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I feel about 1,000 years old.  On Friday morning I waited to get some X-rays done.  Pretty soon they're going to know me by name since I'm there so often.  I've been having pain on the medial side of my knee again when I walk.  I was worried because that's what happened after my first surgery-when it had failed.  I just can't help but think about what will happen if this surgery (my cartilage transplant) fails as well.  I guess I shouldn't think like that but I won't know if it was successful until the 3-6 month mark.  It's been about two months since my surgery.  I keep thinking to myself I'm going to school no matter what in the fall (my surgeon has ruled out taking classes at Stanford for the summer).  He had been so hopeful that this would work too.  I glanced across at my mother who's worry line has etched even deeper into the space between her brows.

It's hard to keep my worry to myself but I don't want to worry my family more either.  I'm hoping it will be okay.  I'm getting an MRI in the next couple of weeks.  I feel a little bratty for saying this but I see my whole young adulthood shooting by as I try unsuccessfully to walk and then this problem follows me throughout life.  Taylor Swift's somewhat annoying but catchy song "22" seems out of reach as 20, 21, 22, and perhaps even 23 passes me by.

I was able to step down after not putting any weight on my right leg for 6 weeks.  That is harder than it looks.  I feel like I'm in a little secret society of people who have dealt with injuries or mobility issues.  We give each other a sort of silent nod as we pass one another by.

I'm not walking normally because it's been so long (almost 3 years for the onset and 2 years since my first surgery-microfracture, just as painful as it sounds).  Basically I'm hobbling or gimping around with one crutch.  I feel like Tiny Tim (or Tiny Tina as my mom joked).  You could hear yells of "Walk slower!" and "Heel-toe!" in the house at all hours of the day.  The neighbors are probably like, "Shut it."  Eh, not so much worse than what they usually hear, my dad blasting CNN and me singing "I Dreamed a Dream" or "On My Own" to Pilgrim depending on how I'm feeling.  Pilgrim looks at me as if to say, "Enough with all this theatrical nonsense!  Learn a new song woman!"  I reserve "I Dreamed a Dream" for when I am feeling really low and like life sucks (basically giving myself a pity-party, party of 1).  "On My Own" is saved for when I'm feeling especially alone.

So hopefully I'll learn that everything is okay, okay as it can be, with my knee.  It's funny I think people forget that a knee sounds inconsequential unless you remember that you need it to walk.  And you need to be able to walk to get around and do everything else in order to function in normal, everyday life.  And you need to get around by yourself in order to be independent.  I used to dread and hate that part the most the last year I was at school before I took a medical leave of absence.  The explaining to people and asking for help for everything.  I used to go to bed thinking about it and wake up worrying about it.  That dependence is hard to understand for people who have never been through it and the worst kind of helplessness.  There are two types of reactions, I've found, to personal stories of bad life experiences (be it illness or injury).  There are those who try to empathize and (much more than you would think) those who don't want to hear about it.  It's as if they believe you are just making it up for some kind of sick, twisted game of putting attention on yourself or that you are being overly dramatic.  (I had a roommate that last year who would roll her eyes every time someone asked me about it and I tried to explain what was going on.)  Those people are so foreign to me, it's as if they come from another planet.  I can't wrap my mind around it and am still put off by it (though not nearly as much anymore-I'm not sure if that is a good or bad thing).

I'm still on pain relievers (the strong prescription kind) and have a significant amount of pain.  There was a glimmer, I could see independence through the smallest crack in the sky.  I don't want that to disappear.  All I want is to be able to walk (without too much pain).  I remember what my ID tag/wrist band said this last time at the hospital and wondered how far away that day would be.  "Articular cartilage disorder of the knee/patella/tibia/fibula," it wrote.  

Just Crutching Along

I have been to the edge and down into the depths.  I have felt like sinking into the earth.  I've felt helpless.  I have been to some dark places over the past two years.  At first my family and I didn’t know what was wrong.  I was unable to walk without pain.  We went from calling it a debilitating injury to finally coming to terms with the fact that it will never be the same for me.  I will always have to think about it and I will be lucky if I can walk normally without pain.  It turned out I have a severe cartilage disorder, one that was hard to diagnose and seems to be even harder to fix.  My last option, a last resort sort of, is one that surgeons do not even want to do, a full knee replacement at 22 years old.  I have gone through three different surgeries, the biggest and last of which just took place three weeks ago.  The idea for the name of this blog came from when I was joking that I “gimp this road alone” and my sister put a more positive spin on it by saying that I am actually “crutching through life.”  I can also say that I “wheel away” through life, in a wheelchair, for long distances.  Besides the crutches and the wheelchair, I have a cane as well (not anything like the cool one Christian Bale uses in the last Batman or Chuck Bass uses in Gossip Girl).

I never knew that people could donate cartilage just like any other organ.  I was on a transplant list for 6 months.  Every day I waited (and I know it was even harder on my parents).  One day I was playing with my dog when I got the call.  My surgeon told me that they had a match and I would be having surgery in a week.  This was the biggest surgery I had ever gone through (open knee) complete with hospital stay.  I felt awful when I woke up.  I used a bedpan and had trouble going at all at first because they had given me a spinal tap to help numb some of the pain.  The morphine made me nauseous and I couldn’t keep anything down.  The nurses came in throughout the night to prick me and take my blood pressure while my mom sat in the chair beside me the whole time.  She refused to leave.

That first week at home I felt horrible.  I couldn’t bathe and the pain was so extreme it brought tears to my eyes.  I was out of it most of the time and nothing agreed with my stomach while I worked through the pain meds.  I had vivid dreams, almost nightmares, at night that I learned were normal my doctor said (as normal as can be I guess).  I wanted to give up and give in.  I longed to hide under the covers and never come out.  I remembered how hard it was after my first surgery and I didn’t want to go through that again.  I was in bed for three months after that surgery.  Even now I feel like I’m treading in the deep end, just trying to stay afloat.

My scar after cartilage transplant surgery (or battle wound as I like to call it)

Home after hospital stay and Jan. 25, 2013 surgery

5 inches

I learned that the person that had donated my cartilage was a young woman-22 years old like me.  The cartilage came from Denver, Colorado.  It had most likely been a car accident.  I can’t put any weight on my right leg for six weeks and will be in physical therapy from 3 to 6 months.  So I won’t know if the surgery helped at least even a little, if I will able to walk for a while (even though I know I will always have some pain).  This is my last chance or real option so I owe a lot to that young woman from Denver.  Maybe I shouldn’t think about it too much but it’s weird to think that somebody had to pass away in order for me to get a phone call.  It’s like I was waiting for someone to see the end in order for me to begin.  It’s also weird to think that I have a part (even a small part) of someone else inside of me.  I know it’s not like a heart or anything but still.

I’d seen 12 doctors until I finally found one that I like and respect for telling me the truth.  I’ve had one tell me “It’s just a knee.”  The thing is, you need a knee to walk.  That’s the problem.  I don’t think anyone should be able to tell you how you should feel or that it isn’t a big deal.  I shouldn’t have to prove that what I’ve been through has been hard and big for me.  Everyone goes through rough times so you would think that we could empathize with one another more.  Where a simple “I’m so sorry, I hope you get better soon” would suffice people often don’t seem to know what to say.  What they say instead is hurtful.  “There are even worse things in life” and other such comments just seem unnecessary.  I feel like only I can truly know what I’ve been through and how it’s helped shape who I am.  I like what Anderson Cooper once said about how having his father die when he was young changed who he was.  He said something along the lines of- I see how I could’ve been different, like a different path, but my path changed.  It’s like a rearview mirror image of what could’ve been but wasn’t.  It’s neither bad nor good, it just is.

Me trying to rock a brace 1 month after surgery

Just wheelin' it with my big sis and Pilgrim our puppy

I was also told by one surgeon that I should look more into academia and not field work if I wanted to go into Anthropology (I didn’t correct him that the emphasis would be more Archaeology then).  He needn't worry because my true love lies in Creative Writing.  I’ve lost friends and had people who I thought I knew well and cared never ask and belittle my experience.  I think I’ve just about seen and heard it all when it comes to telling people about it.  The good news is that time is not a myth, it really does help fade and ease the ache that was once so sharp.