The Bad Knee

Okay, now my excitement level for the upcoming Bricks Cascade LEGO convention has increased by leaps and bounds.  I found a place in Portland that will rent me a heavy duty mobility scooter for the four-day weekend!  No more painful walking all over the place on my bad knee!  No more having to walk from the hotel to the convention center (and back again) each day!  

Walking

I used to walk.  Everywhere.  All the time. 

I walked in Mount Angel.  In the 90s I’d walk down to the post office nearly every day to check my POBox.  In the early 2000s I walked up Abbey Hill every day.  (Steep curvy hill, about a mile round trip from my house.) 

I walked in Silverton.  After recovering from my second pulmonary embolism, I started walking in an effort to rebuild my stamina. Eventually, I was walking multiple miles a day.  I’d occasionally walk to the grocery store, or to a doctor’s appointment.  And when my knee started its more serious problems and I didn’t want to wander too far from home, I’d spend an hour a night walking up and down my brother’s driveway. 

I’d go out and walk if I needed to solve a plot problem in a writing project.  (Either one I was actually going to write, or a project I was trying to use to break through my writer’s block.) 

Part of the reason that I did so much walking is because I never really learned to drive.  I did get a learner’s permit at one point, but before it expired I got sick, and never actually went for my license.  (State of Oregon was justifiably reluctant to issue a license to someone who loses consciousness as easily as I did when I first got sick back in 1988.) 

Nowadays I walk as absolutely little as possible.  

The First Diagnosis

In the mid-2000s, my right knee started acting up.  I’d been walking with a cane for years, mainly due to balance issues.  But now I was putting weight on it to try and lessen the pain in my knee when I walked. 

So, I went and saw the doctor, who ordered a set of x-rays.  After seeing the x-rays, the doctor informed me that I had arthritis in my right knee. 

Arthritis, to me, meant that my knee was likely never going to improve.  The pain I was experiencing would be with me for life.  I said a few choice adult words, and then proceeded to get on with my life. 

Portland

In 2008 I started going up to Portland on the bus three or four times a month.  (Mt. Angel to Salem, Salem to Wilsonville, Wilsonville to Portland.)  When I arrived in Portland, I’d take Tri-Met to various locations and walk around to kill time before heading to Darklady’s Wunderground for karaoke, game night, or whatever the event du jour was.  (I’m almost certain I’ll talk about Darklady’s Wunderground more in depth in a future post or posts.) 

My doctor at the time would practically prescribe you a bottle of Vicodin for a stubbed toe.  My bad knee definitely qualified me for the drug.  I’d walk around Portland in considerable pain all day, then arrive at Darklady’s and take two Vicodin to dull the pain. 

By this point in my life, I was having seizures in addition to everything else that was already wrong with me.  Eventually, the seizures progressed to the point where it was unsafe for me to venture that far away from home unsupervised, so my trips to Portland ceased.  For awhile, anyway.  

PortLUG

After attending my first LEGO convention (the 2013 BrickCon in Seattle), I learned about the existence of PortLUG.  [PortLUG = Portland LEGO User Group]  By this point in time my seizures had calmed down dramatically from what they had been when I had to stop going up to Portland, and so I decided that I needed to join the group and start attending their monthly meetings. 

I was living in my brother’s basement by this point, so the early Friday morning trip became Silverton to Salem, Salem to Wilsonville, Wilsonville to Tigard (to shop at the LEGO store), Tigard to Portland, Portland to Milwaukie.  Once in Milwaukie I’d go to my friends Dennis and Leanne’s place to stay the weekend.  On Saturday I’d go to wherever the PortLUG meeting was.  Monday morning I’d take the bus back home again. 

All this meant more walking around on my increasingly painful bad knee.  And by this time, I was seeing a much more competent doctor who was far more hesitant to prescribe me a bottle of Vicodin for my knee pain.  

Worst. Convention. Ever.

While attending Bricks Cascade 2016, my knee decided to fail on me completely.  I was walking along minding my own business when it decided to buckle, and drop me to the ground.  Ouch. 

The first couple of times I tried to stand back up my knee hurt so bad that I had images of being carried out of the convention center on a stretcher go through my head. 

Eventually I got back on my feet, keeping a death grip on the handle of my cane and putting as little weight as possible on my knee.  If I remember right, that was the year that our MOCs were all set up in Exhibition Hall A, but the events we needed to attend several times a day were located in the rooms across from Exhibition Hall D.  I was the Superheroes theme coordinator for the convention at the time, so I needed to be in the exhibition hall as much as possible. 

So, several times a day I had to make the lengthy trek to the meeting rooms and back.  This took about 45 minutes for me to do, stopping at every bench and chair on the way.  Each way.  Easily the worst convention experience of my life. 

The Mystery of the Missing Cartilage

I went to the doctor after the con, and he ordered another set of x-rays.  This time the prognosis was worse than just arthritis. 

It turns out, I had no cartilage remaining in my right knee.  It was all just gone.  The end result of doing a lot of walking while weighing upwards of 400 lbs.  The doctor told me that walking around now, my knee was just grinding bone on bone. 

(I’ve always thought that “Bone on Bone” would be a great name for skeleton porn.  But it’s certainly nothing you want to hear as part of a knee pain diagnosis.)

So, in June of 2016, he referred me to an orthopedist.  The orthopedist ran some tests, and then started me on a very painful series of weekly injections into the knee with the hope of lubricating it.  “On some people,” he told me.  “It works wonders.  On others, it doesn’t do anything.” 

Want to guess which category I fell into?  

Physical Therapy

After the injections didn’t work, the orthopedist sent me back to my doctor, who sent me to physical therapy.  I’d taken my knee to PT before, but this time I was sent to a physical therapist that had a swimming pool. 

My knee wasn’t any better after the physical therapists were done with me than it was beforehand.  But the difference between walking on dry land and walking while partially submerged was like night and day.  I can’t say that my knee pain actually went away, but it was so much less that there was genuine relief.  Until I got back out of the pool when my appointment was over. 

The pool also made me realize how bad my back was.  I’d had back problems since I was in about the 5^th grade (a genetic inheritance from my parents), so I knew it was bad, but it wasn’t until my back pain went away when I was in the pool that I realized just how bad. 

I really need to win the lottery, move to a bigger place, and get a hot tub.  

Prognosis

After physical therapy failed to see any long-term positive result, the doctors started talking about what to expect in the future. 

At first, they were talking about a knee replacement.  “Lose 300 lbs,” they told me, “And we’ll operate on it.”  Later on it simply became, “Nope, you’re not a candidate for surgery.”  Mainly due to my host of other medical problems. 

Then came even more bad news.  They told me that my left knee would most likely catch up to my right knee’s decline in time.  Taking me from having a good knee and a bad knee, to having a bad knee and a worse knee. 

Fun times ahead.  

The Rollator

I attended the 2017 Bricks Cascade like normal.  And all through the con, all I could think was, “Coming here was a mistake.” 

I’d picked the hotel closest to the convention center to stay at, but the walk from the hotel each morning (and back again each evening) was simply excruciating.  And walking all through the convention center and all over the exhibition hall?  Forget about it. 

So about a month before Bricks Cascade 2018 rolled around, I bought myself a heavy duty rollator, which is the fancy name for one of those wheeled walkers that doubles as an impromptu chair. 

 

The knee pain wasn’t quite as bad using the rollator as it was with just the cane, and I was much more stable on my feet.  Plus, I no longer had to wait for a bench to appear on my wanderings, as I could pretty much stop and sit for a rest whenever I wanted, which was nice.  

The Current Status

So what’s the current status of my knee?  Still bad, still painful.  And getting continually worse.  Over the course of the past few months it’s gotten considerably worse. 

It used to be that it hurt when I was standing or walking.  But now it even hurts when I’m sitting.  Just having my knee bent so that my foot touches the floor when I’m in a chair causes me a lot of pain. 

When I get into my sleeping chair for the night and put my legs up, it takes a while to find a position that doesn’t hurt there, too.  Soon I fear that it will hurt 24/7, regardless of what I’m doing or what position it’s in.  After this year’s Bricks Cascade, I’m taking my knee back to the doctor. 

Musings On a Mobility Scooter

 Finding a place that rents mobility scooters is likely going to be remembered as an absolute Godsend for convention time. 

I’d like to simply own one, but there’s no room in my apartment to stash one when not in use.  Not unless I get rid of some of my furniture, and I’m hesitant to make that commitment.  Besides, mobility scooters are kinda pricey. 

I looked into it a few years ago, just to see.  And it turns out that Medicare is only willing to subsidize a mobility scooter if it’s to be used primarily indoors.  Which has got to be one of the stupider things I’ve ever heard. 

If there’s no room in my apartment to park a mobility scooter, there’s certainly not room to drive one around.  So a permanent mobility scooter isn’t in my immediate future. 

But, hey!  Being able to get one for the convention feels like a major win for me, so we’ll end this post on that high note.