Today I learned Dr. Dye has nothing left in his bag of tricks for me. At this time, it sounds like I'm a part of the unfortunate 10-15% of his patients who are not responding well after a Synovectomy. Maybe it's due to my unfortunate setbacks (some I feel very guilty about, I should have not made those dumb mistakes), or maybe that is simply the alchemy of my knee. It's one that is extremely slow healing and it's been that way from the onset.
I told Dr. Dye my knee feels better after the steroid shot, but it isn't great. He said the shot should continue to help me and I could see more improvement over the next few weeks. Then he mentioned he rarely uses the shot on his Synovectomy patients. What? I was confused, this was different than what I heard him say last week. I guess I misunderstood. He said he uses steroid shots for arthritis patients often, but rarely for patients like me. That was when I realized he had gotten to the bottom of his bag of tricks. Dr. Dye felt my bad left knee then my right knee and said my left knee was still warm, which means there is still some inflammation going on in there. He said to continue to ice my knee a few times a day, swim and cycle within my "envelope of function," and keep taking the anti-inflammatory. He will see me again in 6 weeks.
All I can do now is continue to be patient. Dr. Dye said there is still more healing for my knee to do. It has now been almost 20 weeks since my surgery. I haven't lost all hope that this surgery will have helped, but I don't think I will know for quite some time.
1 comment:
Hi, Ali. I continue to follow your posts with great interest. Once again, I appreciate the quality of your writing. You are still telling your story better than anyone other knee patient I've known, and I've known a few.
I just want to weigh in here and say that I certainly don't see any flaw in Dr. Dye's thinking as you've reported it. I know 20 weeks seems like an extremely long time, but he's right: there probably is still healing to do. It's not all that rare for people to report much longer post-surgical recovery periods. People will say things like, "It was really a full year before I truly felt quite right." I myself just started declaring a shoulder injury mostly healed, and that was a solid 40 weeks, and it's still not 100% — more like 96%.
If the "alchemy of your knee" (I like that phrase) is difficult in some way, if you're on the bad side of the bell curve, then 20 weeks really might not be all that long.
So don't give up! Don't lose hope! Dr. Dye may be out of "tricks," but you're not out of time. Your knee may still heal.
That said, I am truly sorry it hasn't been the more decisive recovery that it might have been.
Post a Comment