Torn ligament or torn cartilage? Any bets?

This was copied from my Training blog at a health site. I've only typed out the story twice and I'm already sick of doing it. Haha.


So I blogged a few days ago about a knee injury. The longer I sat to think about it (I was forced too - I’ll explain in a sec), the more and more I realized just how seriously silly I can be sometimes.

After about a week of hobbling around, trying here and there to run a little, I could no longer take the pain and moseyed on down to the ER. They asked me all kinds of questions about the initial injury and the pain I was experiencing. When forced to actually think about it, here’s what I came up with:

The initial Boom! Clank! POP!! was at least a month ago. I stood from a stool to stretch my legs out because my knees were kind of sore. I had been helping a friend move that day so it didn’t really concern me too much. But as I stretched out my left leg, my knee popped backwards. Yes, hyperextension. (Not fun!) The pain was intense to say the least. I never did check to see if it was swollen. I just shrugged it off as best I could (wasn’t easy) and went on with my life. I felt the effects for about three to four days but then didn’t notice it hardly at all.

Then I started running.

Last Thursday I went out for a run before choir rehearsal and couldn’t run more than a few seconds without wanting to scream from the pain I was feeling. Deciding I’d rather walk a short distance in the time I had than to keel over where no one would find me til morning, I took it easy on myself.

By last night the pain was so intense I wanted to cry with every step I took.

Two hours and one X-ray later (and many rounds of “Yes, I really ran on it for two weeks,” with various staff), I was told I hadn’t broken a bone and based on my presenting symptoms, would need to see an orthopedic specialist. So they immobilized me, put me on crutches, handed me a script, and sent me away.

The expressions on the faces of some of the medical staff there were priceless. I wanted to laugh but was in so much pain, I mostly just smirked. Yep. I’m silly sometimes.

So needless to say I’ll not be doing any kind of running in the next few weeks. With no medical insurance, it may be a few MONTHS before I’m able to hit the streets again.

The crutches are already a pain in the neck. I have moments of wanting to ditch the crutches, tear off the brace and break out in a full sprint but am fully aware I wouldn’t make it three feet before falling over, swearing in pain.

*Sigh*



P.S. In my last post I said my knees looked relatively the same. Apparently that was my wishful thinking. A friend gasped when she saw my knee last night and the nurses each commented on how clearly swollen the left knee was. Whoops.