because bunion surgery wasn't making me feel enough like an old lady

if you recall, i took a bit of a spill about 3 months ago while playing my weekly frisbee game. (anyone who's seen me in person during those three months is definitely familiar with the large chunk of skin still in the process of regrowing on my shoulder...)

about a month after that, my knee was still giving me a lot of trouble: it still hurt (a LOT) to kneel on it, and it felt like the ligament over the top of the knee was hurt, even though i wasn't actually sure if there WAS a ligament going over the top of the knee. but if i went down into a squat, for example, standing back up put a lot of strain on the meniscus-y area, and would remain sore afterwards. so, i went to my orthopedic guy to get it checked out. because while i recognize that falling flat on my face is supposed to hurt for a while, it seemed like a month was kind of a long time to still be in enough pain that i couldn't kneel down to pet my cats without wincing and needing to use a wall to pull myself back up.

the diagnosis, after a few x-rays to rule out a fractured kneecap (!! eep) was that i'd bruised the bone of my knee, and the continued swelling around the bone was aggravating the ligament on top of it. i was advised to pick up some tiger balm on my way home and to stop playing frisbee on tennis courts.

so, that doctor's visit was two months ago. my knee isn't quite as bad, but it's not.. um.. good. i can "feel it" every time i go running, and it still hurts to kneel on it, and basically it's still just far from right. but it's not getting WORSE, and i know there's no real structural damage, so i did the logical thing: i turned to google.

and guess what i learned? that bad bone bruises can take a long time to heal. like, EIGHT MONTHS! or THREE YEARS! or longer! ha ha! isn't that awesome? and it's not like "oh, after 8 months you can't find any more damage in an mri," no; it's "after 8 months you might not have to ice your knee after every time you use it and the acute pain may recede somewhat."

GAH.

i learned most of this helpful info from sites like extreme mountain biking message boards or snowboarding sites... as in, people who are super active and fall at high speeds onto rocks tend to have these problems. not people who just FALL DOWN. lordy.

so the good news is that i guess it's kind of "normal" to still hurt after all this time, and it's not a sign of having damaged my knee in a more sinister way. and it's completely fine to exercise and use my knee while it heals, because further activity - while painful to me - doesn't further injure the knee itself.

the bad news is that i am a clumsy moron. although this is possibly not "news."