Why I will have Surgery tomorrow

Today I have bad news to tell you: I have to undergo surgery tomorrow.

For a few days already, I have been feeling pain in my left knee. It is not a steady pain, it comes and goes, without any certain movement and even when I am just sitting still. I can still walk, also without having pain, but my leg feels very instable, as though I could fall at any minute.

Those of you who regularly read the autobiographical section of my blog, know how I broke the ligament of my left leg in 2004 when I fell down the stairs of the cave. Well, knowing the pain of that time and recognizing the feeling of instability, I was slowly having doubts whether my ligament, or the replacement they had put in for it, was broken again. This time however I had not have any accident, I had not fallen anywhere, I had not even done much exercise, climbing or dancing which could have led to such an injury! So I just rested a few days, hoping it would get better. It didn’t.

Yesterday we thus went to the hospital to have a thorough check-up. Well, it was not actually that big of a check-up as I had thought. The doctor asked me to lie down, took my knee in his hands pulled it one time in one direction, once in the other and said ‘Yes, the replacement failed, we have to operate again’.

Oh, what to do now? In six days I have a flight ticket to Germany with the plan on spending the next three months travelling around Germany and Spain! Actually, the surgery is not an emergency surgery. I would survive with my broken knee until we would be back. I would need to bear the pain, eat some pain killers and just try to rest as much as possible. I might have chosen this option, had I not done exactly that already before my previous ligament surgery! I have travelled with this injury before, I know how much pain it is and how difficult it is to get around when you cannot even lift your suitcase on your own.

That’s how we took a quick decision yesterday: I would get my surgery done before going to Germany. We will need to reschedule some program, change the flight tickets, some train tickets and tell people that we will come later. According to the doctor it is a standard procedure, just a small cut here, a small cut there, taking out a piece of my right ligament, fixing it in the left knee and I will be out of the hospital the next day. Another ten days later, I can fly.

Sounds easy, doesn’t it? I know there will be lots of pain afterwards, I know how important physiotherapy and exercise will be but I prefer feeling the pain of healing on my travels to just being reminded of my broken knee and the prospect of a surgery.

So while I will be in surgery tomorrow, you can think of me and wish me that everything goes well and I will be up and running soon. 🙂

Ramona has anyway already prepared the blog entry for tomorrow, as it is Friday’s visit to the children, and on Saturday and Sunday, there will be a recipe and my autobiography again. On Monday I will be able to tell you how I am and how our plans for travelling look like.