Once upon a time a citygirl lived in the country, or rather a very small rural town in a western State.
She went to the high school's required freshman Physical Education class and was forced to play the games the teacher (or coach; if you can even call him that) thought were good curriculum. One of those games was volleyball. Not being very adept at sports in general, this team sport wasn't nearly as enticing as the quarterly President's Council on Physical Fitness Test, but nonetheless she played the wretched game of volleyball.
And it would be her last game for all eternity. Which of course was a blessing and a curse.
A dislocated patella (or knee cap) was the result that fateful day. That knee cap was in another building and yet the "coach" thought she could walk it off. No ambulance was called, no doctor, only the mother and after what seemed like an eternity the girl was whisked away, with that knee cap still sticking out, in a rust 1978 Cadillac DeVille, to the emergency room. As luck would have it the visiting orthopaedic doctor from the next town over was still there and he popped that knee cap back in its proper position before he headed out the door.
The subsequent years brought more dislocations (the patella would pop out and then right back in again), knee swelling, and pain. Although never as severe as the first incident the wear and tear of these dislocations took its toll.
Years and years later the citygirl was going about her daily workout and the knee locked and wouldn't work. It didn't dislocate like it had so many times before, but it wanted to. Instead it blew up like a balloon and she lost the use of that knee that day.
"Maybe, I should see the doctor?", she mused.
And she did. The news wasn't good, but she was moving in a week and could do nothing to fix it.
Another year, another doctor and another set of X-Rays later, the diagnosis made a little arthroscopic surgery necessary. While contemplating the ramifications of this course of action, the citygirl was laid off and not only had instability in the knee but instability in life.
Our story brings us now to the present day. Mostly because the time between doctor number two and doctor number three isn't very interesting for this story about unstable knee caps.
Finally, the citygirl is able to schedule the arthroscopy and it is a success. It went a little something like this.
At the pre-operative appointment the day before surgery she was informed that her previously scheduled time of 7:30AM was now 8:30 AM. She wondered why no one had called her. But no matter, that meant a little extra sleep.
Upon arriving and checking in she was ushered into the holding area to be prepared with an IV, booties, standard issue hospital gown, and weird blue hair net. She endured two attempts for that IV, one in each hand and laid in the holding area for several hours while six people came in after her and went to surgery before her. There were many trips made to the bathroom. It probably made the nurses crazy.
Then finally it was her turn and let me tell you that I think she enjoyed the anethesia a little too much.
It is now one week post-op and all is well. The knee cap is back in its proper slot and the citygirl is tired but doing well. She thanks the fabulous doctor because not only is he kinda cute, but he's the best there is and she has a relatively new and non-crunchy knee.
knee surgery, anesthesia,president/'s council on physical fitness, volleyball, PE Class, arthroscopy, knee cap, patella
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