Maturity…

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It brings many things. A better-developed palette for savoring various scotches and fine wines. It makes you appreciate fine food and all it’s intricacies.
It brings the knowledge that some people will bullshit you to get a laugh, while others will bullshit you to get your last dime and life’s blood and leave you dying in the gutter thinking ‘What the fuck just happened to me?’
It makes you realize there is more to living than just drinking, fucking and fighting… or biking. (Although many here including myself would argue that biking is essential to a full and enjoyable life.)
And there are downsides as well. I like to not dwell on them or have this post become a pity-party, but let’s face it… we are not all 25 anymore and some of us (me…) have abused their bones more than others and now must pay the piper.

That is my right knee. If there are any orthopedic surgeons out there who happen to read this dying blog of whining, then I’d like to have you clear up what is happening. My version is, there are 2 hunks of cartilage that are ‘free-floating’ in my knee and are causing me no end of problems. I get to schedule surgery ASAP and it most likely will be before X-mas. Which sucks in itself, but at least I will have 3-4 weeks to sit on my ass and heal.

Also, I found out my eyes are screwed. Well, not both of them, just one.

Enjoy a cheap laugh at one of the old guys. I’m off to a warm bubble bath and a double of the Glenlivet.
—bp

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About bikepunk

“Cuts, scrapes, bruises… all in a day’s riding. Then it’s off for some good german beer in a local biergarten.” Munich, Germany

12 Replies to “Maturity…”

  1. Good luck with the knee. I know how bad it can suck. I can’t stress Physical Therapy enough. And good Scotch. Good Scotch is key.

  2. “what a drag it is…”

    Find a doc you trust and a good PT and splurge on a nice bottle. Lagavulin’s my fave to salve the inevitable aches of aging.

    stoopid joints.

  3. I am not 25 anymore either. My knee also hurts. To say the least.. I feel your pain. Let them fix you, rest, then get back to the bike. ASAP. Good luck!

  4. It is hell getting old. I had about the same situation this time last year – torn meniscus. I went under the knife three days after Thanksgiving. Fortunately, recovery time from getting scoped is faster than it used to be. I was back on my feet in a few weeks, and had zero problems riding all summer. It is a good chance to sit on your ass and read without thinking that you should be doing something productive.

  5. What a fuckin’ whiner !!!! You act like you are the first guy whose knee ever hurt. Suck it up and get your little arthroscopic surgery, let it heal, then get back on the bike when you can.

    I am an orthopedic PA and I look at x-rays like these every day. Your joint space is well preserved, so your pain is probably from a meniscal tear, have you had an MRI? Cartilage doesn’t show up on x-rays so that loose body is just a calcified piece of something or other and probably not responsible for your pain.

    How old are you? What are you going to do when you get old and all of your joints hurt every morning? Maybe you should sell your bikes and get a job selling shoes. I mean, I’m jus’ sayin’….

    Tooloose

  6. knees are far and away the #1 career-ending injury for skiers. I count myself lucky @ age fifty.

  7. …gettin’ old ain’t for sissies…that is a fact..

    …59 years old & still kickin’ like a motherfucker…but i do spin those gears cuz i’m real aware that knees don’t last if ya don’t take care of ’em…

    …good luck, bud…it ain’t fun being laid up & off the bike but you’ll come back, you’ll ride hard again & i’ll venture to say that you’ll probably do it very carefully…

  8. I am a nonoperative sports medicine doc from Bozeman. I went to undergrad in Flag. I agree with OOLBP, your knees look fine on those xrays. But they don’t tell the whole story. Do you have locking, swelling, instabilitiy. Were those pics taken laying or standing. The two blips you see behind your knee on the lateral view are normal variances, sesmoid bones. NO BIG DEAL… You may do just fine with PT etc or you may need surgery. Find a surgeon you trust. You can contact me with any questions.

  9. …nice offer, (doc) landshark…

    …& oolbp ???…what the fuck ???…to the layman, who feels he has a problem but doesn’t yet know it’s real depth, you come across like a dick…

    …what are you, from flagstaff ???…

  10. I’m a 35 year old recovering from a blown ACL (torn at SSWC 08) I ride with the surgeon that fixed me, which made a huge difference in my willingness to get cut. He did me up right without the use of a tourniquet, which means faster initial recovery of movement. Now at week six I have been able to ride on the road (flatish ones) and have been watching my son (14 months and walking) full time through the week. I suspect that your recovery will be faster. Good luck with that. Stop whining and get drinking.

  11. Trust me, I’m loading up for that ‘dry-post-op’ time. Im not doubting it’ll be fairly quick, it just sucks is all. At least it’s in the off season. No missing gorgeous summer days with my knee all bandaged up in a gimp-like state.

    I’ll be on my trainer as soon as possible for movement, then slowly building up resistance and regaining whatever I might have lost.

    As for the ‘suck it up’ types. I wasn’t being a whiner. I just figured you needed something more to hate on, since Gnomie is sick of your shit. Honestly I can’t blame him.

    As for PT versus orthoscopic blah blah… trust me, when it sounds like Im grinding coffee when I bend it, and there feels like a rubber band snapping over the outer edge of my patella… yeah… Im sure there is something there that needs to be removed or scraped, or cut or whatever we decide to do.

    Maybe I’ll get to post the video. If I can get one, I will.

    —bp

  12. bikepunk….as a sports medicine physician, I don’t think your knee looks that bad…when looking at the ‘rays…I see that osseous entity, but that looks more like a fabella- in about 15-20% of humans, there is a small accessory ossicle that forms in the lateral head of the gastrocnemius muscle called the fabella..when I look at the positioning of it on both the AP and lateral (particularly the AP) that looks like a fabella.