Drain You

The knee is (was?) still wonky. 

Three weeks (and three days) since my last appointment. Not only were the two identified problems no better, but I acquired a new one. 

In the last 10 days, my knee has been making a horrible cracking noise along with a horrible, albeit brief, pain. 

Wouldn't you know in the day before the appointment, the knee would only now crack one out of every three or four times. I mean, yay, it seemed better, but boo, I wanted them to see / hear it at its worst. 

No worries - it finally acted up at the docs. 

My fear was that the steroid injection of which we discussed wouldn't be given because I didn't think the bone noise was indicative of the other pains. 

This is the reason Blobby doesn't have a medical degree.  Well.......one of the reasons. 

I noticed my knee looked swollen too, but I kept telling myself it was the aftermath of taking off the brace. And other reason I'm not an MD. Or even a DO!  Nope it was swollen. 

The docs (I allowed a resident in the room with my ortho guy) assured me it was swollen and it should be drained - and get the cortisone. Both would give me relief. The doc said there should be about 3ccs of fluid at the knee, and he estimated (vial ultrasound) I had 25. 

When Morty was up, I don't think he noticed (or too nice to say - so, wait, no, that doesn't track.....) how I took the stairs, especially down. Both feet had to go to one step before advancing. 

So, the docs get the ultrasound fired up and put the gel on me. They turn off the lights to show me what the deal was, but honestly, I don't know how anyone really reads any ultrasound. I can't see most of the things they point out. My doc did laugh when I said, "10 fingers, 10 toes?". 

First there was the freezing spray - no big deal. Then the lidocaine, no big deal.....though something nagged at me though I wasn't sure what.  The draining would go first. 

Oh. The. Pain. 

I have a high pain tolerance. And my ortho guy knows it. So, when I said - loudly - "motherfuck!!!!!", he knew I was uncomfortable. 

Immediately, I'm second guessing the resident didn't put the lidocaine in the correct area - the nagging I had came to the forefront. I did ask, "how bad would this be without the anesthetic?" .No one was going to tell me if they fucked up. Maybe they didn't. 

It did not help when he had to squeeze the knee to extricate more liquid. More ouchy. 

I never felt the cortisone shot, so either that worked in the right place, or so much trauma I didn't feel it. Or - and maybe he did everything right and that's how painful the first part as supposed to be. 

I had semi-immediate relief. My knee no longer cracks. Some of pain has subsided. I can walk down stairs on foot in front of the other. But I still have some pain - but it's to be expected. I've done this enough to know it will take a few days or a week to fully kick in. 

No running yesterday - which was to be 14 miles - and maybe up to 5 miles today. We'll see. 

Oh and for the record, the ortho guy to the cc guess down to the drop. 

(stock image. That is what it looked like - just with a much hairier leg in the background. They tossed my actual one before I could get a picture of it.)

Song by: Nirvana