First, though, a quick backstory. As a kid, I wasn't very athletic. I tried gymnastics and ballet when I was little, but I wasn't very coordinated, and it became sort of apparent that I was more suited for studying and being more academic.
When I was in college, however, I met a boy (you know how that goes) who played inline hockey, and thus I started playing my first sport at age nineteen. I played roller hockey for about five or so years, then decided to get a second degree (while working full-time), and had to remove any extracurricular actives that weren't sleeping. After a few years off, I met another boy (this one became my husband), and we decided to start playing hockey again (he'd played ice hockey in the past), so I started playing ice hockey about five years ago.
Ice hockey, obviously, takes slightly different skills than inline, and though I was a decent skater, I fell down a LOT. A couple different times I injured my knees (hyperextension, mostly), but never thought any of the injuries were very bad. My knees would hurt for a few weeks, then feel mostly better. Since then I've had some flexibility issues, and my knees would go out occasionally, but I figured that was just things healing slowly.
Two years ago, I injured my right knee trying to take third base in a softball game. That night I had my friend – a doctor who played on our team – examine my leg. She tested the flexibility of both knees and said they felt okay to her. I never saw a doctor because I figured I was fine.
Then this year – on June 7, a week after my 32nd birthday – I injured my left knee trying to avoid a collision at first base (moral of the story, softball is EVIL). This time I couldn't walk afterward, or the next day, so I had to actually go see an orthopedist, Dr. Trumper. He came in, jiggled both my knees and told me without any hesitation that I had blown the ACLs in both of my knees. I also had what's called a bucket handle tear in my right medial meniscus. This means that the meniscus tore right down the middle and then flipped into my knee joint, locking my knee at 90 degrees.
On June 14, I had routine arthroscopic surgery to trim out the torn portion of my meniscus. The surgery went fine, I was on bed rest for three days, then started physical therapy. Everything seemed to be going great, and on July 20, I went and saw Dr. Trumper for a followup appointment. That day I got permission to compete in my first triathlon since the surgery. That was also the day I started feeling pain in my left upper thigh, which I attributed to a pulled muscle (I'd been riding my bicycle, and thought maybe that's where I'd hurt myself).The following Saturday morning I got up to do my tri and my leg hurt so badly I couldn't walk without a limp. I decided not to compete and went to swim practice instead. By that afternoon, the pain started radiating down behind my knee and along my calf. My husband, who had asked me that morning if I'd considered that maybe the pain wasn't a pulled muscle, took me to Urgent Care, and I was sent to the hospital for an ultrasound. They found that I had a blood clot that extended from my groin
all the way down my leg toward my ankle.
I was admitted to the hospital that night, and the next morning they inserted a catheter into my femoral vein, which they used to administer blood thinners directly to the most dangerous clot. The long story short is that it hurt unbelievably, I had to spend two days in the ICU (and five in the hospital total), and then spent the next two weeks on crutches because the clot in my lower leg and the giant hematoma behind my knee from the catheter made it impossible to bear weight on that leg. After that I had several weeks of additional physical therapy to get back to being able to walk normally.
I didn't really realize it at the time, but I was actually in very serious danger because of the clot in my femoral vein. If part of that clot had broken free, it could have gone to my lungs (pulmonary embolism) and killed me. At this point, they're still unsure why I clotted so badly, though there's still a possibility of a genetic disorder (pending a followup blood test to check my protein levels). It might have also just been "bad luck", a combination of the oral contraceptives I was taking and lower activity after surgery.
As of today, I'm probably about 95% recovered from the initial surgery and blood clot. After being on blood thinners for four months, I was able to come off the day after Thanksgiving (after having a clear ultrasound). A week from Tuesday, I'm finally getting my left ACL replaced.
And so I'm starting this blog. It's called "KneeStrong" to riff on a bit by Stephen Colbert (on which I'm harboring kind of a huge crush at the moment, not going to lie) that came up when he broke his wrist a few years ago – "WristStrong". I'm planning to use this space to talk about the surgery and recovery in detail, partially so I don't annoy the people who follow my regular blog, partially in case anyone who has to get their ACL replaced comes upon this and wants to know what it's like, and also to keep a record for me to reference when (if) I get my right ACL replaced.
Right now I'm equal parts excited and sad about the whole thing. I'm glad I'm getting my knee fixed, because it was causing me all sorts of problems with sports, and also I've been having a lot of popping since the meniscus surgery. On the other hand, this surgery is going to put me off my feet for a long time. Five weeks until I can get back to swimming (but thank God for that, because otherwise I might not be able to cope), but five MONTHS until I can go back to anything else (hockey, aerobics, etc.). I should get to bike, at least, though with it being winter it will probably be all stationary cycling. Better than nothing though!
Okay, that's enough for now. I should start updating this thing more regularly when I go in for surgery – December 13.
Bye for now!
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