So the last time I was on here I was posting holiday snaps. Fast forward to now and I apologise for not finishing them off (although there wasn't many to go). I can't really remember the full details of the holiday to write about now because I have a terrible memory, so instead here is a knee update.
So, I got the results from my knee scan. It was a pretty negative experience to be honest as things didn't end up turning out the way I thought they would but we'll see where it will go from here.
Above I have drawn out what the scan kind of looked like to explain the full extent of my knee problems. On the left you see a normal knee with a socket, a knee cap doing the things it should. Being a good knee.
On the right you see my knees. Both pretty rubbish and not being good knees. My left knee doesn't have a socket, it's completely flat plus my knee cap is small and sitting off at an angle. My right knee cap is worse as over the many years of it dislocating (for a long time only my right knee dislocated), it decided it would fix things itself by growing upwards to try to reach the knee cap and I don't know, hold onto it or something. I started imagining the socket yelling, 'godammit enough of this! Don't worry babe, I'm just going to come get you myself!!'. But unfortunately, instead of helping the situation by reaching out to the knee cap, it made it worse because I kind of need a socket there, not a bump, so of course the knee cap is more likely to hit off this now and come off more often.
So I was then told by this specialist that my case is severe and that a ligament operation to hold my knees on wouldn't fix anything because the main problem is the bones. I do however have loose ligaments due to my dislocating knees stretching them so much but we'll just add that to the list of things to fix on the side.
I was then told that the only operation that could be done is performed by a few people in the world and those people have only performed it on a small number of people and about half of those people's operations haven't worked. They would do one leg at a time, so if something goes wrong I'd have one leg left that I could use. It's a huge operation that would scar my legs badly and one that they don't know the long term effects off yet. But also, if it does work he pointed out that it's only a temporary fix. Temporary. After all that, just temporary. He said that my legs will continue to get worse anyway and that I will never have normal legs.
I will never have normal legs.
That really stuck with me. A whole bunch of things flashed through my mind. Does that mean I can never do the hillwalking I've been dreaming of doing or go cycling and even just walk like a normal person and not feel self conscious about how I can't straighten my legs.
I finally have an answer for anyone who ever questions why I walk with bent legs. My doctor told me that my knee caps are constantly in a state of dislocation. If I straightened my legs they would just fall off. Nice.
They really are floating knees.
So what's next? The doctor told me that I'd be a fantastic case for the surgery as I'd be a good candidate for their studies. Funnily enough my mind isn't on their studies but more on my ability to walk properly. That aside I'm going to see the surgeon in Glasgow who performs the operation to see what he thinks since he's the one that specialises in it. He may give me a bit more faith in the operation and I can at least ask him all the questions since he knows more about it all. Then if it turns out I'm not happy with that I'm going to ask to be referred for a second opinion elsewhere.
So here I was thinking I'd maybe be getting an operation around about this time but it looks like the solution is a bit of a wait away. In the meantime I'm continuing to do exercises to strengthen my knees so that hopefully when some sort of answer comes along I'll be ready and waiting with strong knees. Dislocating ones but at least strong.
Updates to follow...
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