MRI'S, ACL'S and Adventures!

So, I know, I like to do stuff that some people consider "extreme". (ie: skydiving, wakeboarding, snowboarding, etc). I just consider them fun and there are plenty of people who do stuff waaaayyy more extreme than I do. But, I guess it caught up with me this time.

Saturday I went to use my gift card from my sister for Wake Nation, a really cool wakeboarding park. Google it, its pretty cool. Anyways, I had been there for an hour already and Wendy and Caleb showed up. I went back to get out on the water, got off the dock went about 30 feet and heard something pop! I went down and screamed! I dont' consider myself to be wimpy but this hurt! It swelled, we went to the ER, got a brace, crutches and went home. Stupid holiday weekend meant I couldn't get an MRI till Tuesday which turned to Wednesday. Then I went to the orthopaedic doctor yesterday.

He came in, moved my leg around and said, "Well dear, I'm afraid you don't have much of an ACL left, in fact its pretty much non-existant." What! Oh jeeze, I thought I read enough on WebMD to diagnose that it was only my MCL. Guess I need to go to medical school after all! Then he showed me the MRI stuff. I will explain it below.

These are all from the side of my leg. The large black things are my femur and tibia. The black band that is circled in this first shot is the Posterior Cruciate Ligament, or PCL, meant to keep your tibia from going too far backwards. My PCL is fine.

This slide shows a large white area that is where there should be another solid black line for my ACL. All the white stuff is swelling. Notice, no sign of any ligament! Nice!

This last one is what he said is textbook bone bruising from a ACL tear. The two white areas on the bone are where they banged together when the twist and ACL tear happened.

Hope none of that was too graphic for anyone. I think this stuff is cool so I thought maybe some of you would too! (I was given the CD of my MRI scans and have had fun playing with them on my computer!) I might have to make some crazy artwork out of them or something!

So, I have 3 weeks of Physical Therapy to reduce swelling and get mobility back in my knee before they do surgery. Another adventure!