How broken do I have to be?

When I saw my Ortho back in June he said, "Come back and see me when you are ready to do something." Not an exact quote but pretty damn close. I thought okay... I had just spent the entirety of the appointment saying no to everything he could offer me except for PT.  PT was an AWESOME experience this past summer.  Shame on me for not keeping up with my home exercises, but it really did improve my overall functionality.  The release of my IT band was worth the physical pain and the emotional hassle of finding someone to watch my Brie.

Imagine my ____________ when I saw him last week and he was all, let's get an MRI.  Really?  Another MRI?  What on earth could you possibly see in there that would changed anything.  I reminded him that there is all sorts of distortion etc and he said that's fine...  We'll do it anyways.  Frankly I feel like I am being put off.  I don't know why I have this feeling but I do.  He also said a few other things that stuck with me, this gem, "Your knee does not respond well to surgery."  Yeah, no shit, that's how I got here. And also this, "We can follow up via email." Since I didn't make the appointment with the MRI peeps right away I had to call back his secretary. She surprisingly scheduled me a followup for the day of the MRI.  I am so tempted to blow it off.  It's next Tuesday...  I have some time to decide, but I think I'll go because I'm hurting.

I mean really hurting. The lighting is kind of crappy but I took a couple pictures of my knee two nights ago because I was trying to get a good picture of how small my left leg is compared to right one. What I ended up with instead was a punch to the gut.  I think it's the weight loss.  My knee is a ball of arthritis, I knew this was the case, but it is so physically obvious now.  This picture makes me want to gain weight, so that I can't see the swelling around the joint.  I know that's silly, but it is sort of how I felt about my excess skin.  This need to disguise or hide it by plumping back up the rest of me.  I know that would be the worst thing I could do for myself and honestly I really would like to lose ten more pounds.  Less weight will still hopefully equal less pain. 

I know that I wanted to go five years knee surgery free...  but I just don't know that I'll make it.  There are all sorts of ways to finesse that number but fact is that on December 1st it will be six years (OMG SIX YEARS) since I had the third ACL try.  In March of next year it will have been 4 years since anyone was last in the joint capsule and that was only for a peek to make sure my wonky bone graft wasn't doing anything weird on the inside.  My knee is full of scar tissue and random flotsam and jetsam.  I have osteophytes every where and my whole knee is just a disaster.  I was informed by a really nice Twitter peep that since the whole knee is an issue that MRI won't really pinpoint my pains.  I'd believe it, even still I'd like to understand what is wrong in there.  Knowing the mechanical glitches helps me process pain.

I need to courage up and ask about the long range plan in specifics. If I was 70 they'd be, here have a new knee.  But I'm half that and honestly my knee doesn't respond well to surgery.  Not sure what I'll do, but I need to make a plan.  Too much worry is being wasted on what ifs right now.