I rolled over in bed last Tuesday morning and my knee locked. My husband was away, my daughter was away -- it was just me and the dog and he was no help. This was actually the second time this has happened since I tore the ACL in my left knee more than a decade ago, so I knew exactly what the problem was and what had to be done. So at 6:30 am I got dressed, slid down the stairs on my bottom, got my crutches out of the basement and drove myself to the emergency room.
We North Forkers are lucky to have Eastern Long Island Hospital at our disposal. It is perched on the shore of Sterling Creek and every window you look out of has a terrific water view and every person who works there is friendly and knows someone who knows you. The emergency room staff, the x-ray technician, the MRI guy -- they all took such great care of me and listened to what I had to say. By the time I got home at 2:30 that afternoon, I had seen an orthopedist, had x-rays and an MRI and had surgery scheduled to remove a torn piece of meniscus on Thursday morning, exactly 48 hours after my knee locked.
And it gets even better! When I had this same arthroscopic surgery done about 10 years ago, it hurt like the Dickens. This time: no pain! The crutches hurt more than the surgery! I go for a check up tomorrow and am hoping that the doc will let me off the crutches -- I hate them with a passion!
While I am very grateful to everyone at Eastern Long Island for their help, my undying thanks go to my neighbor Seth who drove me to and from the hospital, picked up my prescription, checked on me throughout the day, took care of the dog, and even picked my husband up at the airport. I will be baking lots of pies for Seth when I can stand on two feet again. He is my hero.
Anyway -- that's where I've been and what I've been doing for the last week. I will be glad to be able to move around freely again and to not watch cooking shows on tv. Do you have any idea how frustrating it is to see someone making this great recipe and you can't even go to the grocery to buy the ingredients, never mind stand at a stove and cook . . .
1 comment:
Sarah, I so understand and sympathize. After falling down the basement steps and breaking my tibial plateau, I never could work the crutches since the leg I broke was my "strong" one. I spent 7 weeks in a wheelchair and with a walker. And my surgery to insert two long screws into my leg didn't hurt any worse than the leg break.
It's 20 weeks today and I'm still using a cane on occasion and the pain is still omi-present. The orthopedist says it can take up to a year for the bone pain to go away.
I hope you're doing much better and getting around without those crutches soon.
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