Meniscus

Mine is apparently torn. And I have this in my knee:

Crepitus: A clinical sign in medicine characterized by a peculiar crackling, crinkly, or grating feeling or sound under the skin, around the lungs, or in the joints.
Crepitus in soft tissues is often due to gas, most often air, that has penetrated and infiltrated an area where it should not normally be, as for example the soft tissues beneath the skin (a condition called subcutaneous emphysema). Crepitus in a joint can represent cartilage wear in the joint space.
The term "crepitus" is taken directly from the Latin "crepitus" meaning "a crackling sound or rattle."

I love the idea that I might have something in my knee where it should not normally be.

So the meniscus is this:

Medically speaking, the "cartilage" is actually known as the meniscus. The meniscus is a C-shaped piece of fibrocartilage which is located at the peripheral aspect of the joint. The majority of the meniscus has no blood supply. For that reason, when damaged, the meniscus is unable to undergo the normal healing process that occurs in most of the rest of the body. In addition, with age, the meniscus begins to deteriorate, often developing degenerative tears. Typically, when the meniscus is damaged, the torn piece begins to move in an abnormal fashion inside the joint.


And I've had a painful knee for at least 3 weeks now. I finally went to the doctor to make sure it wasn't bone cancer. She said it's most likely torn meniscus so we've scheduled an MRI for a week from today to make sure. Meanwhile I take massive amounts of ibuprofen, which aggravates my GERD but helps a lot with the pain. My body is just wearing out. I had to tell the insurance company that this was the result of an injury (lie: it has just, apparently, worn out) and that it happened within the last 72 hours (lie: it started weeks ago, one morning when I got up it was just incredibly painful to straighten out my leg and has been that way every day since). That way they'll pay for the MRI without my having to go through 2 weeks of painful physical therapy beforehand. I love the idea that you have physical therapy for an injury before determining what the injury is, but that's how insurance companies function these days.

So now I limp less but my esophagus is unhappy. I'm nervous because, if this worsens my knee might lock and I wouldn't be able to bend my leg. It's popping every once in a while now. I'm not supposed to squat, which is ok because that really hurts, but there are times in a library when you really need to squat to do your job. Oh suffer, suffer, suffer.

What's the solution to all of this? As far as I can tell, that kind of surgery where they make a tiny hole and stick instruments into your knee and cut away the torn cartilage. Hopefully it's not a bad tear so there will still be plenty of cartilage left. Otherwise it will be bone rubbing against bone. It will be good to have that done, if it will fix this, is what I figure.

Other than that, there was a blizzard at my house and on the way to work this morning, which ended as I got close to Plattsburgh. Which means what, that Plattsburgh is where life is clearer? Or that Plattsburgh is a duller place to be. We had about 4-5" of snow when I left home and I think we were due a few more inches, with a few more inches due tomorrow. Sure hope it snowed where my plow man lives or else he won't know enough to plow.

Went grocery shopping last night and spent a fortune. $10 on Tylenol (for when I can no longer tolerate the 600 mg tabs of ibuprofen the doctor prescribed), $10 on stomach medicine, $10 on a knee brace. The rest was on food. But I filed my federal taxes this week! Hooray for me! I need to file my 2004 state taxes; I owe $250 plus late fees. I'll be getting back $200 from the state this year, plus $1000 from the feds. Love juggling money around, just love it. It's all just virtual money anyway--direct deposit, debit card, online bill paying--the most cash I ever have in my hand at one time is a twenty dollar bill.

Tonight I work until 5, stop at the grocery store for the things I forgot last night (peanut butter and diet Mountain Dew--great sale on that), stop at the liquor store for Wild Turkey (supply at Ken's is running low), and go to Ken's. Weds. night when I went there for dinner the dogs took off up the hill next to his house (he has 100 acres) and wouldn't return. It was just getting dark so I could barely see, but I slogged through the snow to their dark forms and discovered them gnawing on a deer carcass, bare ribs (deer's, not theirs) protruding into the air. Yuck. I had a really hard time dragging them away--Tess played "Waves can't catch me and neither can you," and Chances just played the blind girl who couldn't see that someone was trying to get her. I finally convinced them to go inside, and boy was Ken surprised to learn there was a dead deer less than 100 feet from his house. "So that's why all the dogs in the neighborhood have been coming around." Guess so!

Time to pay the electric company $500, clean up the Lost Items Policy and write a Weeding Policy for the member libraries (who don't know they need it yet).