The Reality Of Medical Procedures: There's No Such Thing As A Simple One

On New Year's Day, 2016, my wife and I decided to take a five-kilometer hike rather than cycle in a gale-force wind. Little did I know what an effect that hike would have. Within 24 hours, my knee blew up like a balloon, twice the size of my other knee. Any exercise––even walking––became tough. Within two hours, my knee locked up.

I had been active, skiing, cycling, swimming, and hiking for several years. I occasionally had recurrent knee pain, but it didn't stop me, so I continued as usual. This time, I was stopped in my tracks.

I saw an orthopedic surgeon who already had the results of a previous knee MRI. He indicated the only short-term solution was an arthroscopy to remove bits of cartilage and smooth out a torn meniscus area. It seemed a pretty straightforward procedure. The expectation was that I would be able to start doing light exercise after several days and then get back to swimming after two weeks. It seemed like I had little choice, as going up and down stairs only meant using my good leg or sliding on my bottom.

So, on the 12th of January, I went in to have an arthroscopy on my right knee to remove the offending bits––a minor procedure––I thought.

All seemed fine for the first two days, and then I began to experience something––severe pain. This pain was not in the knee joint but in my thigh. Along with the pain, severe bruising of the leg became apparent. The procedure involved blowing up a tourniquet placed on the thigh to reduce blood in the knee joint during the surgery. This was to make the procedure more accessible for the surgeon.

The pain was like no pain that I had experienced, relenting and most severe at night, which made for many sleepless nights, even with the use of painkillers. Over the ensuing days, the bruising spread in and around the knee and even into the calf. The surgeon recommended another MRI, but no joint damage was apparent. What I was experiencing was a type of crush syndrome from the compression of my thigh muscles during surgery. What I thought would be a minor nuisance took on a life of its own. It took months for the pain to completely subside, and even today, the right thigh muscle is tight compared to the left.

The overarching thing to note is that there is no such thing as a simple medical procedure. This whole experience taught me several things: