) as the ligament is wide and not located in the knee joint, I will have to have a little square cut in my leg. I have to stay overnight in hospital, take at least a week off work and spend 6-8 weeks in a knee brace. 

meet Buddy, my companion for the next few months :(
we don't always get along

Along with the usual life pressures this has challenged my mood and I have been a little grumpy and sad. I am scared about surgery, about the pain and about waking up from antiseptic but I know it needs to be done. I just want Wednesday to hurry up and be over already. Wednesday will be four weeks since my crash and I want to start seeing an improvement. I have only been wearing my brace for six days and I am already so sick of it and I haven't had to wear it to bed yet which I expect to after surgery. I am tired of the pains in my back, hips and calves and I just want to stretch. I am not looking forward to arriving at the hospital at 7.30am and not being able to have even a sip of water. I drink a lot of water, this is going to kill me! But it may do a nice job of distracting me from thinking about surgery. 

I have the best surgeon, he is just awesome and I am confident everything will be just fine. After all he does this stuff three days a week. My knee is to him what Microsoft Word is to me, second nature. Every man and his dog seems to have had surgery done on one of the four ligaments in their knee and have been telling me it takes forever to heal and a lot of physiotherapy, damn it I just want to bend my darn leg already. I am yet to find someone else who has torn their MCL and the surgeon said he has only seen one other tear to this ligament before. Great, I seriously am the most uncoordinated weirdo ever born!

So if my coming posts have a slightly negative style, this is probably why. But hey, I am only human and everyone feels crappy once in a while. Getting my wedding photos would surely lift my mood but nope still no photos :( Maybe if the husband makes me pancakes and buys me a camera I will feel better! Anyway thank you for joining my pity party I look forward to talking soon...hopefully I will be in a better mood! I will endeavour to use my time away from work to read all of the books I have started and have been meaning to read, that sounds nice and positive, look at me I am setting goals!