Facing Reality.

I have been putting this post of for a couple of weeks. I'm having knee surgery on Monday and I'm dreading every passing day.

But, here I am facing reality.

About a month ago, I went to an orthopedic surgeon, who diagnosed me with a substantial meniscus tear in my left knee, which he recommended surgery.

I had NO idea where or what a meniscus was. I know I had heard the term before but I had never really paid much attention to what it was.

The meniscus is the horizontal tissue (shown in blue) that helps cushion the femur and the tibia bone.
The Medial meniscus is where my tear is, and it is almost the whole length of Medial side. I have what is called a flip tear, which means the tear at times can flip up when jolted out of place. This is when the tear causes me much discomfort and pain.
My surgeon will go in arthroscopicly and clip off the torn meniscus, much like clipping a hang nail. I will have three small incisions, two on the front of my knee and one on the back of my knee.


After my surgeon went over all this information I was still in much shock over his findings, and having to make the decision of weather to have surgery or to put up with the knee pain. The meniscus had a poor blood supply so it doesn't heal on its own very well.

My biggest fear is that after surgery my knee will never be the same, but even if I don't have the surgery my knee will never be the same. So it is a loose, loose situation. Almost a month has past since I decided to go through with the surgery, and I am still not ready. I had my pre-op appointing three days ago and my surgeon tells me that I must take two weeks off from work to recover. At first I thought he was joking, me take two weeks off from work? I hardly get that much vacation time in a year and seeing that it is July halfway through the year I have already used up all my vacation days. I had planned on going back to work a day or two after my surgery, but I guess that is out of the question.

I think I have it worked out to take a week off from work, but I'm not sure what to do about the second week. I'm going to play it by ear and see how I feel after a week of being laid and see how crazy I have become. I'm sure I'll be ready to get out of the house.

What am I going to do for 1 weeks on the couch??