#660 my knee is hurting

My right knee has been bothering me again for awhile, so I decided it was time to go back to the doctor for another cortisone injection. Fortunately for me, he had an opening this afternoon, so I was able to get right in to see him.

Over the weekend, I finally decided that I would go ahead and have the knee joint replacement surgery. I plan to have it next January. The reason I am waiting until January is that my work is pretty crazy so far this year with the new software and doing pretty much everything a little differently, so I think it would be better to wait. I feel like I can get through this year with regular cortisone injections. I'd also like to lose a few more pounds to give myself the best chances at a more quick and easy recovery.

When I told MT about my decision, his response was, "I'm surprised you want to wait that long." I have been limping around lately. My last injection was December 16, so I got 87 days out of it.

So I went to the doctor's office and when Dr. R came in and saw the size of my knee, he kind of freaked out. It's pretty swollen. We talked about the surgery, and though he said the timing was up to me, he also told me that I probably wouldn't have too much time out from work since I sit at a desk. I'll keep that in mind.

In the meantime, he drained some fluid from my knee and injected the cortisone into it. Neither of these procedures take very long, but both are very uncomfortable. The cortisone is fairly thick, and you can actually feeling oozing into the knee. My knee was so swollen that Dr. R had to really wriggle my kneecap around to get the cortisone in between the bones. That's extra tricky since my knee bones are basically sitting right on top of each other. There's no cartilage or meniscus between my bones.

Then, when it's time to drain the fluid, there is more pressing and it just doesn't feel very good. There's a lot of pressure for one thing, and that doesn't feel nice. I will say that I could immediately tell that the swelling was less when I was done. Holy cow, was my knee sore though! I went to the drug store and bought a compression sleeve at the doctor's advice. It was tight. I can tell that I need to go take a couple more Aleves. The injection area is starting to hurt again a little.

That's my sad knee story for the day.