Post-Op

It’s over, and all I have to show for it are tiny stitches on either side of my right knee.

I’ve been living with constant pain, instability, and forced inactivity for the last four years. Back then, the doctor suspected I’d torn my medial meniscus, but the MRI didn’t reveal anything. The advice I was given was to wait and see if it got worse.

And it got worse.

After rollerskating one fine summer day, I found myself unable to walk more than a few feet. The swelling eventually went down, but the instability increased. I’d be walking along just fine one minute, when *CRACK*, my knee would lock up and/or buckle and I’d be helpless until I could pop it back into place. After the rollerskating incident, I limped my way back to my doctor, got another MRI, and lo and behold they could finally see the tear. Unfortunately for me, what they also saw was the early onset of osteoarthritis. Apparently they rarely if ever find it quite so severe in someone my age, but then again, I’ve always led a charmed life.

This time, I didn’t have to wait for surgery. I got in to see surgeon fairly quickly – I think it was within a week – and the day I saw him I walked out with a surgery date. The procedure was scheduled for 3 weeks later.

I won’t say much about the surgery itself because I said quite enough on Twitter (so much so that a couple of people stopped following me on Thursday), but I will say this: for those Americans who are on the fence about free, socialized healthcare, get over yourselves. I didn’t have a long wait time for surgery. Oh, I suppose you could say four years was a long time to wait, but when the MRI didn’t turn up anything, what was the doctor supposed to do, cut me open anyway?

I walked into a clean, modern, quiet hospital a couple of towns away. The staff there were very kind, professional, and respectful of me – something I always worry about being a fat girl and all. They talked to me, not at me, and every single time a pair of hands touched me, they were gentle. I didn’t lay around in a hallway in pain, and I wasn’t surrounded by filthy people who were being denied care. I sat in a clean waiting room with some other patients, was taken to a ward 30 minutes before surgery, and quickly whisked down the hall to the OR. When I awoke in the quiet recovery room, the lights were low and the only sounds I heard were my own breathing and the sound of the blood pressure cuff inflating every two minutes or so.

What was best about this entire procedure was the peace of mind I had, knowing that I didn’t have to hock anything, sign my life away, or worry about how I was going to pay for the surgery when all was said and done. I didn’t have to pay a thing, and I received the best care I could have ever imagined.

I only wish that my friends and family in the US could say the same.