Meniscus Repair - Day 18

It is a dark and stormy night. Lightning fires rapid sequences of indistinct flashes that mix with the nearly continuous crackle and boom of thunder and the rattle of rain.  In our room, the wind blows the curtains into the furniture, threatening to sweep to the floor our piles of miscellany. Water lands on oak furniture, pooling, swelling grain, warping wood. I love thunderstorms. It's finally raining.

It's been 18 days since my meniscus fix. I've ridden my bike to work every day this week, and shared 35 miles on the big blue tandem with Abbey last weekend (I'll tell that story later). The interior pain, associated with the meniscus damage has subsided signficantly. I can still get that sharp pain if I load my knee sideways, usually when I'm sitting my swivelly office chair, or sometimes when I'm standing and pivot in just the right way, but it's definitely improved over the pre-surgery condition.

There's still some pain under my knee cap, near the top, if I load my quads when my knee is bent around 90 degrees. I feel it if I pedal too hard with my left leg at the top of my pedal stroke. That pain seems to be the result of the significant tissue disturbance caused by somebody sticking a camera through a hole in my knee and running a grinder around inside. There's some swelling that forms on the outside along the side of my patella, usually during exercise. A bit of ice reduces the swelling, but the skin in the swollen area is numb on the surface, yet stings or burns a little most of the time.

Overall, I'm feeling confident that the surgery was successful and I'll soon be back to doing what I like to do. So far, so good.

And since I finally found the USB cable that fits my camera, I can post a photo. This was taken on the fifth day after the surgery when the stitches were still in place. My knee is a beautiful thing.