Knee Anniversary

I originally wrote this blog post two years after this awesome injury happened. I didn’t have a blog until two years after it occurred. One of my favorite activities at camp that summer was to “tell the story of your greatest injury” because I love to tell this story. Here is the official recap of the story behind my greatest injury ever.

It was Wednesday of the fifth session at camp. Wednesday at camp is cookout day for lunch, so we had just picked up our food at the lodge. The girls had gone ahead of us, so myself, Butterfly (counselor) and Star (CIT) were walking down the waterfront stairs with the remaining food. I was carrying a container of fruit and Butterfly and Star were in front of me walking (stress walking – I was not running as some have accused!). When we were near the bottom of the stairs, I (figured out after it happened) tripped on a rock that was sticking out and rolled down the remaining 5 or 6 stairs. When I landed at the bottom there was no longer any fruit because it had opened and fell all over the area. Star and Butterfly stayed with me to see if I was okay. I have no idea how I didn’t fall into them, but someone I was the only one injured. I felt okay and tried to get up, but was dizzy so I sat back down. I had my walkie talkie with me so I called Tink, our Health Supervisor. That summer I would be forever be remembered as the girl who fell down the stairs and still was able to call for help. Yeah, I’m awesome. 😉

In minutes Tink came to rescue me in her golf cart. I hobbled to the cart and she helped me in and grabbed my backpack that I had taken off. She whisked me up to the Welcome Center and drove the cart all the way to the door. She helped me out and I hobbled inside and into the bathroom. She saw that there was quite a bit of gravel and dirt in the wound, so she had me take off my shoes and socks and hop into the shower to try to clean it out. I was in a whole lot of pain, so she gave me a Tylenol to help a little. The shower experience was so painful because the wound was so raw and there was so much in it. Tink quickly realized that this was more than she could handle, so she talked to Velma (camp director) about who could be acquired to take me to Urgent Care. She also checked with Blinks (Adventure Director) to find out if one of the vans was available. Busy Bee was contacted and she came up and given the job to take me. I again hobbled over to the cart and she drove me across the parking lot to the van and we were on our way. Urgent Care is right by the local Wal-Mart so it was no problem to find it.

Tink hooked me up with some crutches to take with, and since I’ve had previous experience with them, I had no problem getting along with them. Biz dropped me off at the door and went to park. We went in together and got the paperwork started to get me taken care of. I was covered by the camp’s insurance so I was able to be seen without any problem. After a short wait they brought me into the exam room.

I was first met by a nurse, who looked over my knee and saw that the debris was very far into my knee. She told me that I cut my knee just about as far as I could without getting stitches. A doctor came in to check and let me know that the only way to clean it out would be to numb and scrub the wound. This is where the real pain began because the numbing meds were in a very big needle and it was so painful to have that being poked all over my knee. It was so painful that I was crying. After my knee was all numbed I felt no pain, which was great. The nurse was then able to scrub out the wound and get all the debris out. After it was clean and ready, she dressed the wound and I was good to go. She gave us some instructions for how to care for the wound which Biz diligently wrote down and we were able to go.

I took my crutches and we headed out after the van was retrieved. We stopped at Subway to pick up lunch (she took my order and got it for me) and then headed back to camp. I went in on crutches to the Welcome Center and was met by CITs and a few staff members. I went to the table to eat and Biz told them what the nurse had told us. I would need to redress the wound daily, limit movement for a few days and take pain killers a few times a day as needed.

The rest of the week I had quite a few golf cart rides, which was sometimes an inconvenience and went with Tink daily to re-dress the wound. I had to revise some of my nature activities so that I wouldn’t have to move much and was on crutches the rest of the week. I continued on crutches through the weekend and got permission to play for mass downstairs.

I was still on crutches coming back on Sunday for the next session and Mom (registered nurse) took a look at it later that afternoon. The goal of the next few weeks was to get mobility back, so I stopped using crutches and did all I could to get my knee back to full use. I think I took a little too long in using it fully, however. By the end of the week, I was back to full use. I had it re-dressed for a few days, but within a few days of the second week, we let the wound “breathe” and left off the dressing. Eventually, I developed an awesome scar, had full use of my knee back and had a great story to tell.

The worst part of all of this is that this injury came smack dab in the middle of my marathon training. I was looking forward to doing my first full marathon in October and this injury took me out of training for a month (perhaps a little longer than necessary). After camp, I had quite a bit of catch-up to do, but I got back on track and was able to complete the race with no problem.

The scar of this injury still remains, but it is much better than it was two years ago. The photos of the months after the wound are on Facebook, but I’ll include a photo of the wound today here. I hope I never have to experience anything like this again, but I am so grateful that it wasn’t worse than it was and that I was able to recover quickly.