Stephen’s Blog

Dear Regular Readers (and those not so regular),

I hope this edition of our weekly newsletter finds you all in good health and looking forward to doing something interesting over the weekend.  I’m not sure about your plans, but I intend on spending my weekend cleaning some things around my home and also repairing one or two items that I’ve been meaning to repair for a long time now, but I just haven’t had the time to get around to it.  My wife has a pair of Hug boots, I’m sure most of you know what they are, well, my wife’s right boot has a rip in it, she’s not sure exactly how it happened, but as she likes the boots very much I told her I would try to repair it for her.  I will be sharing the repair I will do on the boot with you in pictures and text in the coming weeks just in case you find yourselves in the same boat as me having to repair a Hug boot. 

I like to repair things and I generally try to take a very methodical approach with everything I have a go at repairing, which means that I spend a fair bit of time looking at what my options are for tackling each individual repair, so I’m pretty confident all will go well with boot.  I also have a leather jacket, actually one of my old favourite ones that unfortunately was left hung up in a place where direct sunlight made contact with it over a period of a few years and as a result the left arm of the jacket has faded, actually the sunlight has bleached it and it needs to be redyed.  Again, I intend on sharing my leather jacket re dying exploits with you in pictures and text in the coming weeks in case any of you out there have a leather jacket that is in need of the same treatment, but for now I think I’d better just focus on finishing off my knee story, so until next week, make sure you all keep wearing your masks and doing all the other sensible things that will prevent you from becoming another Covid 19 virus victim.            

My knee problem continued…….

I’ve got a pretty high tolerance for pain, so having needles shoved into me has never bothered me in the past and it didn’t bother me on this particular occasion, I was just glad to feel the relief of the fluid being aspirated or drawn out of my knee and then seeing it in the vile afterwards.  The doctor aspirated about 20cc of synovial fluid from my knee and told me that the colour of the fluid was clear which indicated that there was no infection present.  He then proceeded to stick a small band aid over the entry point of the syringe and then wrap a bandage quite loosely around the knee and fasten it in place with some surgical tape and that was the first of the 9 aspirations that were to follow.  I asked the doctor if the fluid would return and I was told that it was highly possible it would, and if it did then I should revisit him for further evaluation.  I left the doctor’s surgery feeling great because my knee was back to its normal size and when I pushed gently on the knee cap I could not feel any soft sponginess, but at the same time I just knew that this would not be my last visit to the hospital.  I settled my bill at the reception desk and then left the hospital to walk back to the train station which is about 5 minutes down the road. 

I walked back to the train station gingerly and quite slowly stopping every couple of yards to reach down to gently push my finger into the front part of my knee cap to see if there was any fluid that had returned, after the doctor telling me that it was highly probable that the fluid would return I became quite paranoid about it.  I must have reached down and touched my knee over a hundred times before I arrived back at home.  As soon as I got through the door, my wife asked me how my knee was and I replied it felt much better, but I also told her that the doctor didn’t seem too confident that my problem would be cured with just one aspiration, but anyway, I didn’t want to dwell on the negative too much, so decided to try to leave my knee alone until later on in the day and then recheck it. 

It was a Saturday, and on Saturdays I usually cook the family dinner; after cooking and eating dinner with my family I sat down in the sofa to check my knee, to honest I was pretty apprehensive and it took me a while to build up enough courage to take off the bandage and take a look and when I did eventually get the bandage off, guess what, it was full of fluid again, even more so than before.  Within the space of about 5/6 hours the fluid had leaked back into the bursa sack and I was yet again saddled with the same problem.  My knee felt a little bit sore from the aspiration, but that was not my concern, my only concern was the puffy bulbous shape sticking out from where my knee used to be, my heart literally sank, the doctor had been right and at that point I knew that the road to recovery would be a very long and arduous one and it did.  I put the bandage back on and wrapped it a little tighter than the doctor had wrapped it thinking that perhaps it had been too loose and that was the reason the fluid had leaked back through, but of course it wasn’t the reason at all.  

The following day my knee looked worse than ever and it felt more painful stiffer than it had previously felt, I was seriously down with myself and I didn’t feel like doing anything, the only thing on my mind was my knee, I kept asking myself how on earth was I going to get rid of the fluid?  I decided to get to work early on Monday morning, so I could do a bit more research on the internet regarding my knee problem and I found out that in some cases doctors suggest injecting hydrocortisone (a kind of steroid) into the bursa to try to reduce the swelling.  In some cases this can work, but it tends to be a temporary fix as once the hydrocortisone effect wears off the problem reoccurs and it’s necessary to have more injections; however, hydrocortisone is not something that you really want to keep injecting into your knee or anywhere else in your body for that matter as it can weaken your immune system and in extreme cases if it is injected too much in one area it can weaken and kill the surrounding tissue. 

In the process of doing my research I found a less invasive approach that can be taken to try to cure an inflamed bursitis which is termed the RICE approach (rest, ice, elevation and compression); this method mixed in with one or two stretching exercises involving rolled up towels that are placed behind the foot of the leg with the bursitis problem and then a series of stretches that are performed by pulling the towel towards the body to allow the knee ligaments to stretch.  Sometimes tight ligaments can exacerbate a bursitis problem, so I thought that was worth trying.  In terms of compression, I thought the best way to go with that was to buy a compression aid/supporter which I believed would help to keep a certain amount of pressure on the knee so as to help to reduce the inflammation and hopefully help the bursa to recover. 

After spending a bit of time doing my research I felt a bit more optimistic about the future; however, looking at my knee at how swollen it was I figured it was better to return to the hospital to have the fluid aspirated once more before starting my attempted RICE recovery plan.  I called the hospital and made an appointment to visit the following Saturday; in the meantime I bought a compression aid/supporter and started on a daily basis to do the rolled up towel exercises and other leg and knee stretches that I had come across during my internet research.  I have attached an image of me with my knee bandaged up and top of it I have my knee compression aid/supporter; I have also attached an image of me with the bandage and compression aid/supporter removed; you can see how swollen my knee is and this was just minutes after removing both items.  To be continued next week.       

Explanation of attached images