No Bones About It

Dick Wolfsie

I’ve never had a good relationship with my left knee. Our problems together started back in college with a traumatic football injury. I was watching the homecoming game and my entire leg became wedged in the bleachers when I was trying to get a better look at one of the cheerleaders. Things have not been the same since.

Over the years, I have managed to remain relatively active, but I knew that my knee was planning to retire way before the rest of me. For the last several months, I have felt like there was an entire family living inside my kneecap. I can hear a party going on inside, with lots of activity, clatter and a crackling fire. My wife asks me if it’s the pain that keeps me awake at night. No, it’s the noise.

After limping through our last vacation, I realized it was time to take some action so I made an appointment with an orthopedist. When I reached his office, I was greeted by an entire waiting room of people who were there to make a trade. Everyone sitting near me was having something replaced—a knee, a shoulder, an elbow. One guy confused his metatarsal with his Taurus and thought he was at a Cash for Clunkers rally.

During my appointment, the doctor fumbled around with my leg, contorting it in several directions, and then asking me if it hurt…which is pretty funny because when I’m just lounging on the sofa watching Dancing with the Stars I’m in agony, so you can imagine how my calf felt when it was twisted into a pretzel.

The doctor told me that he needed to get some “pictures” of my knees, which was embarrassing since all I had handy were three snapshots of me in a pair of ugly green Bermuda shorts.

I went to an imaging center for an MRI. The receptionist showed me a stick outline of a guy and asked me to put an X over the knee that was troubling me. This was difficult because I was looking at a figure looking at me, so his right was my left. It was way too complicated, so I simply pulled down my pants and drew an X on my own knee. The nurse said not to do this because doctors are never sure if X marks the spot to operate or not to operate. I was also still in the waiting room.

When I left, the nurse handed me a huge envelope of images to bring back to my doctor—about 64 of them, more pictures than I took of my entire family during the two weeks we spent in Europe.

That night I glanced at the radiologist’s report. It was the scariest thing I ever read in my life. Within the intercondylar notch region posteriorly…there is an irregular structure…consistent with a loose body.

Okay, I’m no doctor, but that sounds like they’re saying I have something wrong with my butt.

And this:

There is a tearing of the anterior horn and the posterior horn, near the meniscal root.

I think this is what happened in my high school parking lot 45 years ago after the bus ran over the band equipment.

When I went back to the doctor, he said that my bad knee was 62 years old and that was the simplest explanation he could give me.

I told him my good knee was also 62 years old. Just for future reference, it’s tough to make an orthopedist laugh.