about my knee injures and the story behind it, what I learn from it
Everyone has had that feeling in their stomach or that thought in their head that just won’t go away, when you feel like something is right or wrong and you don’t quite know why, but you just cant help but feel it. This feeling, this gut instinct, this voice in your head is too often pushed to the back of your mind or forgotten about because someone or something has made you think that it is just in fact a scenario played out in the mind. The truth is, that gut instinct isn’t just there to play games with your head but is often on to something and we just don’t listen to it because of self doubt and uncertainty. So as some of you might have noticed for like the past 2 years I have been wearing that classic knee bandage that looked like it hadn’t been washed in l 100 years. Well as you can see I no longer wear it but I didn’t just wear it for the fun of it or for the fashion statement but because I was told it would help my recovery and after wearing it for so long I got a certain attachment to it where I physically couldn’t not wear it, it was as if it was my life support, I depended on it, it was a part of my outfit for the day. as I rolled out of bed…. put it on.It all started when I was 11 where I began getting extreme pains in my left knee. After this constant pain I took several trips to the doctors where everytime time they diagnosed me with osgood schlatters disease which is growing pains in the knees. The fact that i had been diagnosed made me relieved, I could put all my trust in the doctors as it is their job to figure out what is wrong with people, isn’t it ?? But as I sat in the waiting room(first person.. sitting in the waiting room i…detail, waiting to be wheeled off for my first big operation I couldn’t help but think back to the moment when I got the results back from my first MRI. I remember sitting on the bed in our hotel in Cambodia where dad read out the email from my orthopaedic surgeon. I didn’t really take in any of the email apart from the one line that constantly repeated in my head. “Emma has significant damage to the inside of her knee”. Even then the colossal importance of that sentence didn’t really hit me until after my operation. (first person)felt thought sensations…Waking up from surgery is different for everyone, but for me it was a state of confusion. I was cold, tired and dazed but as I attempted to roll over reality came crashing back down on me as pain shot up my leg in all directions and a full length leg brace restricted all movements. 6 weeks later I was still on crutches and a year after that my knee still resembled that of a bowling ball. I was told meniscus surgeries were easy, that I had nothing to worry about, so why was I still considered crippled a year after surgery and still not playing sports ?? I guess these were all questions for the doctors and surgeons but when I found myself back at southern cross hospital, 364 days after round one, my list of questions became never ending. first person what am I asking… Annoyed, fed up and sick of it (describe) were all words I would use to describe how I was feeling but as I came out of my second operation I was thankful and reassured as, as far as I knew my operation couldn’t have gone better. I tried lying to myself that my knee felt normal but in reality something wasn’t right, but in the end I pushed those thoughts to the back of my mind and thought about how my surgery went well, but maybe i should have listened to that feeling and those reoccurring thoughts inside my head ? And after my phone call with the nurse, any trust I had put into the doctors and surgeons went straight out the window. it turned out I no longer had a meniscus in my knee and the only consoling words the nurse tried to give me were “maybe in your generation someone will figure out how to make meniscuses” hearing this was the last thing I ever wanted to hear and in that moment all of the emotions I had experienced in the last year and a half crashing back down on me.
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