The Day My Knee Got Hurt (aka What Happens to Horses?)
posted at 11:39 pm
on Feb. 15, 2011
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First of all, it’s not true to say my knee is hurt. It’s more like I’ve hurt the area between my upper and lower leg near where the knee is.
Secondly, I make lists all the time, I’ve been told.
Thirdly, I was playing ultimate last night, and then I wasn’t. I’d just come from a workout with Curt that was really intense and involved a lot of lunges. Not like, lunges when you grab for something that you knocked over, but lunges where you pretend you’re an Olympic fencer, and you’ve wronged someone, and they are making you do lunges as punishment.
So my legs were tired, and then I headed out into a dark, wet night to play some turf ultimate.
On the second point of the game, I was guarding a fast guy, and the play was at our endzone line. My guy runs right, and then cuts really hard to go back. I plant my left leg and turn to follow him.
My knee makes two popping noises, and I decide to lie down. It felt better to lie down.
Play ended pretty fast after that. Two guys carried me off. My leg didn’t hurt, it just felt kind of weak. I’m not the toughest guy when it comes to pain, but even still, it wasn’t bad. Which kind scared me.
So I’m sitting on the sideline, and who should suddenly appear, but Laura, who had just come from her earlier set of games and thought maybe we’d need a woman sub.
She ministered my spirits and body, and after a little while, got called in to sub for me. She did great, and we ended up winning our second game despite another knee injury a little later. It was that kind of night.
Meanwhile, I was the score keeper, and I kinda sat there worrying about my knee. It wasn’t swelling, but it wasn’t really supporting me, and I was walking around like C3-PO.
That night, I iced the leg and kept it elevated and compressed and I did stay up and watch a movie but that still kinda counts as rest.
The next morning, Susie drove me to the medical clinic just up the street from my house. My leg had definitely gotten stiffer in the intervening time, though still no swelling. The doctor there bent my leg in as many directions as she could think of, and said it was “fine”.
What does that mean? It means, she said, that there seemed to be no buildup of fluid, no internal damage to the knee, and no major weakness that would indicate a tear or a break. She said it was a strain and that I should use anti-inflammatory drugs and rest and do some physiotherapy.
So today (Wednesday) I’m heading to some good ol’ physiotherapy (maybe I’ll get to try to walk across the room like they do in movies about people who can’t walk but think they can and then they fall down but say to themselves I can’t do this and their trainer says, no you CAN do this! and they do), and also ask my therapist if maybe my leg is broken and the first doctor just didn’t notice.
I’m still hobbling around like half of a three-legged race contestant, and it doesn’t hurt except when I straighten or bend my knee. The swelling is up, and there’s a clicking noise in my ankle when I take too big a step, but I think that’s just sympathy clucks.
I’ve rarely hurt myself this bad, so it’s a little novel, but both Susie and Laura have been doing yeowoman’s working taking good care of me, so I’m a lucky guy even in my unluck.
Send healing thoughts and I hope I’ll be back out playing in a week or two.
