Sidelined from the saddle
The handsome doctor took my knee in his hand, pushed the kneecap around a bit, then rolled his chair over to the exam table; on the paper cover he drew a diagram of a knee.
“In between the bones is a bit of cartilage,” he said as he sketched. “It’s called the meniscus, and I think you have a tear in it.”
And so began my next journey into an ache and a pain. All my life I’ve heard about meniscus tears, and now, I might have one.
Or at least that’s the doctor’s theory. He hadn’t yet seen the X-ray, but he’s seen enough of this injury that he’s confident that’s what has been making my knee hurt enough that it’s kept me off my bike for over a week.
“I had one of these myself,” he said. “You’ll get back on your bike soon.”
Turns out he’s a cyclist, too, and we share that common ground. When you’re in an exam room with a busy doctor you’re seeing for the first time, it helps a lot to be simpatico about something like that. He’d even seen the documentaries I’ve produced about the bike trail.
“It was you who produced that?”
“Yep, me and lots of others,” I said.
As I explained to him, I was on my bike, mashing up a hill in the big gears, when I felt a pop. I was able to finish the ride without pain, but geez, the next morning. Like I’d been kneecapped with a crowbar.
This knee thing is cramping my style, literally and otherwise. Since moving here in June, I’ve been on the neighborhood bike trail almost every day. The trailhead is just a mile from my house, and these days when I pass it, I get a pang of sadness that I can’t be out there.
It should surprise nobody that I damaged my knee. As a wise friend pointed out, I’ve been storming through life like a Maurice Sendak wild thing on a rumpus. Some joint or other was bound to rebel.
In this case, the rebel is my right knee. I’ll have an MRI next week and then the doctor will know more about the next step. He said these injuries tend to settle down on their own, and physical therapy helps. The last few days I’ve been watching YouTube videos about how to rehab a torn meniscus. It’s a lot of stretching exercises, and I’ve been doing them three times a day. Apparently, it’s good news that I can straighten my leg all the way out, and I can bend it all the way in. Some people with a tear can’t do that.
“If this doesn’t get better, we can go in there and clean that out,” the doctor said. He was talking about arthroscopic surgery to trim the torn cartilage. I have friends who’ve had it done, and they say it’s no big deal. But I plan to avoid that if I can.
It made me sad that I wasn’t able to be out on my bike these past beautiful and warm autumn days. I sit in my office and look out at the deep red and orange trees and eat my heart out that I’m not pedaling through all that color.
Then I remind myself that it was the pedaling that has me parked at home right now. Soon enough, the weather will change for good and I’ll park my bike for the winter. I’ll rest the knee, do what I must to get it healthy again, so that I’m ready to ride when spring comes around and the trees are green again.
Beth Dolinar can be reached at cootiej@aol.com/.