Knee Surgery

I know what you’re thinking. How could knee surgery not be fun! You get to use cool crutches and the pity alone should make it worthwhile, right? Well, not so much.

Yesterday, they cut my right knee open again in an attempt at removing the screw that’s already in there holding a small piece of bone in place. You see, some time ago (7-8 years), I was playing basketball and felt a small pop in my knee and a small piece of bone broke free and slid down into the joint. This essentially locked my leg straight for about six weeks as I awaited surgery. They were going to just take the piece of bone out, but while I was under, the surgeon decided to put it back in place with a screw to decrease my likelihood of getting arthritis later in life.

Well… that didn’t exactly work out as planned. It didn’t heal properly and I still couldn’t straighten my leg 100% without discomfort (bone rubbing on bone = not nice).

This is what necessitated yesterday’s surgery. My new orthopod was going to remove the screw and the piece of bone, what they should have done the first time…

Guess what? It didn’t go exactly as planned either. The screw head stripped and they were unable to remove it. Since it was recessed enough that it shouldn’t come into contact with anything, they simply removed the bone chip that had broken free originally and left the foreign body where it was. They can get it out, but they can’t do that arthroscopically; they’d have to open me right up, which would dramatically increase my recovery time.

So, here we are, playing the waiting game to see whether or not this fixes my problems. Cross your fingers for me!