Excellent A story of my knee problems and many surgeries On My Knees (Part One) by RebelRose

Category:  Biographical Non-Fiction   Posted:  December 12, 2009      Views: 73

ABOUT REBELROSE  RebelRose is a semi-retired medical transcriptionist, medical terminology instructor, laboratory technician, mother of three, grandmother of five. She has always loved to write and began writing poetry at an early age. She is Queen Mother of a Red Hat Chapter and a member of a second chapter. She rides with her husband (who is 8 years younger than her) on his Harley and loves to read and travel. She writes from her heart and doesn't give a flip about meter, syllables, or such. She believes that if you stop to count and measure, it is not natural. She just lets it flow from her heart to her fingertips. She writes not to win accolades or contests but merely to express and share what she feels. I love to write and read. I write strictly from the heart, not necessarily by "rules". She has won several contests. The contest submission Autumn Symphony was the first place winner in the contest Ode To Autumn. Beautiful Unicorn was the first place winner in the contest Tanka Poetry. She is a top ranked author and is currently holding the #17 position. She is an accomplished poet and is currently at the #42 spot on this years rankings. She is also an active reviewer and is holding the #15 spot on the top ranked reviewer list. Portfolio | Become A Fan When I was about eleven years of age, I was sort of a klutz, or so we thought at the time. I fell a lot and it seemed as though my knees would just give way. I used to bump my knees a lot while climbing trees or falling down and skinning them. I would scrape the skin off and they would become infected. I would have to go to the doctor and have pustules 'popped' and drained. So, it was that we assumed that the constant falling and bumping had knocked my knee caps out of whack. The problem got worse. We never knew when my knee cap would suddenly slide to the side of my knee and I would go down to the ground. I would sit there in a painful heap and refuse all assistance until I was able to get the knee cap to slide back in place. There was no point in having someone pull me to a standing position until that feat was accomplished. At the age of sixteen, I spent the summer between my junior and senior year having bilateral knee surgery and recovering from same. It required ten days in the hospital, two weeks in a wheelchair and 4 weeks on crutches with some physical therapy. My family doctor had sent me to see a married couple, both orthopedic specialists who owned their own clinic, or sanatorium as they called it. Neither had seen a problem such as mine but they were sure they could 'fix it'. It resulted in a very long scar in the left knee where they had taken about twenty-seven stitches and the right knee had three different incisions (scars) where they went into three separate sites to do their repairs. The surgery was called a 'hamstring resection' but there was actually more to it than that. I was young and didn't pay much attention to all the details at the time. Mama explained it the best she could but I don't think she really understood it all either. Through the next year, things didn't get much better. The 'fix' that I hoped for didn't happen. The following summer, after graduation, I was in the hospital again, having the right knee redone adding yet another scar to that knee. The recovery time with wheelchair and crutches was the same as before. I learned two things during this time. One is that you can't blink your eyes without it affecting your knees. It seemed that every muscle or nerve in your body is connected somehow to your knees. The other is that when you see a football player fall on the field and grab his knee and begin to cry, he is no sissy. It hurts like you wouldn't believe. A lot of people envy others for different things, like looks, and possessions. Me, I just envied anyone who could stand straight up from a squatting position or climb a flight of stairs without holding onto a handrail as if their very life depended on it. I had to put my hands flat on the floor, put my butt straight up in the air and straighten my legs out, making sure my knee caps were in the right position, and push myself up to a standing position. To this day, I have to do that. Very unlady-like way of getting up. If I sat down and relaxed my knee, the patella (knee cap) would just slide off to the side. If anyone happened to be looking at the time, their eyes would get wide and most people would comment on it and ask a lot of questions about it. It became quite the conversation piece. I did manage to do things like dance the shag, go on my senior trip, wear high heels, and the usual things that young ladies do. However, I was always worried that something would cause my knee to 'go out'. If anyone frightened me and caused me to jump unexpectedly or if I stubbed my toe or got off-balance the slightest bit, I'd be playing "Pop Goes The Knee Cap" again. After a fall, I would be careful for the next little while but then would forget and get careless and it would happen again. My mother and brothers were afraid for me to go anywhere alone for fear I would fall in front of a bus or car. I did fall in front of the school bus one day as I was hurrying to get aboard. I provided entertainment everywhere I went. I spent as much time on the ground as I did on my feet or so it seemed. My dream was to be a ballet dancer or a choreographer but that went out the window in a flash when it seemed as though my knees would never get to some semblance of normal. Things went on like that for years. With each pregnancy, I fell at least once but, thank God, those babies were in there to stay until they were ready to be born and were unharmed by the fall. The children learned that I had a hard time with my knees and they watched out for me. It didn't keep me from getting on the floor and playing with them; I just couldn't crawl very well. I lived a pretty normal life for all intents and purposes but I always had to be careful. As the kids got older, they begged me to see someone else about my knees and get them corrected. When my oldest daughter graduated from nursing school, she got to know the various doctors and found me the best knee surgeon in Macon, Ga. where she lived. She came to me one Mother's Day and told me that she and her sister and brother wanted me to give them a gift and get my knees fixed. I agreed, but little did I know what all it would entail or how many surgeries it would take and what the outcome would be. Share your own writing! - Information on our membership for writers. Author Notes As you have probably guessed, I was inspired by Dave to share my knee story. This is just part 1. It gets more interesting later on. Pays one point and 2 member cents.

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