Knee Update

We took Tanner to the Orthopedic Dr this morning in regards to her knee.

The appointment well. He said Tanner’s ACL and MCL both “feel stable” so that’s good. He feels like she has torn the meniscus. He’s basing this on several things including her limited range of motion, the fact that it’s been three weeks since the injury and she still has the limited range of motion even after PT, the point of pain, the continued swelling and the xrays that he took. The x-rays showed that her growth plates look good and her knee cap is in the right place, both which are good. He showed us on one xray how there is a slightly bigger gap between bones in her right knee than in her left knee but he didn’t tell us the significance of that. If it is the meniscus, surgery is the only way to repair it. We are waiting for the insurance company to OK doing an MRI and we’ll know for sure when we do that. Hopefully we can have the MRI middle of next week and find out 100% what it is, then we’ll schedule the surgery (praying it’ll be the next week!). The meniscus has three layers and depending on where the tear is will depend on how extensive the surgery is. If it’s in the first two layers of the meniscus then he will just cut that part out and she’ll loose 10-20% of her meniscus and then she’ll have rehab. If it’s in the third layer, he will have to repair it and she will be in a knee immobilizer for a month and will then have extensive rehab after that. We won’t know until the MRI. If for some reason the MRI doesn’t show anything, he will probably do exploratory surgery to get in there and look around, which he said is sometimes what he has to do, though he kept reassuring us that he does strongly feel like it’s the meniscus.

He said her age is good in the sense that she’s young and will heal quicker than you or I would. But on the other hand, her age is a bad thing because he said with young kids like this, you have to be “aggressive” in the treatment in order NOT to cause problems later. And since it’s been three weeks, we need to get this fixed.

He said we did the right thing by going to PT first and he was appreciative that we did that. He didn’t immobilize or anything like that today, just said to keep hobbling along until we can get it fixed. Even told us to stop doing the PT exercises we’ve been doing because they aren’t doing any good. He said to keep her on the Tylenol and just maintain until we can get it fixed.
Tanner was very quiet this morning during the appointment and afterwards went with her Dad so I’m not real sure how she feels about it. Knowing her, she’s scared and worried. It’s looking more and more like she won’t be able to go to camp in Florida, which she is very bummed out about. We are crossing our fingers and saying our prayers that she will still be able to do her candle lighter duties in my cousins wedding in July.

I’m an emotional wreck. Didn’t sleep much last night. Very teary today. The thought of someone cutting on my baby, even arthroscopically, makes me literally sick to my stomach. It breaks my heart for her and I really wish it was me going through this instead of her. I know she’s a tough cookie. I know God will take care of her. I know this is all part of the plan. I know that this has to get fixed and I know it could be a lot worse. I know there are a lot of positive things going for.

But even knowing all that-she’s still my baby.

So please pray that we are able to get the MRI done quickly and that we can get the surgery scheduled quickly. She goes to her Dad’s on the 18th for two weeks and I want her home with me first if we have to do the surgery so time is kind of important right now.

That’s all I know for now. Thank you!