So we packed up the baby, the buckets of candy and everything else from the last stop on the tour, and started to head out to load up the Jeep for the ride home. As I was leaving the mud room to head into the garage with my daughter, I missed a stair heading into the garage, and saw my life flash before my eyes. I saw stairs, railing, concrete floor and the back of a car in my path, and thought only about protecting Elise in any way I could. I collapsed down 5 stairs, landing square on my right knee cap, but protecting the baby from hitting anything on the way to the ground. I heard a loud, revolting pop as I hit the concrete, shielding her from the ground, even as I rolled on my side.
My father-in-law grabbed Elise from my arms as I grabbed my right knee, and when I felt that my knee cap was missing and not where it was supposed to me, I let out a loud scream. Elise, who had not made a peep to this point, started crying pretty hard, and they swept here inside and called 911.
An ambulance ride, ER stay and some pain killers later, I found out that my knee cap was shattered into 2 pieces and would need surgery. They sent me to an orthopaedic specialist, and was scheduled for surgery 6 days after the accident. Hobbling around on painkillers for a week while my knee was in 2 places was awful, to say the least.
So the surgery came, and as outpatient, they brought me in, knocked me out and opened the knee wide to put it back together. The pieces were too small to screw back together, so they wound up taking the small bits out and literally stitching them into the large knee cap piece still remaining. Beautiful technique, actually. I had the surgeon show me later exactly what was done and it was a thing of beauty how they did it.
So here I sit still, a little over 2 weeks post-op, still taking pain killers, and waiting for Friday to have my 17 staples removed from my knee. I'll be able to start re-hab after that, and I'm looking forward to doing normal things again, like driving. Sitting at home is making me crazy. I wouldn't wish this on anyone.
So here's the cool stuff... the original digital Xrays from the ER, and the first look at the knee following surgery. Fun stuff!
