You all probably know about the knee trouble I’ve been having, and many of you know I had it scoped last Wednesday. I’ve filled some of you in on my progress since the surgery, but many of you are in the dark. If you want to stay that way, don’t read on.

The surgery went well (I slept through it), but not as I had initially expected. I knew I had a torn meniscus and the doctor would use the scope to take out the “ragged edges”. He tells me that we talked after the surgery, but I don’t remember a bit of it. Jean was there and passed on what the doctor said, but the details weren’t all that important to her, and she didn’t understand the technical terms. So all I knew was that the knee was worse than he expected. They told me that, during the surgery, while wrenching the knee into and out of position, my MCL (medial collateral ligament) tore. It happens in about 20% of the cases (why can’t I be in the 80%group?).

After I went home, the doctor prescribed a “knee machine” that straightens and flexes the knee to 60 degrees, over and over and over and over and…you get the picture. I have to be on that machine six to eight hours a day. This past week I didn’t feel like dancing around so it hasn’t been that difficult. But now that I’m feeling better, I’m BORED! As time went on, my right quadricep kept getting more and more sore. It was very painful until mid-day Tuesday, and it seemed to turn the corner, so it feels a little better. I’ve attached a picture, and the picture may not do it justice. It’s swollen and black and blue, turning shades of yellow and green. Disgusting!

Bill Bradley just stopped by…now where was I?

So I went to the doctor’s office today and got the answers to lots of questions. Without going into too much detail, the answers were:…I’ve never seen so much bruising in the quadricep from a knee scope…that knee looks like it has more fluid than I like to see; let’s suck some of that out of there…it doesn’t hurt any more than a cortisone shot to the knee would without the anesthetic…I think you need to wear a compression thigh-high stocking; it’s not going to be a fashion statement…No one should run; it’s hard on the joints…You have a complete cartilage loss beneath the patella and femoral tendon (lay terms, not medical terms) …I’d like to see you in rehab (I hope for the knee and not drying out from too much homebrew) a couple days a week…I’d like you to keep using the knee machine for a couple more weeks; more than six hours a day if you can stand it.

I just got a lengthy phone call…what did I miss?

So that brings me to the subject of the e-mail. One (or more) of our Trilanders always ends her e-mails with “Anything is possible”. When you’re young, that’s true. But as you get older, doors of opportunity start closing. Some close in a legal way. I can’t enlist in the military at my age and no, I don’t want to. I can’t play in the play room at McDonalds and I don’t want to do that either. Some close by simple logic. I could enroll in medical school, but my chances, at age 63, of getting accepted are nearly zero. And, if by some computer error, I was accepted, my chances of getting through on social security income would also be next to zero.

So as time passes, the doors close, and we’re usually satisfied to let that happen. It’s “the way things are”, so get used to it. Sometimes, others tell us that a door is closing and we fight it happening. I’m, in a way, at that point on my running and biking. The doctor has told me that I can run, but it’s a 63 year old knee. And if it hurts, I should stop running or stop biking. That leaves me three options.

Acceptance – this choice has two branches. One is to accept that you can’t do something, and stop doing it. The constructive way is to decide what you can do, and replace the activity you can’t do any more. Don’t send me any suggestions. I don’t want to learn to knit. I don’t want to join your bowling league. If I choose this path, I’ll find something for myself. I just hope it’s not skydiving. The second branch is to, on the outside, say you’re going to keep doing whatever you want, but on the inside, you know you’re done. You may kick and scream for a while, but the inevitable will happen and you’ll revert to the first branch.

Denial – this choice is the favorite of the Trilanders. We’re all reasonably intelligent, but when the doctor says one thing, we hear something totally different. We justify it by saying, “Just because they call them doctors, they don’t know everything!”. Or, “The doctor told me I can’t (fill in the blank), but he’s talking about average people, and I’m not average”. Or, “He just doesn’t know me well enough. I can do it, I know I can.” So we fool ourselves into thinking that we are invincible, but we eventually end up at the doctor’s office again. We can go through denial again (some of us have been on that loop several times), or we can go directly to acceptance like we should have in the first place.

Defiance – this choice comes from our macho image that we think we have to uphold, or a testosterone overload that we can’t keep under control. Our reaction is, “You say I can’t (fill in the blank), just watch me!” Or, “You may be done (fill in the blank), but I’m not”. We usually don’t realize that, by choosing this option, we have to be willing to pay the consequences, and there will be consequences. We can repeat this option over and over, but it inevitably ends back up at acceptance (or total knee, total hip, etc).

I wonder which option I’ll choose. Logic tells me that I’ll end up at acceptance anyway, so why fight it? But, believe it or not, my life choices haven’t always been logical. Hmmm!?

Just (After The Doctor’s Office I Think I Need More Vicodin Please) Jack