Ouch

[railenthe]

In the nearly two years now since I hurt my leg originally, there have been a lot of doctor visits and a lot of speculation, and a lot of treatment of symptoms, with a certain degree of inability to find causes for the problem.

 

Almost a month ago exactly now, I hurt my knee again.  Knowing that there would be more trouble if I didn’t go to the doctor than if I did, I went in and had the knee looked at.  Anyone who’s been here often since then remembers the janky diagram I made using slashes and the ‘absolute value bar’ symbol to illustrate what my knees were doing.  The painkiller I got in response to that injury, to be taken until I got to the referral appointment, caused agonizing side effects that required me to stop taking it and turn to alternative remedies.

Today was my referral appointment.  I woke up at around five this morning with a soreness in my leg and a crunchy pain in my jaw.  The knee would eventually shut up, but the jaw pain—well, that’s my TMJ disorder acting up on me. 
I thought it was a migraine at first, but 1) there was no nausea, 2) there was no aura, 3) it’s on the wrong side of my head, and most importantly 4) I can’t move one side of my jaw.  I took two Alka-Seltzers for that and will cross my fingers.

---

Nine AM arrived and so did my shuttle.  I hopped in and was transported two towns and three zip codes over to an orthopedic clinic that I can tell you wasn’t there two years ago—ah, local progress.  Problem was, there was some confusing stuff going on and so there was a delay.  I was glad I’d brought my Nook Tablet.  When reading began to render me drowsy I forced myself to try Sudoku puzzles.  I cleared one and only used 30 hints!

 

I didn’t enjoy getting weighed.  I’ve crossed the 150 lb mark.  150.3, to be exact.  I don’t look like it, but frankly that’s too high for my height.  I need to lose a dozen pounds—or convert it into much, much muscle.  My BMI’s 28.4.  Normal range for my height is between 19 and 25. Most of you have seen my convention pictures—remember that tiny woman in the pink kimono and hauling a Turtwig?  Did she look borderline obese?  I didn’t think so.  That’s me.  I think it might be time for a professional fitness assessment.  Numbers alone are wonky now.  Even so.  I’ve never weighed this much and it makes me feel kinda paranoid.  Anyway back on topic:

 

By about noon, I was getting x-rays done.  The place was cold.  The x-rays didn’t take as long as I thought they would—especially considering that the imaging was digitized, unlike in the last place I went.  But then I had to wait in another room.  After overhearing an obvious mistake (No, I wasn’t in the middle of receiving a steroid shot and therefore just about on my way out the door, thanks, now could I get seen by the doctor please?) the doctor finally saw me.

 

The next few minutes were: small talk, small talk, small talk, flex leg, get the “Uhh, that ain’t right” look.  Questions, about the initial injury and then the December reinjury.  I explain exactly what I felt/heard during that injury as we look at my x-rays.  I’m asking questions the whole time, noting that the little bit of space that should indicate the presence of cushioning fluid and cartilage is not there—I’ve got bone-on-bone-on-bone.  I’m no doctor and even I can see that ain’t right.  I explain that both times now, the kneecap’s dislodged itself without outside contact

 

“Straighten that leg out for me?”

 

I do so. Poke, poke prod—

—slide—

“Yeowch!”

 

It didn’t take much to knock that knee loose.  Luckily, the doctor’s hand was right there, so it didn’t finish that slide out of joint.   We prod it back into joint and resume testing its range, as well as the rest of the leg’s range, noting that bizarre thing it does where it doesn’t hinge forward properly.  And that one thing where it hinges side to side, which knees aren’t supposed to be able to do.

 

—stick—

 

We’ve gone from entirely too much movement to the kneecap going “Like hell am I moving that way.”

 

“Won’t let me move it that way, huh?”

 

“It’s nothing I’m doing, sir—I can feel it knocking into something and not moving.”

 

“Okay, I think I’ve just about found the problem.  I need some more information, though.  Tell me everything that this leg does that seems, as you put it, ‘stupid.’”

 

I happily oblige.  There’s more poking, more prodding, another slide, another stick, and then a poke at a zone on the leg that I’m fairly certain I’m supposed to be able to feel but am only aware of because I’m looking at it.  I say as much as he does a couple more things to the leg.

 

“Yeah, I think we found it.  Technically.”

 

Um, that sounds a little wonky.  “Technically?” I parrot.

 

“Yeah.  That ligament’s gone.”

 

I know one of the younger nurses heard me and that’s why the giggle when I said “Um—whut?”

 

“There’s nothing there.”

 

Suddenly I remember one part of the injury:  a loud TICK! noise and a snapping sensation that happened while my bosses stood me back up when the knee went out, followed by a stabbing sensation in the leg that lasted two weeks.  I recount that detail.

 

“Yeah, that’s probably when it went.  As it goes, right now, there is nothing there.  Your patella’s tracking wrong because that ligament—it’s basically the support cable for the knee, and without it there, your leg’s turned itself that way to hold the knee into the groove the bones make.  And now the tendon in that leg is overcompensating for the absence of that ligament—and that is why that nerve in your leg is on fire.  Now, normally, we’d hit this with physical therapy and it’ll rebuild and repair, but this thing keeps going out without outside trauma—and that’s not supposed to happen.  We’ll have to do something about it.”

 

“Huh!”  So now we have our answer.  “What do we do about it?”

 

“Well, there’s about five solutions to this one.”

 

“Yay!”

 

“All of them involve surgery.”

 

“Oof.”  Just because I’m curious, I ask for details.

 

“Well, we’ll need an MRI to see which approach we go in with, but we’ll either take a cadaver ligament or pilfer some from elsewhere in your body to rebuild that support structure—but we can fix it.  We can rebuild that knee and make your leg stable again.”

 

At this point, I’m doing two things: 1) internally lol-ing at the fact that the doctor actually did use the term ‘pilfer,’ and 2) thinking “Well, now what?”

 

As I’m about to ask “Now what?” I’m given two scrips: one for an MRI arrangement and another for a specially-fitted brace designed to ape the function of the missing ligament in my knee.  So I’ll be going to get a new knee brace soon, one that will fix the actual problem.

 

And after the MRI I’ll probably be fitted for CADAVER LIGAMENTS.

 

I should be terrified of all this crap—bone damage! Nerve damage!  NO LIGAMENTS IN THAT LEG!  SURGERY!!!—but you know what?  I’m just glad that, after all this time, I have proof that this is NOT all in my head.

 

Now if the swelling in my face will go down, I’ll feel awesome.

Comments

WHY DO I NOW HAVE THE IMAGE OF GARLAND AND THE FOUR FIENDS SKIPPING DOWN A YELLOW BRICK ROAD?

[toffeethesnob.livejournal.com]

I admit that Mateus's face suggests that he's closer to 30 than 40 but his voice in both versions sounds middle aged. (Mind you going by voices doesn't help much since in Japanese Squall sounds in his 20s, Bartz sounds like a teenager, Laguna sounds middle aged, CoD sounds like an old crone, Zidane's pitch flails all over the place and Kuja flips between teenager and 20 something depending on the mood. However all of these save Laguna are probably intentional.) However his appearance to me suggests older than 30, though this is probably due to the fact that he has a thin face. That and his hands are rather aged from an artist's standpoint. (I've studied them. THEY HAVE NOTABLE LINES.)

I think Mateus's attitude also helps me think that he's around the same age as Kefka because Mateus certainly does not act at all like a young person and every aspect of his behavior gives off the aura of experience. I can believe that he's younger than Kefka physically but the way he acts certainly makes me think that he's in his 30s. Also the way that Kefka acts around Mateus and Ultimecia comes across to me as though he views them as the closest thing to contemporaries which makes me a little more inclined to believe their ages are similar. (I wouldn't be surprised if Ulti is the oldest of the lot.)

And again I am amused that the old hats were, in the Japanese version, indeed voiced by old hats. (The ages ranged from 69-39 on the Team Chaos seiyuu side when Dissidia first came out. With Team Cosmos it was 44-24.) A good chunk of the cast were voicing someone either half their age or 15-20 years younger. (Midorikawa probably wins since he was 38 when he first did 18 year old Firion. Second place goes to 35 year old Romi Paku voicing 16 year old Zidane. If we knew Mateus's age then we might be able to factor the then 49 year old Kenyuu Horiuchi in there.)

BECAUSE IT'S FUNNY? + LOCAL EXPERIENCE RANT + WMG fueled by lack of ZZZs

[railenthe.livejournal.com]

He doesn't sound anywhere near middle-aged to me, but then again I have a skewed view (ear?) of voices: the average African-American male voice with the typical non-inflected accent (read: that newscaster-like lack thereof) sounds about ten years older than he looks, due to the usually increased inherent bass.

Case in point: T.C. Carson, who I am most familiar with as Kyle Barker from the series Living Single but most of the world knows as Kratos from the God of War series.

He sounded that deep when he was in his EARLY TWENTIES. (and was the first crush I ever had based ON THE SOUND OF HIS VOICE ALONE.)

I will grant that his attitude has more maturity to it than a mid-twenties kid.

You have more points of analysis than I do--me going only with face and sound.

Their chronological PHYSICAL ages may well be the same. I get the sensation that the time fiddling may have done something with HER perception of time while she stayed youthful in appearance, rendering her in attitude more cougar-like than she would otherwise.

Note: THE ABOVE IS WILD GUESSING.

And remember, CoD is technically a force of nature. Garland is another weird case

[toffeethesnob.livejournal.com]

Well I'm basing his English voice comparison with what I've heard from american voice acting over the years and doing the same thing for his Japanese voice and to me, they both sound more like a middle aged person due to lacking any youthful vitality about their performance. (Even though WoL also comes across like this in cutscenes he does at least have a certain freshness to him during battle. This is more evident in Japanese because Toshihiko Seki apparently hasn't aged at all since late 80s.)

Mind you there are some people who just don't sound their age at their actual age. This is why people like Ishida and Hoshi can actually get away with voicing teenage boys (and sometimes even the KID versions of their characters) despite being in their 30s or 40s at the time. (TV tropes lists them as popular aversions of the crossdressing voices trope even though Ishida's few occurrences of being cast as a woman may negate that...)

Hmm, you raise an interesting point on Ultimecia being mentally a bit older than her body... Certainly makes for mindscrew potential fic...

[railenthe.livejournal.com]

See, that laid-back delivery I hear just sounds ridiculously classy to me. But I don't have that much basis for comparison.

Unrelated: Want rice. Do not want calories. HALP.

DOESN'T IT? I WANNA SEE.

[toffeethesnob.livejournal.com]

I'm something of a voice actor geek in general (IN CASE THAT WASN'T OBVIOUS) so I usually classify voices as being within a certain age group, regardless of the actor's genuine age. To me Mateus just sounds as though he's beyond the 30s mark. The attitude and older design in comparison to the evil bishies with canonical ages helps attribute to this.

IS THIS REALLY THE TIME TO BE COOKING RICE?

This would also explain why she thinks so little of CoD since that's another old thing in a much younger body. I can imagine that Kuja earns a lot of her ire because he's immaturely boyish on top of being the youngest Team Chaos member so he's the reverse situation. Kefka probably doesn't count because even though he's a manchild in his case there are no boons that come with it.

ALSO: YAY I WAS ABLE TO MOSTLY TRANSLATE AN ISHIDA AND HOSHI INTERVIEW WITHOUT HAVING TO CONSULT THE DICTIONARY ALL THAT MUCH. AFTER LISTENING TO THIS INTERVIEW I AM LAUGHING AT THE YUKI AND KANATA DYNAMIC A WHOLE LOT MORE.

[railenthe.livejournal.com]

I BOW TO THINE EXPERTISE IN THIS CASE. *Edgeworth!bow*

AND IS THERE EVER NOT A TIME FOR RICE? In this case I'd have to wait for morning: Japonica rice, in winter, requires an hour-long soak before cooking. I don't even want involved onigiri. Just something with delicious furikake seasoning and maybe a handful of bonito in it. And salt. Yum salt.


I Think I'll say more when I'm not sleep deprived!drunk…remind me later.