We can rock all day in rocking chairs of gold

[venta]

The story begins at Day 1. The short version: I fell over skiing and ruptured a bouquet of ligaments in both knees.


Yes, we missed Day 5. Not much happened. I did some work. I got a phone call from the hospital and arranged an MRI. I discovered that having a leg brace that bends slightly is awesome and has made getting about way easier. I even managed putting a microsmidge of weight on my right leg while moving around.

I also plucked up the courage to tell my dance team that I won't make the competition in two and a half weeks. rapperaddict was remarkably nice about it, and has agreed she won't hunt me down and kill me until I am better (apparently it's no fun if the prey can't move).

Day 6, however, didn't start too well. Something in the way I'd been sitting during the day (mostly on a bed, or sideways on a sofa, with my leg up) had strained my right hip. Despite (presumably) not being serious, my hip was incredibly painful and was preventing me from sitting or lying comfortably.

I whimpered and shuffled and stretched, and was generally a bit miserable. I took painkillers for the first time, as even resting I was in pain. OK. Maybe this sitting still and working all day is not the wisest course. I noticed that an appealing sepia-yellow bruising was spreading around the outside of my right knee (outside? the one area where apparently nothing much is damaged? bodies are weird).

On the plus side, my right knee was looking like a knee again! Not my knee, admittedly, as I have quite bony, nobbly knees, but it looked like a knee and not like the offspring of a sausage and a balloon.

The hospital (no concierge, but still a posh coffee machine) had a dinky little MRI machine just big enough to stick a single limb into. The machine was a far cry from the coffin-like tubes beloved of House - it was also an unexpected cheery shade of turquoise. I had to remove my legbrace (metal) and put down my crutches (metal) before going into the room, which was a bit of an issue, but the radiographer's assistant wheeled the (very non-metal) MRI chair over to the door and then joggled me across to the machine.

While doing a few test scans, the assistant realised my foot need to be chocked up with pads, so grabbed hold of my foot and lifted. I screamed. (Not at him, although I really would have thought he'd know better!) Anyway, MRI machines remain noisy (as instructed, I put on the ear defenders, then completely missed the various messages piped through a speaker from the radiographer). Sitting still was an effort, as various muscles seemed to want to twitch and flinch. My leg ended up strangely warm; I'm not sure if that was just the foam holding it in place or a sinister side-effect of magnets.

Afterwards, I was offered a CD with the images on. Except I'd have to pick it up from the reception at the other end of the car park. No matter! With my now-flexible brace and a tiny amount of weight on my right leg, I fair old raced across the car park. Snails gasped as I passed. ChrisC had to take more than one step every fifteen seconds or so just to keep up with me. You should have seen me go!

Sitting may be difficult, but we've got this walking thing cracked.

The evening had been scheduled as a meeting of my Writers' Triangle (like a Circle, but there's only three of us). My co-vertices had very kindly agreed to bring themselves to me instead of our usual meeting place, and we had a pleasant evening. I ate my dinner sitting at the table like a grown-up, and even had a glass of wine. Normality is in sight :)

Heroes of the day: lathany and chrestomancy, for coming over to visit, and ChrisC.

Comments

[bopeepsheep.livejournal.com]

Warmth in an MRI is common. Not sure how readily explainable it is - my best guesses would be wild ones - but I often experience it. (Mind you, I also often fall asleep in them now, despite the noise.)

The problem with the hip is not uncommon either. Musculo-skeletal system complains like billy-o when you make it do things it isn't used to, and positioning part A in a non-painful way often leads to pain in part B. (For me lately it's been right hip complaining about right shoulder, weirdly.) Take the drugs. Soldiering on in pain when you have painkillers available rather misses the point of the prescription, and in some cases will actually slow recovery. Hopefully you'll never need to go on patient programmes, but they're all very firm about this. Take the drugs. :)

[venta.livejournal.com]

Mostly I'm not in pain - not from the knees, anyway! And I have been taking (over the counter) Ibuprofen when things hurt. Trouble is, I have to balance taking painkillers with the inevitable stomach woe from NSAIDs. Given my history with them, the doctor agreed that taking the painkillers the Austrian doctor prescribed was probably quite a bad idea.

Interesting to know that MRI warmth isn't just my imagination, though :)

[lathany.livejournal.com]

:-)

[deborahw37.livejournal.com]

The hip doesn't surprise me, I totally trashed my right leg a few years ago ( it's now held together with lots and lots of rods and screws and an all singing all dancing hinge thing in my ankle), the bionic leg works well but it's thrown my gait out so, after a long day or any walk over about 5 miles my left hip is screaming in agony.

Take things steady, ligaments take time to heal.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Ouch!

Thank you for saying that, though. When bits of me hurt my attitude is always that I want to work out why, and solve it, and I should probably bear in mind that sometimes that just isn't going to happen! And the taking things slowly is sound advice, see today's post for why I should have taken it! (My posts are a few days behind "real time".)

[emarkienna.livejournal.com]

I remember that about the MRI room (I did have the big complete body one) - asked if I could walk into the room without metal crutches, and when I'm like um no, they act like it's an issue no one has ever had before.

I got pain in my stomach and back after a while, I'm not sure if the was due to over-exertion going up the stairs, or too little activity from being in bed most the day - people did tell me it could well be the latter.

[venta.livejournal.com]

The radigorapher I saw was all ready with the wheely-chair solution, but she did give the impression of someone spontaneously coming up with an idea. It does seem odd!

I should probably stop trying to figure out exactly what's causing different bits of me to hurt. Bodies are fundamentally inter-connected in a way that I'm unlikely to solve in a couple of days :)

[zotz]

Well, there'll be time enough, I suppose. (Nearly 19 hours? What are they teaching kids in schools these days?)

[venta.livejournal.com]

One kudo to you.

Though I'm afraid you have lost me with the 19 hours comment, which I feel is a failure on my part :)

[zotz]

19 hours without anyone commenting on the song. World, do better.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Oh, right. I choose to believe that everyone recognised it, but that not everyone is willing to play my silly games :)

[zotz]

You keep telling yourself that.

[ylla.livejournal.com]

If rapperaddict is bessiebell in disguise, then she really shouldn't be killing anyone, but I also can't imagine her managing it except by accident. It's a real shame about DERT for you, though.

[venta.livejournal.com]

I am really disappointed about DERT. More of a shame for the team, though, as it's the second time in three years we've had to pull out at the last knockings :(

Incidentally, I've been confused for a while... are you someone that I also know as a real human? Feel free not to answer if you don't want to be matched up to your non-online self, I'm just curious.

Also, it turns out that you are not someone who never posts, just someone who doesn't seem to be on my friends list. I shall remedy that.

[ylla.livejournal.com]

I don't *think* so, although if you've ever been to IVFDF we've probably been in the same room. I can't remember whether I just fell over your journal a while ago or whether I was looking for folk dancers to read, but I put you on my friends list for ease of keeping track of, and occasionally get too interested to remember it might not be good manners to comment on someone you don't know :)

I knew Lys when she danced in Edinburgh, and was more or less accidentally a founder member of Mons Meg, although I only lasted a few weeks because I'm really not a display dancer at heart (or because I already had something on every other night!)

Oh no, that is a shame for the team :( I hope they enjoy themselves anyway, if they go.

[dr-bob.livejournal.com]

Regarding weird placed bruising, the bruise manifests wherever the blood in the tissues ends up. Which is mainly a consequence of gravity.

I know from doctors of our acquaintance (being deliberately vague about identity) that you can tell people who have rested a sprained ankle by where the bruising appears - bruising on the sole/instep means the foot has been vertical (naughty patient not resting!!) while bruising on the heel/around the achilles is a sign that the good patient has kept their foot elevated.

So presumably you have spent a fair bit of time lying on your side with the good side of the knee down?? Hence bruising appears there.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Ah, OK, that's interesting.

Although I haven't been lying like that at all - I've mostly been sitting on my bum with the back of my knee facing down. Kind of the way you might expect someone to sit, in fact! Possibly the back of my knee is also bruised. Due to lack of bending in various parts, it's a little logistically difficult to check :-)