It's been a year,
rat terrier dear
But you've finally made my blog
You belonged in a purse
not alone in in the road
like a suicidal bermuda toad
So to you I dedicated this verse
You ran into the road
You didn't have a clue
What you were about to do
As I was scootering back to my abode
I saw you too late
You didn't see me at all,
You were just so darn small
Road kill was going to be your fate
I laid on the brake
and willed you to run,
Or else you'd be done
5 inches ahead was all it would take
The back tire started to come around
It was hit you or go down
On my last day in this town
Why wouldn't you give one short bound?
I couldn't run you over
So I crashed in the street
You dumb little rover
Why did we have to meet?
OK, so I am not a poet. The dog made it safely across the road. I ended up under the bike with my knee taking the bulk of the various forces involved. Impact, friction, and the stretch of my upper body moving at one velocity while my lower leg was held stationary under a couple hundred pounds of bike. After 5 years in Bermuda, with one foot out the door, I had my dreaded bike crash. All for a little rat terrier. I got to meet police, fire, and ambulance that day, and got to be a secret shopper at my old employer, Bermuda Hospitals Board.
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| The Bermuda Scooter |
The good news is that once I got healthcare in the US, the wait time was almost non-existent. I went to the employee health nurse practitioner at work, she ordered an MRI. Dreading surgery, I procrastinated about two weeks before calling, but when I did I had an appointment the next day. I left the MRI clinic with a CD of the scan and a copy of the radiology report that day. Within 2 days the health clinic called back and said I just needed to pick a surgeon and she would send the referral over. That is new to me, in Canada and even Bermuda, the patient is referred at the referring doctor's choice. You can make requests I guess, but it's not an open ended consumer decision like in the US.
So I spent some time doing research. I tried the online ratings, there really isn't a lot of data that I would like to make a choice on in there. Being new to town, I asked everyone I knew if they knew who the best surgeon is. Almost everybody had an experience, and each one of them had been to and recommended a different surgeon. So it's good that everyone was pleased with their care and willing to recommend their surgeon -- means everyone is pretty good, but I was honestly surprised to not get the same name twice. In the end, I researched everything online, decided that I wanted to try to preserve as much of the meniscuses as possible and find someone who would do a repair if possible. That decision led me to a recommendation to Dr. Powell and everybody I asked had only good things to say about him. So I finally booked an ortho consult, which was within 2 days of my decision, and after meeting Dr. Powell I was immediately comfortable with my decision. He was personable, easy to interact with, took ample time for questions, and I think he was amused at my unique patient history -- he later introduced me to one of his assistants with a smile as "the Bermuda Scooter patient."
Surgery was within a couple of weeks...as if that wasn't amazing enough, it could have been done the same week had I been mentally ready for it. The only draw back to the surgery dates, was that it was going to conflict with a visit from a Bermuda Blog co-star...Shibby, now from Ireland! Her tickets had been booked, but I couldn't delay either as new analyzers were arriving the following week at work and work was about to get even crazier...another unbelievable fact.
My diagnosis was lateral meniscus flap tear, and medial bucket handle meniscus repair, with a little fluid accumulation thrown in as a bonus. I found a lot of pictures online, a video of meniscus repair which I probably shouldn't have watched as the snipping tool looks a little more like a rip and tear clamp than a high speed buzz saw, but I had a hard time really visualizing what was wrong inside my knee and what the fix was going to look like. Here in the US, they send you home with photos of the whole thing when you wake up.
So if you need meniscectomy, here is what it looks like. The first image is just a little tear...it would not warrant surgery on it's own. The second image is the after when they snip it down. Images 3 and 4 are not repairable, they are wear and tear from too much high impact...bodes for an achy old age.
This next one is what a flap tear looks like. Unfortunately it could not be repaired. Most of the meniscus gets very little blood flow. This is such a case. The flap tear before and after are top and bottom.
This next little gem is the bucket handle tear. This is likely the little guy that caused the most problem. This tends to cause locking of the knee as it can flip back and get stuck, like this.
And yet another bonus! To the surprise of all awake in the room, they found a foreign body floating around in the knee...this is what cartilage that actually blows off your knee looks like after floating around and getting calcified for a year looks like. Another likely reason sometimes my knee would stick, and sometimes it would not.
So that is what my meniscectomy looked like, hopefully none of you will need one soon. All for the well being of one clueless tiny little rat terrier in Bermuda. Thanks to all the great medical team who came to Alaska Regional to try to get me back to normal speed, and thanks to Shibby for being nurse, plus colleagues who volunteered to drive me to and from the hospital, and lend their OR skilled hubbies to my case. I couldn't be more pleased with my experience at Alaska Regional...proud to call it my new work home!
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