Stupid knee!

Ugh. I swear, sometimes I have the worst luck when it comes to body parts. Especially when it comes to my left knee.

The first time it was hurt was when my horse bucked me off when I was about 9 years old. Really minor sprain, lasted maybe a day or two.

Fast forward a few years later. I was riding my horse bareback, and she stepped in a hole and tripped. I went flying over her head and managed to seriously sprain my knee this time. I also wound up with a monsterous bruise on my right hip and a minor concussion. This time the sprain was a second degree and was all mangled, bruised and swollen. Ick. I was on crutches for over a week that time. This was during high school, so that really sucked.

So now it's 1997, and I get into a very minor rear end accident. I happened to have my leg in just the right spot, and I managed to get my knee cap knocked out of alignment! After many fights with doctors, lawyers and the worker's comp company, I finally had surgery on it to correct the problem in April of 2000. I was on crutches for a month, and then it took over three months of physical therapy to really get back on my feet. Sadly, it never fully healed, and my left leg is still slightly smaller than my right becasue of the loss of muscle.

August of 2004, I took a bad tumble and hurt it again. Crutches and I are becoming good friends at this point.

Then in October of 2005, I'm playing with my son and my (then) boyfriend at the playground. We were on this type of platform that's held up by a chain on each corner, so it kinda floats off the ground. My son jumped off and the BF was swinging it pretty hard with me on it. Well, I was wearing boots at the time, so I didn't exactly have a good footing. You guessed it...bam! I fell on my ass and twisted my knee and my ankle pretty badly. So I was stuck on crutches, again.

So here we are, 2006. I've been busy with going to school and work 7 days a week, especially with work. As I've said before, I do lot attendant, so I'm pretty physically active now. Oddly enough, this didn't happen at work. I was at school, walking to class, when my knee just started to hurt like crazy. It felt like someone was stabbing me on the left side. Every time I bent it to walk it hurt. I was almost in tears. So I straight legged it to class. Every time I tried to bend it and put weight on it for the rest of the day it hurt like that. It made work interesting.

So I went and got myself and knee brace and started wearing it, thinking I'd just sprained it and I'd be okay if I just wore the brace and took it easy. No go. Not only did it not really help the knee pain, but it gave me a rash! Aparently I'm allergic to neoprean and sweat. Thankfully that was taken care of quickly, and I now wear the brace on the outside. Anyway, the pain has been steadily been getting worse and worse, to the point where it actually catches and gives way. When it catches, it hurts so bad I have to stop whatever it is I'm doing and just stand there til the pain passes.

I finally gave in and scheduled an appointment with the doctor. After she examined me and bent my poor leg around like a pretzel, she told me she thinks there's actually something torn in there. Which means I have to go in for an MRI and see what's going on in there. If it's bad enough, I'll need knee surgery again. Needless to say, I did not like hearing this at all.

The doctor then gave me a work restriction (no excessive walking) and told me to use my crutches. So I headed off to work to tell them the situation. I was nervous. I mean, I'm a lot attendant! I walk around and bring in carts all day, and load customers vehicles. How am I supposed to do that on crutches? Thanfully, things worked out. I'm cashier trained, so they're putting me on a register for now. That's great, since I"ll still have a job, but I already miss doing lot. I was so good at it! I see the parking lot when I come to work, and it's full of carts, and I get upset. Normally I'm not too concerned with things being clean, but this is my job and I take pride in it.

I've only been cashier for a couple of days now, but already my knee is feeling better. I'm hoping that it's not as bad as the doctor thinks, and we'll be able to fix it without surgery. The thought of having surgery again scares the hell out of me. I don't like hospitals in general, and I am terrified of IVs. And last time I had surgery I had a bad reaction to the anesthetic that cause my blood preasure to drop rapidly. That was so not fun. Plus the recovery time is painful and long. I admit it, I'm scared.

I hope I hear about the MRI soon. Then at least I'll know what I'm dealing with. It won't be so scarey then.

And this had better be the last damn time my knee gets hurt. Next time, I'm cutting it off!