A bit of catch up

I have been meaning to catch up on this blog, but I'm a blogging fool lately, and since I've been spending time on my other blogs, this one has been neglected. Also, I'm so far behind on updating my life on here that it feels a little overwhelming because there is just too much to share.

So I'll take baby steps!!

First of all, the big thing taking over our lives right now is Josh's knee. He tore his PCL about 2 years ago. Stupid dirt bike!! We went to a doctor after it happened, and didn't really get a good feeling about him, but the doctor basically told us that the PCL was torn. This is a pretty un-common ligament to tear, but he had managed to do it! He went in for a surgery to have it scoped. After that, the doctor had him going to physical therapy, but Josh felt like it was making it worse. Long story short, the doctor started acting like he didn't really want anything to do with Josh. We ended up seeing another doctor, but kind of got the same vibe from him.

Well, Josh has been dealing with it, although it's hard because his job is so physical. Basically, Josh would go to work for the day, come home, and couldn't do anything but sit on the couch because he was in pain. We planned on getting him back to a doctor and having it fixed while he was laid off for the winter.

One day at work, Josh was talking to a co-worker, and this co-worker mentioned a doctor that he had gone to for some knee work. The doctor's name was Dr. Beck, who works at a place called TOSH and also has an office up by the Jordan Valley Hospital. We were really excited to learn that he was taking new patients, because we learned that he is really at the forefront of knee technology. I called and made an appointment for Josh, and he was able to get in just after Christmas.

That's when the bad news came. Dr. Beck looked at the MRI that Josh had done after his first scope, plus at some new x-rays, and told Josh that his knee had a lot of damage. It was not just the PCL - there was a lot going on in there that wasn't right. Dr. Beck told Josh that a total knee replacement was inevitable, but he wanted to try to get him by as long as possible before having to do that. They scheduled a surgery for January 7th. The plan was to go in and do an osteotomy - they were going to go in and cut into one of his bones (I don't remember which, but I think it was his femur) and insert a few wedges to try to re-align his knee and to alleviate some of the pain. And the doctor expected Josh to return to about 80% of the use of his knee after this surgery. He told us going in, though, that if he got into the knee and there was just too much damage, then all he would do was a scope because he didn't want to make Josh go through 3 months of rehab if it wasn't going to help.

So on surgery day, we went up to the hospital. They were running behind, and after they took him back for an IV, we sat in that room for about 2 1/2 hours before they were finally ready to take him back for surgery. I was expecting him to be gone for awhile, so when the doctor came in to talk to me after about an hour, I knew it wasn't good news. Well, when the doctor got in there, there was too much damage. The side of the knee that he was going to be re-positioning too had just as much damage as the side that all the weight is on right now, so the doctor said that it wouldn't help at all to do the surgery.

We go back up to the doctor on Tuesday, so we will be talking about what the options are at this point. I know the doctor is a little hesitant to do the knee replacement right now because Josh is only 29 years old, and I think the typical knee replacement lasts 12 - 20 years, but on someone so young and active, it won't last as long. But I (and Josh) would rather have him able to function right now, even if it means having to replace his knee a few times over his lifetime. Right now, it is impossible to do anything - if we are somewhere, he lasts 30 minutes - at the most - before his knee is just done for several hours.

So, right now we are just praying that we will know the right thing to do!!

More updates another day...