CLUNK CRASH BANG

For those of you empathic enough to wonder how I'm going with my fractured foot, the answer is: it's now the knee. Mind you, I'm still in the moon boot sandal for another three weeks and the bone healing pain is constant. [Bizarrely, the Advanced Scope Physiotherapist  at Fiona Stanley Emergency Department Diversion Clinic and Virtual Fracture Clinic had never heard what I'm wearing called a 'sandal'. Honestly, men with no fashion sense!]

Moving on from that shoe diversion, because the foot was the most obvious problem, I didn't take enough notice (and neither did any of the doctors I've seen) of my right knee. When I missed the step, I twisted the foot but came down heavily on the knee. The first attempt at diagnosis via an xray didn't work. It showed that there was no fracture but I didn't believe it. The pain continued and there was/is a lack of balance and slowness in walking as I totter about with my walking stick.

The next challenge was to get an MRI and that was one not an easy task. To start with, the earliest date I could get at the nearest radiological clinic was the day after Susan and I are due to fly to Europe! So that didn't work. However, there was a cancellation 43 kilometres away at 8.30pm - or, let's be honest, closer to 9.45pm - last Friday so I took that option.

Have you had an MRI? If not, I'm sure you've seen the equipment on a television program with bodies moving in and out of a tunnel like machine. You are given plastic earplugs (useless) and headphones (playing a bland radio station) and lie still as the machine makes a fascinating range of mechanical banging sounds.And of course, all the while, you are there in one of those ghastly blue hospital gowns that tie up at the back. I would have preferred to be laying back in warm clothing on a comfortable couch with a glass of rose in hand on a Friday night.

Anyway, that medical experience did leave to a new outcome. Yes, I have a "non-displaced fracture of the Tibial Plateau". Only 15% of the back corner of one side of the knee and not enough to require a knee brace but it's going to keep me in pain and on a walking stick for up to the next 9 weeks! 

Luckily, neither injury is enough to stop me walking or to stop me going on holiday next month although I won't be climbing up mountainsides or swimming.

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