It's a New Year, But the Story's the Same
Happy New Year Everyone!
I hope everyone enjoyed or at least survived the holidays.
I've been away from the computer here a bit over the past few weeks so I apologize for that. One of the major distractions going on is the return of the old knee issue. About a month ago, my knee started hurting... more than usual. This was probably also due to the termination of Operation Vicodin. A few weeks ago I went to a new orthopedic surgeon and asked him to give me once over and find out what all the hub bub was.
The verdict... I need (or would definitely benefit from) a patellar realignment. My knee cap is still out of place. It's drifting on the outside of the area it should be... basically waiting to dislocate again. It's also grinding and compressing cartledge. That's the ouchie. Oh... and an x-ray showed that there's a bone spur sticking out of the side of my knee cap.
The patellar realignment is not a dainty process.
I'm not really going to go into the details, but it involves two processes. One is to severe a ligament that is pulling the knee cap to the outside. This would let it move to the center and remove the possibility of dislocations in the future (awesome). This is done arthroscopically. The second phase involves lessening the tension on the knee cap by shortening the length of the tendon that runs over it and connects to the shin bone. This is accomplished by sawing the contact point area of the shin bone and moving it to another spot and screwing the new bone in place.
It'd be at least 4 weeks before I'd be off crutches. Rehab... likely 6 months or longer.
The good news is that the procedure has the amazing benefit of solving the problems that are plaguing me. It's just going to be a major suck-fest to get there.
More to follow on this.