Hey gang. Just a reminder I won’t be around tomorrow, or much the next week or so. I’m having surgery to remove a bone cyst from my left leg (the tibia right below the knee). I’ll be in a hospital bed watching Game 1 of the World Series.
I’ve been ordered off my feet, and off a chair in front of a computer for awhile, so I have no idea what my update capability will be like. Hope to have some new posts sooner than later. :)
Some general info about the problem:
I have a cyst inside the bone just under my left knee. It’s what has been causing me so much pain lately. They were unable to 100% confirm that it was due to the fall I had a year ago, but he said it’s possible. The reason they don’t know for sure is because they would have had to have had a reference Xray from right before the fall. I saw the Xray myself – there’s no mistaking it, it’s quite noticeable in there. They’re essentially going to be clearing out the cyst stuff, and then effectively “filling it with cement”. That’s obviously not what they’re actually doing, but I’m a little unclear as I sit here right now what the material they’re going to actually be putting in there is, but they did use the phrase “bone graft”, which has an ugly sound to it. I was told they “don’t take stuff from your hip and put it in there anymore like we used to”, I believe it’s some sort of synthetic something, but again, I’m not sure. There’s some pictures and details about the condition and operation here:
http://orthoinfo.aaos.org/topic.cfm?topic=A00081
Hope all goes well with the surgery. I believe the material for bone grafts come from cadavers. I am not sure what is better, the hip or some dead guy. Sounds painful, so I hope the surgery fixes it. I am dealing with docs now too. Unfortunately, I may be starting a new blog about my medical adventures. I’ll keep you up to date.