Bum Knee

When I quit my job I told everyone that I wasn't going to even work on my resume until I had ten days of skiing in (at the time I only had four or five days in). I got up three times in the first five days after I left. Unfortunately on the third day I had an annoying little accident that seems to have brought my season to an abrupt end.

I was standing to the right of my brother waiting to get scanned at the mid-mountain Independence SuperChair at Breckenridge. He started to get entangled with the skier to his right. At the same time I started to get entangled with my brother. Slowly - ever so painfully slowly - I began to fall to my left into my brother while he was concentrating on staying free of the guy to his other side. My boots wouldn't release and I stayed erect while slowly falling and increasing the torque on my right knee. Eventually, I fell. I think what happened was the snow finally gave way beneath my skis and allowed my feet to slide out from under me. I was blinded by the pain for a couple of seconds but got up to ski another two or three runs before we called it a day.

By the time I got home, I could barely walk. I could bend my knee as long as I kept the movement perfectly in line with my body. Any lateral movement was excrutiating. My knee didn't improve over the next week so I finally made an appointment with an orthopedist. While I was certain that I had torn something important, the doctor diagnosed it merely as a bad sprain.

That's good news, but I A) feel a little bit like a wussy for going to a doctor just for a sprain and B) am not completely convinced it was the proper diagnosis. I'm no anatomist, but I have some ongoing strange pains that don't seem to be accounted for by a sprain. I'll give it another two weeks or so before I seek a second opinion or an MRI. The doc said it would be another two to three weeks for it to heal, so I can at least wait him out on that. We'll see. For now, it still hurts almost all the time, gets stiff easily, feels funny near my second toe when I walk, and hurts excrutiatingly badly if I move at the wrong angle. Hopefully, one morning I will wake up, and it will suddenly be better.

Jonathan 4/10/2004 03:17:00 PM