Month: October 2016

Now, the pain in my knee is DEFINITELY present and over a month later, I still wake up in pain.  It no longer is the constant throbbing all over from my knee feeling that it is cracked open.  Now, it is a more pin-pointed pain.  It’s not any less severe but it’s different.  The pain is not by my MCL (that’s in the lower inside of my knee) that was strained in my injury  but instead, it is the upper outside of my knee, (the area having to do with my IT band I’ve learned).  Greg told me that muscles don’t move in isolation and I have A LOT more going on so there is no clear-cut explanation.  Gotta LOVE MS! ???

One thing I’ve learned that helps a little bit with the pain is if I hike up my right pant leg at the knee to alleviate some of the pressure on my knee.  It only helps a little bit and I’ve figured out that this pain is also constant and I can’t shake it.  It’s the kind of pain that sends a numbing, tingling feeling through my fingertips.  I told Brad about the “pant leg hiking” as an attempt to alleviate the pain.  He worked on my knee by pushing up through my quad.  As he was doing this, we talked about Halloween coming up.

I don’t have any plans; now that Sean is older and no longer trick-or-treating and we live on a busy street, I don’t have to do anything.  Sean’s going out and trick-or-treaters don’t come to our house.  I asked Brad what he was doing/being.  He was doing a couples costume with his fiancé.  At first they were going to be a zombie bride and groom because they’re getting married this year.  But now, he’s thinking he’ll be Jim Harbaugh (so he’ll have to shave)  and his fiancé will be a football player.  It’s SO GOOD that Brad is on the correct side of Michigan vs. Michigan State game this weekend. I told him that that was REALLY CUTE, then I told him that that costume takes commitment.

I worked with Kristen on Wednesday.  She bent my leg and sat on the table.  She worked my calf a little bit, she kneaded it with her hands and then she got out this tool that she pushed and pulled it on my calf slowly back and forth.  As she did this, we talked about the last two episodes of This Is Us.  I didn’t know that my calf was so tight until it loosened up as Kristen pushed and pulled the tool back and forth.  I was laying flat on the table so I couldn’t really see it but it looked like the pastry cutter my Mom uses when she is making pie crust:

It didn’t really look like this, it was an Edge Tool and it really looked like this:

Kristen’s tool had a blue rubber covering where she holds it.  She continued pushing and pulling this tool over my calf as we talked about how much we don’t like Miguel (watch the show, and you won’t like him either).  My mom came back in and asked Kristen about the tool as she was finishing up.  She told my Mom all about it (that’s how I know about it).  She explained that loosening up my calf reduces the pressure that’s on my knee and it pulls.

After the ice and stim. Kristen came over with black tape this time.  She flattened my leg and my Mom asked about the “Poofy” part of my knee.  Kristen agrees that the welling in my knee has gone down but says that in time the, “Poofy” part will go down.  I will be glad when that happens because that is where it STILL hurts!

 

Monday morning, I woke up with my knee STILL in pain!  It’s not the same kind of pain that I’ve been in since September 21st (THANK GOD!).  But, it’s pain just the same.  It hurts just enough to be uncomfortable (but, maybe my pain threshold is just messed up having had MS for so long…). My most recent #ChatMS was about pain.  I ABSOLUTELY LOVE these Twitter chats.  They are on Mondays at 7 pm (Eastern).  It is a forum hosted by @MustStopMS where people with MS talk about different topics that only people with MS understand.  I’ve found it to be quite therapeutic for me, I’ve had MS for so long that I’m at a place where I’m totally okay with talking about it.  I like to think that this fact helps other people.  But back to what I was saying about pain tolerance.  A few people commented that people with MS have different pain tolerances than able-bodied people.  What probably would be a 10 to able-bodied people, is a 5 for people with MS.  We are in pain ALL THE TIME so we just deal with it.  In the ambulance after my injury, the EMT asked me what my pain was, at that point the pain hadn’t totally set in so I told him 3.5.  He said, “Well, you have MS, we have to take that seriously.”

Retrospectively, I’m glad they did because this hurts SO BADLY!  I got out of bed and kind of shook my head, irritated that it STILL hurts.  I met Sean coming out of his room and I tell him that I feel like Nancy Kerrigan.  He asks, “Who is she?”  I told him to look it up kind of astonished that he doesn’t know.  How would he know though?!  I’m old.  I have SO much more respect for knee injuries and the people who endure them.  My knee surgery was 17 years ago so my memory of it has faded a bit.  But, now I remember how much it hurts! I can honestly say that hurts more than having a child!  Sean still hasn’t looked up who Nancy Kerrigan was by the way.

So, I get to ATI and Brad worked on me and I asked him about the swelling after he worked on it for most of my time just before it was time for ice and stim.  My knee was bent and he told me that it looks better and the swelling went down, I asked about the outside because that is where it STILL hurts.  It’s not the all-over, extreme, throbbing pain any more, but now after 5 weeks, the throbbing pain is only on the outside of my knee.  It’s uncomfortable and it wakes me up.  STILL.  Brad looked at the outside of my knee and gently pressed it and nodded.  He told me it was, “Poofy.”  Poofy.  I smiled to myself and appreciated that he said it that way.  Ice. Stim. and Brad comes over to tape me.  I told him that I was glad that he described it as , Poofy.”  He laughed and told me that it was still poofy again.

So, I went back to work on Tuesday.  It was tough and my knee still hurt but with my compression socks on (it’s cooler outside now so it’s more comfortable to wear them, it’s too uncomfortable in the summer), my knee brace, and the extender for my wheelchair, my knee felt a little less cracked open.  I was a bit hopeful when I went to physical therapy on Wednesday.  I told Kristen that my leg felt less cracked open and I looked forward to it not hurting one day.

The fact that hurt less made me feel better.  It still hurts but maybe it’s getting better.  Neither me nor Kristen watched This Is Us this week so we figured that we’d have more to talk about next week.  She worked my knee and I told her about Brad’s knife.  I really appreciate being at physical therapy because, at this moment, I really felt that it WAS getting better.

I had my stim.and the ice and Kristen taped me up.  I told her again that my knee felt less cracked open and I wished it felt MORE less cracked open and we laughed and she agreed that that was the goal.  I wasn’t going to be able to come to therapy on Thursday this week because of scheduling conflicts but given that I felt a little better, I wasn’t too worried about it.  But them it rained Wednesday night into Thursday morning…

I saw Brad on Monday and I figured it out; my knee feels cracked open.  It hurts so badly but I am scheduled to go back to work on October 18th.  That’s tomorrow.  I told Brad that my knee feels cracked open because that is EXACTLY how it feels.  Before Brad started working on my knee, he took the octopi or jellyfish off that were still on my knee.

My knee felt better as he worked on it.  He came over with this instrument that looked like a knife.  I asked him he was going to cut my leg off.  He laughed and told me that it’s called a Graston instrument.  It helps him rub out my leg.  It really looks like a knife!:

Those aren’t my legs but doesn’t it ok like he’s going to cut off her leg?! ???. It may look that way but it made my knee feel better.  The stim. and ice continued to made my knee feel better and then Brad taped my knee.  He put, “Two Stars” on my knee.  One on either side of my knee.  Luba called it a, “Flower” the first taping but it was the same taping.  I think, “star” is more masculine. Either way, it felt good!

I worked with Luba Thursday and told her that my knee is hurting on the outside.  My MCL is feeling better with the taping and that was what was strained in my injury.  I didn’t understand why it was hurting so badly on the outside of my knee cap.  It REALLY hurt!  It had almost been a month since my injury but maybe it hurt because my MCL was feeling better in comparison.  Luba looked thoughtful and maybe a little confused.

She told me that maybe I was over-compensating with the outside of my knee.  She also pointed out that since I am knock-kneed, that might affect the healing process.  I have ALWAYS told people that I have the world’s ugliest knees because I do.  My knee caps face inward a bit so my legs are funny shaped. Luba pressed the outside of my knee to see where it hurt.  It hurt EVERYWHERE!  It hurts like a letter “C” cupping my kneecap.  Luba told me that it was my “IT band,” she would work on that, and she would tape my knee differently to help with the pain.  She also told me that they had blue tape now.

Gerry would use blue tape sometimes, pink too but Kinesio tape is usually black.  I’d REALLY dig purple!  After she worked my IT band, placed the patches for stim, and put the ice on, she went to the table behind me.  When my stim time was up, she came back with what looked like blue octopi in her hand.  She had cut the tape in to strips but left it uncut at the top so I told her they looked like blue octopi.  It wasn’t until the next morning where I noticed that there were a bunch of these “octopi” and rather they looked Ike jellyfish from SpongeBob SquarPants.  My Dad used to watch that show ALL THE TIME with Sean when Sean was little.  My Mom and I think that show is dumb but Sean swears that it is, “Quality TV” to this day!  It makes me think of my Dad so maybe it does that for Sean too.

Wednesday, I worked with Kristen.  My Mom asked her the other day if she was watching This Is Us. I had told my Mom about the show and I ABSOLUTELY LOVE it!   Kristen watches it too so we can talk about it after I told her how my knee was feeling.  She asked me what I thought about Brad because he was new so wanted to get my opinion.  I really dug him!  I told Kristen about the pain on the outside of my knee and while she worked on my knee, we talked about the 3rd episode of This Is Us.  

 She worked my knee and it feels good when I’m at ATI and then it hurts when I’m not.  Turns out that Kristen just got engaged too ??? so she’s getting married also!!! She placed the stim pads and put the ice pad on.  I wished my knee could feel like this ALL THE TIME and I wondered how long it would take to feel better.  Then Kristen came over with blue tape this time, it was black before.

She taped the inside of my knee where my MCL is and it felt supported. She then taped across my kneecap and I visualized it holding my knee together and it felt good.  The tape coupled with ice and stim is truly a winning combination! Until my knee feels better, at least Kristen and I can talk about This Is Us.

With ATI having a new space, they hired a new physical therapist.  His name is Brad.  I worked with him on Monday and will periodically for my time at ATI for my knee.  I liked that his name was Brad and I remembered telling the other Brad (the one in OT school) about wanting to name my son Brad.  At that point, I had only known two “Brad”s in my life and they both were GREAT men!  Mr. Flint was my Lifestyles  (religion) teacher in high schooi.  He washed my feet in class around Holy Thursday, (I’m Catholic at it was like Jesus before Easter) I was one of the few students who volunteered for that because I didn’t care about being bare-foot in school.  He told me that my feet were, “small.”  The second GREAT “Brad” was my cousin Shannon’s friend.  Sean’s dad didn’t like the name and asked about “Sean.”  I told him that was okay if we spelled it S-E-A-N.  That was the “correct” Gaelic way to spell it as my family priest told me.

I liked working with Brad.  We had easy conversation the entire time he rubbed my knee out about ALL KINDS of stuff.  He’s getting married in December! Something I noticed about my knee is that the outside of my knee is hurting.  I told Brad about this and he worked it nicely!  Then my time was up and it was time for ice and stim.  I’ve been at ATI for a while but my knee STILL hurts so I can’t really see myself leaving.  I miss working hard at Barwis but this hurts!

I kind of feel like a sissy STILL complaining about this but it is a CONSTANT throb!  The pain I feel in my knee is like the pain I experienced when I was recovering from surgery.  I’ve said before that knee surgery hurts more than having a baby (I should clarify that I had a C-section) but it does!  I forgot how much knee surgery hurt until experiencing the pain I feel right now.  Brad wrapped the inside of my knee up and it felt really good!

I worked with Luba on Thursday.  I told her that my knee feels SO good when I’m at ATI but it hurts SO much constantly when I’m not at ATI.  I was injured on September 21st and it had been MORE than two weeks and it still KILLS!  I told Sean that I feel terrible about talking smack about NFL players being out with knee or ankle strains.  I didn’t have a 300 lb. man run into my foot but my knee hurts like CRAZY!  Luba thought about what I told her and told me that she would tape my knee to help with the pain.  It was called, “Kinesio Taping” and she would do it.

I told her that my physical therapist from 10 years ago used to tape me foot.  I was on crutches then and he said it was something new he was learning.  He taped my right foot to help me with the “drop foot” I was experiencing and to keep me on my crutches and walking.  (So, I guess my right side has ALWAYS been my, “Poop” side!)  It really helped and he did it each time I went to physical therapy after I broke my ankle.  Then my Dad died so I stopped going to therapy as my Dad was laid in state at the funeral home.  I remembered that my therapist, Gerry, and another therapist, Christen, showed up at the funeral home to tape me.  I was surprised to see them both there and Gerry told me that he was there because I needed to be taped.  Christen held my foot and Gerry taped me.  I hadn’t thought about this for a while but I recalled it with fondness as I told Luba about it.

After my rub and stretch, they have a “roller stick” too.  Luba rolled my right quad a bit to help with my knee pain.  Their “roller stick” is different and has a row of little metal balls that feels good when it’s rolled on my leg.  I told Luba that their “roller stick” is better (than Barwis’) and she smiled and jokingly told me that she would tell them.  After the ice and stim she taped the inside of my knee.  She overlapped different pieces of tape in a circle and told me that it was, “Just like a flower.”

My Mom helped me transfer from the table back into my chair and Luba asked how it felt.  I smiled and cupped my hands and put them together, palms together and I told her that it feels like my MCL is being cradled!  It felt SO good!  I was excited that my knee could feel better and we left.  For the first time since September 21st, my knee kind of felt better!

I worked with Kristen on Wednesday. I will be at ATI Mondays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays for the next month.  This was the first time I worked with Kristen at the new ATI and my excessive rambling continued.  First, I explained to Kristen how I was injured and how much it STILL hurts!  I am trerribly surprised how much it hurts but Kristen rubbed my knee differently than Luba did but I tell equally as good!

My rambling continued and I started talking about Sean and football.  Then conversation changed to the movie, Concussion with Will Smith.  She had also seen it and I told her that I  ordered it OnDemand and watched it by myself.  I wasn’t sure where Sean was but I remembered him coming home when I was already in bed for the night.  I called him to my room and asked him to come close to me where I tearfully had him lean close to me where I could kiss his forehead.  He was taken aback by me doing this and asked why I did it.  I told him that I just blessed his brain and told him that I ordered Concussion and he could watch it the next day if he wanted.  He asked if it was going to make him NOT want to play football anymore and I thought for a moment and told him, “Maybe.”  He didn’t watch it.

Kristen finished my stretch and rub-down and put the patches on my knee for stim and put the ice on.  I always take a deep breath with my eyes closed because it feels SO good!  As I laid back, I wondered if I was always going to ramble when I was at ATI.  Hmmm.  Probably.