Month: March 2017

So, I had my appointment with Dr. Frush yesterday.  Last Friday, I had a rough week. My knee hurt really badly as I waited for my ride.   Earlier in the day, as I was icing my knee, I spoke with Mrs. Howard. I told her that if ever there was a day that I would cry in front of students that was the day.  As I sat in the Teacher’s lounge after school by myself, I put my sunglasses on, played a Jerry Butler song (twice)   that reminds me of my dad and I cried.

As I got into my car, I wondered how I was going to continue on with all of this pain. Feeling this way on a Friday evening after a long week of work is different than hearing what I had been thinking on Friday on Monday morning from my orthopedist.    He asked me about my pain and poked my knee a bit. Everywhere he poked, it still hurt!

He told me that there were 3 options. One was just to wait and see how my knee progresses regarding pain.  Two was to continue with physical therapy (which I told him was great when I am there but when I leave, my knee goes right back to  being in pain). I likened it to putting a Band-Aid on open heart surgery).   He listened and then told me about option #3.

Option three was putting a scope into my knee and either trimming or repairing my meniscus because it was torn.   For the past six months, I swore I needed surgery but actually hearing that I did was like getting punched in the stomach! I was quiet and willed myself not to cry.   I slowly nodded and agreed to having surgery.

Right after my nod, he told me that I was done working for the school year and that recovery time would take 8 to 12 weeks with just a trim and upwards of four months if a repair was necessary. He wouldn’t know  until he  got a look inside my knee.

Recovering from knee surgery is the most pain I have been in in my life! It hurts more than having a kid! (At least my experience of  childbirth and having had a C-section).   Dr. Frush told me that he did not know the pain of childbirth personally but he assured me that this surgery would be less painful than my ACL reconstruction surgery. I didn’t have MS when I tore my ACL. Having MS changes everything!

He told me that he thought of pushing for the surgery and my last appointment. He says that he has been pushing me pretty far and now I am pushing back which is good!   I told him that being in pain for six months and six days was my limit and now I am at six months and one week so I want this pain to go away!

I was still in shock as my Mom pushed me to the waiting room where we would wait for Donna to make the appointment for my surgery.  We sat next to the nurse case manager just as she was called back. I put my sunglasses on and told my Mom that I wasn’t going to cry in front of her.   She came back and sat with us and told us that Worker’s Comp. was not going to pay for the surgery.

Punched in the stomach again!  I was confused and a bit overwhelmed anyway. She told me to call her and she would know more specifics regarding payment for surgery.

She left and we waited to be called back to make my surgical appointment. I kept my sunglasses on and wiped my eyes because I had begun to cry. I was shocked that I was crying because I knew it was coming but hearing it was something different.

My surgery is scheduled for May 1st. I found out I was pregnant with Sean on May 1st. I got my bachelor’s degree on May 1st. Jesse’s (my first trainer at Barwis) birthday is May 1st so I liked the date. I miss Barwis more than I can say! Dr. Frush told me not to return until  my knee did not hurt so I have not been there since October 20th. Over six months.  This feeling is not a punch in my stomach but rather a hollow feeling in my chest. She gave me a bunch of paperwork that I have yet to read…

I started back to physical therapy on February 23rd after Dr. Frush extended my prescription again and, this time, it was approved.  Each night after physical therapy, I start the draft for a blog post to talk about it. I have yet to post ANY thing from my time at ATI.   The fact that I am so behind in posting bothers me. I couldn’t figure out why I was not taking the time to write and post. Writing blog posts has been great for me for over two years.  It was only yesterday that it really dawned on me. I am depressed.

I’m depressed because I have  been in pain for six months and six days. It’s the kind of pain you feel in your teeth and your eyes.  It’s a pain in your fingertips that you can’t even clinch into fists because that is too painful.  Rather you just open your hands and feel the pain surging through your fingers all the way to your fingernails.   I have in this pain from the second I wake up to the second I go to sleep.

I’ve lost count of how many times my knee has popped out, around 23. It goes to the left and also it has popped out to the front. My Mom has always just popped it back in  so my new colleague, Mr. Langford, says that she is “Hard-core.”  It has popped out multiple times every day for the past week. My son has now witnessed it popping out and he also has had to be “Hard-core” and the one to pop it back in.

My knee feels absolutely wonderful and ATI,  Luba and Brad work with me.  They use the ultrasound machine and manual traction as well as Kinesio tape.  It feels absolutely great but then I leave physical therapy and my knee goes right back to hurting. Because it has hurt for so long, I can pinpoint where it hurts. It hurts on the inside  which is my MCL that I remember seeing the MRI scan and it is torn. It hurts on the outside of my knee where all the cartilage damage was that I also saw and the MRI scan.   Dr. Frush had explained both of these things to me before but now the only time it doesn’t really hurt is when my knee is in traction, when Brad “Opens the joint.”

I’ve thought about this a lot and the fact that it hurts in three different places, a few people have thrown out the suggestion of me needing a total knee replacement.   My aunt had double knee replacements 17 years ago and I remember the excruciating pain she was in! Add that to the fact that I have Multiple Sclerosis; I can’t even think about the time it would take for me to heal from this and how exactly I would rehab this.

This scares me because I know that knee surgery hurts more than having a child (or at least my C-section experience of having a child) and I didn’t have MS the last time I had knee surgery.  I just can’t stand the pain any longer. So I guess six months and six days is my limit. I look forward to tomorrow when I see Dr. Frush and he can tell me what we should do.  All I know is that I just can’t stand being in pain like this anymore.