Posts from — October 2009

Since the knee’s still in repair mode and the thought of doing some physical therapy is laughable right now, my mind is focused on food. Go figure. For the past five days, I’ve eaten a mix of takeout (Panera and more Panera) and thrown-together meals because my husband’s too tired from catering to my every whim to cook for real. But tonight, gradual healing has made it easier for me to sit on the counter—I know, I know, eww—and help with the cooking.

Back when my knee was a non-issue, nutrition was only partially a conscious thought. I’ve always been pretty good at eating a healthy dinner (never been a fan of fast food or greasy, fried meals), but dessert is a weakness that only seems to make me stronger. A couple years ago, when I was working long hours at a regional magazine, dinner was mainly sandwiches—cereal if it was a particularly rough day.

All of this taught me a hard lesson I don’t hope to repeat: Take your health for granted now, and pay later. Sounds like a good idea when you’re 21 years old and durable; sounds stupid in hindsight. The rules are a little different nowadays. I eat a healthy diet not to lose weight—though I don’t hope to gain any more weight; my knees are already calling it quits for goodness’ sake—but to keep this body working and functioning in as many ways as I possibly can.

The way I see it, this equation could be really bad: Immobility + Fatty Foods = Heart Attack. And that’s my longwinded way of telling you I consider maintaining good nutrition as integral a part of my recovery as physical therapy.

Confession: Preparing healthy meals is also my feeble attempt at getting my Big Mac-loving, fries-and-beer kind of husband to accept a good-for-you diet. Heart disease runs in his family, but burgers are in his blood. Or so he says.

So, in that spirit, here’s a very unprofessional recipe for a super simple meal I’m eating now. It’s a modified version of a recipe I cribbed from the TV show 5 Ingredient Fix. You should know, I hate onions and garlic and wish there was no such thing as mayonnaise. Feel free to add those ingredients to your version. I’ve left them out because, well, it’s my recipe…

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It’s been 129 hours since I got PRP injections in my left knee. So I’ve been counting a little, only because of the shooting pain running from my lower thigh into my shin. No biggie.

OK, I’m being overly dramatic. It’s really not that big of a deal if this treatment will heal my knee pain. In fact, I’d see this week of pain and raise it another two if it meant my knee was guaranteed to improve.

Truth is, this time around is going better than last. (Yep, still hurts when I put weight on it, still has a hard time bending on its own, and still looks a little puffy–see exhibit A, above) My knee is healing from the injections faster, and it’s not nearly as black and blue as it was last time. The swelling is going down faster, another good sign. For this second set of injections, my doc didn’t inject directly into my quadriceps tendon—the one that connects the knee to my thigh—since I had been feeling pain there from the last treatment. The result: There’s major improvement there. Sigh of relief.

Just like last time, I took it really easy the first three days. I skipped work on Friday, got injections at 8 a.m., then spend the following three days with my butt firmly planted on the bed. I learned a lot about home improvement (thank you HGTV), gagged just a little at something illegal Paula Deen was making, and attempted to concentrate on a book. That didn’t work.

If it weren’t for the stabbing pain, this weekend would have been one of those relaxing vacation sort of weekends. My husband—who served as doctor, chef, maid, water boy, crutch-getter, door opener, and pillow-fluffer—hunkered down with me. We watched Season One of Fringe, which means I’m addicted to yet another TV show. It seems to be a trend that happens during PRP recovery. Last time: Bones.

Since each morning my knee improves, I’m hoping I’ll be back to my pre-PRP self in time to have a semi-productive weekend. In case I’m couch bound for another Saturday-Sunday…

What’s your trick for staying sane during recovery?

I can understand why you’d think platelet-rich plasma injections are a form of torture. Yesterday, as I was lying on the doctor’s table, getting stabbed over and over again with a two-inch needle, I started thinking the same. But I wasn’t held against my will; I paid $215 for the treatment. My hope is that the therapy, called PRP for short, will heal my knee. (Never heard of PRP? Read all about it here.)

Oct. 9, 2009
I arrived at the doctor’s office at 7:15 in the morning, groggy from a night of tossing and turning. (Thanks, 300-pound man upstairs who strapped on cement shoes and rearranged furniture between midnight and 2 a.m.)

Step 1: donate blood for the injections. I followed a nurse to a back room where she tied a rubber band around my biceps and pierced a needle into my vein. She drained blood from my arm using a jumbo syringe—it was at least 4 inches tall and had the circumference of a quarter. Once the bloodletting stopped, I returned to the waiting room while the nurse spun my blood in a centrifuge.

Step 2: beg for mercy. After a little chitchat—I told the doc that the tendon that connects my knee cap to my quad had been a little sore and swollen from my last round of PRP—I plunked down on the table, rolled up my pant leg, and braced myself. She swabbed the knee with alcohol, covered it with iodine, then picked up a small syringe full of my blood platelets—those parts of blood spun free in the centrifuge—and primed it for injection. I squeezed my thighs with hands like tightened claws.

The first injection is always the hardest. Don’t ask why. When the doctor first touched the needle to my knee, my nails dug into my thighs, my heart started racing, and my breath became erratic. Breathe! I told myself as the needle wiggled around under my skin, spraying platelets into my tendons. Concentrate! Breathe! I reminded myself when the needle jutted into my knee joint and below the kneecap.

Blood is thicker than water, I thought. The old proverb’s double meaning really made sense. I wondered if the man who first said the phrase had ever been injected with his own plasma.

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Physical therapists are a lot like new mothers: They get excited over the teensiest feats. I got a congratulations when I learn to walk without a limp, lifted five pounds while doing an incline squat, or biked for 10 minutes without pain. Dr. Hotshot’s physical therapist did more for my knee than any doctor had before her. She showed me how to work the muscles that support the knee and used a cold laser to tame my knees’ inflammation and the painful Baker’s cysts that popped up just for fun. And she introduced me to the e-stim machine.

The electric stimulation machine looks like a contraption Jack Bauer would use on some suspected terrorist in order to save the world from total obliteration. Tell me where the bomb is! he would shout, sticking the four adhesive squares to the bad guy’s skin. I said, tell me! He would power up the device, and crank it to some crazy level like 15. People’s lives are on the line! he’d yell before the machine let out a series of zap-buzz-zaps. Once I got a unit of my own, I started zapping myself every night, sometimes for hours.

Things were going all perfect with physical therapy, and I really thought I was making headway, but I was wrong. According to my insurance company, my knee wasn’t healing fast enough. They wouldn’t pay for any more of my allotted physical therapy. (Shame on you, United HealthCare.)

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This is the part where I get hurt (again), cry, hired a physical therapist, fight for my health, cry, and shop for a decent doc.

When I moved into my Washington, D.C.-area apartment in January 2009, there was a nagging pain in my left knee that I fought through in order to put away all of our dishes, shop for a couch, and color coordinate my closet. It was my commute—from Maryland to Virginia on the overly crowded metro—that forced my knee to give up on me.

The D.C. metro is a little slice of hell on earth with too few seats and too many riders for too many stops. There’s a lot of walking involved when you switch trains, and then there’s standing and waiting for the next train to come. There’s also—more often than my knee liked—a lot of standing during the trip. The people on the metro are little hellions who pretend not to notice when you limp on the train with a knee brace, search for a seat while fighting back tears, and settle for a spot on the ground. (I’m talking about you, able-bodied business man who made eye contact with me during one such trip before stuffing your face in a newspaper.)

Dr. Busy
I signed up for physical therapy in March even though I wouldn’t have insurance with my new job until mid-April. Each physical therapy session was $120 a pop, but I felt OK with that since I was strengthening my leg and (allegedly) healing my knee.

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Today was a big day. I walked down three flights of stairs for the quickie fire drill my company ran this morning, and I’m feeling fine. My four-year-old child can walk down three flights of stairs, you say. What makes your descent so special? Well, for the past few years my knees have been in a sort of violent rebellion. Here are the gritty details:

in the beginning…
Seven years ago, I was a starved-for-cash college kid on summer break. I nabbed a job at a local restaurant where I was forced to wear a white, button-down collared shirt and a tie every day. I felt like a quasi man, but that was OK because I was making plenty of cash working throughout the summer.

Back in those days, the restaurant was less classy than it is today. We didn’t carry plates in our hands—we brought an entire meal to the table on a wide brown tray. Sometimes, like when I’d serve a foursome of starving soccer moms, the tray was fairly light. But other times, I’d load my tray with two plates of roasted chicken and mashed potatoes, a pound of pasta drenched in cream sauce, a half-pound burger, and a side of fries. I’d heave the tray above my shoulder and dart through the sprawling restaurant like a flying saucer with feet.

Bad idea.

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