Hey everyone. Please excuse the length of this post. If you don't have a few minutes to spare I won't be offended.
However, my plight has me in some deep depression from lack of activity, and I know this community is wonderful for advice and support, so any input would be great.
I used to work at a local pizza joint. I also used to be a very active fencer. I furthermore have been an aspiring traceur for some time. One by one, these things picked off my dreams. Last autumn, during a very rigorous fencing drill session, my coach mentioned that my lunges were getting a little sloppy. I realised then that it was due to pain in my right knee. I stiffened and kept going, and about twelve lunges later my right knee (I'm left-handed and -footed) bent inward a bit too far and touched the floor. It popped my knee out of place and hurt considerably, so I stayed off it for a bit. After it had stopped hurting, I was at work, and had to replace a ceiling tile in the WC. I walked up to the ceiling with one foot on either of opposing walls, and as I was reaching for the tiles the same knee buckled and slid out of place. I left work early, and once again I stayed off it for a while. Finally, while downtown one day trying to condition, I hit a bad patch of roofing and rolled to the side to prevent falling off the building. Nary did I look to where I was rolling, and I ended up bringing my (you guessed it) right knee straight and hard into a stovepipe chimney.
Since then I have hardly been active at all, and it's really killing me. Every time I bend my knee past about 85 degrees my knee slides around and turns out of place, causing severe pain that I know has to be my ligaments being destroyed. I had an MRI done, and apparently I have torn, retorn, and reretorn my medial collateral ligament as well as my meniscus. My doctor keeps chanting "surgery" like the word has magic powers, but I just can't afford it. I have no insurance (my parents are a bit ticked that I "run on buildings" without insurance, but I'm pretty bull-headed that way.
) and surgery just doesn't seem a reality any time soon. I have tried to stay off of it, and it has been a couple of months since it has rolled out of place last, but it still aches something awful, and if I bend it slightly it threatens to give. I don't know why it's not healing naturally like every other injury I've had. Does anyone have some sort of therapeutic exercise regimen ideas or anything? Seriously, this is really getting old. I'm pretty depressed lately, I haven't fenced, climbed, ran or jumped in months, and I'm starting to worry I may never be able to again.
Thanks,
Hyde
