The Reason My Knee Goes "POP"

So. . . the short answer goes like this: I went skiing. Once.

Yes, friends and neighbors, it only took me one time to absolutely destroy my right knee.

Here's what happened (thanks, Monk !) --

I went to Ruidoso, New Mexico, for a quick ski trip with some church friends back when I was young and dumb. (No, not last week -- this has been many years ago.) We got up there, got our stuff unpacked, and headed for the slopes ! My friend told me that she would teach me to ski and that I didn't even need to take the lessons -- besides, those were for the little kids, anyhow.

I should have known better, but again -- young and dumb. Anyhow, about 30 minutes later, I found myself skiing downhill, which was not so bad, EXCEPT I was going much faster than I planned, I couldn't figure out how to "steer" exactly, and I could see what was in front of me -- the huge steel pole holding up the ski lift. This was gonna be BAD.

I weighed my options and figured I could just throw myself to the side and land in the snow. It wouldn't be fun, but way less painful than hitting that pole head-on, right ? Mmhmm. I flung myself over to the right and, as I did, the toe of my right ski caught. On the snow. And did. Not. Move. Nor, I found out later, did the bindings release. These are both bad things, apparently.

Here's the plus to all this -- I now have first-hand knowledge of what it sounds like when a ligament breaks. Not tears. Not stretches. Breaks. (For those of you who were wondering, it sounds like KA-POW!) At this point, I am now flat on my hiney in the snow in what my husband has been kind enough to tell me is called a "yard sale". I realize that I have done something very bad, but I'm at least bright enough to SIT THERE and not make it worse.

My friend, who was skiing behind me, has seen all this occur and so she stops by me and says "Hey, you okay ?" I let her know, in no uncertain terms, that I was not in a good place and that the ski patrol was going to need to come get me. That poor girl. . . her first follow-up question was "Are you sure ?" I'd never realized that I could use my eyes as lasers until then. And. . . she skied off to get 'em.

About ten minutes later, the lovely ski patrol folks discovered me sitting quietly in the snow. I didn't realize they would scold you, but their first statement was "if you'd have crossed your skis, we'd have known to come get you earlier". I calmly replied, "if I'da known to do so, I assure you I would have" and grinned at them. "I've been here about half an hour and it's my first time skiing." Boy, that seemed to freak them out a little.

It always looks fun when other people get to ride down the mountain while others are carrying you. It's not. It's very disorienting because all you can see is the sky. Well. . . and other people who STARE AT YOU. That's VERY disturbing.

An hour later, I was in the ER with people trying to cut my borrowed ski pants off me. Um -- no. I told the doc that I would get the pants off, but he absolutely did not believe me. I said, "okay -- give me 10 minutes and come back". Still have no idea how I did it, but I did. Doc came back in and gave me the big eye. I guess he's never dealt with that kind of determined woman. After that, it was off to X-ray. I already knew I hadn't broken any bones, but I couldn't figure out what that pop was earlier.

It's a weird thing when the doc won't tell you what kind of damage you've done -- I guess he thought I would freak out or lose it or something. He had also seen the scars from the previous arthros on both knees and let me know that I would "need to see my orthopedic guy". All I wanted to know was how bad it was. Nope. Apparently, that needed to be a secret. Weird. Psst -- here's a secret. The radio tech will tell ya as long as you promise not to cry or hold him to his preliminary diagnosis. Yep.

Cut to me going home a couple days later. Why didn't I go home that day ? *meh* Wouldn't have done any good and all of us needed to get a little more sleep before driving home (p.s. -- I was not going to be doing any of the driving, ya see).

Got home and talked with my orthopod -- who was, honestly, not terribly surprised to see me. I think he always suspected that I would revisit him after those original arthros -- just probably not for something this serious.

MRIs are fun. When you don't realize that there's metal in your brace that the ER gave you and no one actually checks it (they just take your word that there's no metal that you KNOW of in it), the MRI machine just sucks that long blade of metal RIGHT INTO THE MACHINE. Oops. They got it fixed without having to shut down the machine, thank goodness, and loaded me in like I was a microwave burrito. I think I was one of the very few people that they'd ever seen who fell ASLEEP during the procedure. It's so weird -- it sounds like someone banging on a tin roof panel with a rubber mallet and a ball peen hammer -- how hard can that be to sleep through ? =P

Surgery was less fun, even though I got to sleep through that as well. Actually, the sleeping through it was WAY easy -- it was when I was conscious again that the nightmare began. Apparently ONE pound and TEN pounds look the same when someone fills up the icepack. Okay, maybe not TEN pounds, but. . . it felt like a hundred and I know that's just ridiculous to think about. Ow. Ow, ow, ow. That's pretty much all I said/thought about for the next several hours. Oh, and Vicodin ? Pfft. Does not even touch the pain - just makes your brain mushy. Three or four days of that nonsense and I decided that was not something I needed any more of. Ugh.

Home to recover before I got set up with PT. PT is physical therapy and normal people actually go to facilities that offer this option. Since I did something amazingly stupid and "broke my knee" in a tiny little town, I got to do all my PT at the local high school. Yes. I was between college semesters and I'm getting hit on by the high school football boys. (I could not make this stuff up.)

The coach who oversaw and administered the PT under my doc's instructions could not have been better, btw, but I'll tell ya what. I have never hated a bicycle more. I hated the stationary bike, I hated the Cybex machine, I hated the whirlpool, and I hated the training table. Oh. Did I mention that to GET to these demonic devices, I had to go down a flight of stairs ? On crutches ? With a FULL LEG brace on ? Oh, mais oui ! Five times a week for multiple months. Oh, yes.

Here it is by the numbers: 30 minutes of skiing equals 6 months on crutches, 9 months in a brace, 12 months in PT and 12K for the knee repair.

And that, dear readers, is why I have never skied again and why my knee goes "pop".

Thoughts ?