The Knee

 

Sometimes events occur that really slow your life down. As an active senior, it can be painful in more ways than one. Heres the story of an event in my life that caused me extreme physical pain and a lot of mental anxiety for a long period of time.

 

The Knee

 

In the winter of 1989, a very good friend of ours named Dale invited us to come to Breckenridge, Colorado and spend a week with him and his wife, Sandy, snow skiing. Dale has known our girls for a long time so he told each of them they could bring one friend with them. Tamara selected Amanda and Kristi selected Leslie and we headed for Colorado. On the first day of skiing, the sun was shining and it was a warm day and the snow was melting some on the surface. A cold front blew in and the temperature dropped about thirty degrees very quickly. I was coming down a green slope and I lost it and took a pretty bad spill. On the way down, I heard a loud pop that sounded like a shot gun going off and then I felt a horrific pain in my right knee. I knew I had done some real damage to my knee. It seems the bindings holding my boots onto the skis had frozen over solid and did not release my feet when I fell. Something had to give and my knee was the weakest link. As I was laying there writhing in pain being loaded onto one of the injury sleds, one of my daughters and her friend came by overhead on the ski lift and saw that I was hurt and notified the rest of our crew. At the local Doctors office, my knee was swelled to about the size of a soccer ball. They pulled some bloody fluid off of the knee and temporarily immobilized the leg and told me to see my doctor when I get home. Back at the Condo, we discussed the situation and I decided to stay the rest of the week so my girls and their friends could get in a full week of skiing like I promised them. That was a mistake. We got home and my doctor told me I had pulled the ligament of the inside of my knee completely apart and on top of that I had a broken leg. After the repair surgery, he told me I had almost waited too long since the tissue of the ligament had softened and would barely hold the repair stitches. He put a cast from my groin to the bottom of my foot. I went back to work in nine days. Just before I had the cast cut off, I took a few pictures of the cast graffiti and have included them below. This may be the best part of today’s Blog.

It took me a full year to recover full use of my leg. I had lost a full year of my normal active life which I would never get back. I have never been back on the ski slopes and I never will in the future. The early phases of rehab were very painful, but I did enjoy getting pushed around in a wheel chair at the Mall and attending the clog dance sessions using a cane. This way I had a excuse to make mistakes.

If you ski, remember to keep the ice knocked off of your bindings or you may have a bad experience.

 

Old Bill sitting in the Condo with the knee immobilized while the crew is out skiing.

 

l to r Sandy, Leslie, Tamara, Kristi, Amanda, and Pam with the ski slopes behind them.

 

The “cast” with Kristi pushing me around.

 

Cast graffiti view 1

 

Cast graffiti view 2

 

Cast graffiti view 3

 

Thank you for reading The Knee,

Hawg Jaw Bill