Surgery woes

For those of you who haven't been around for the past ten years: I have a bum knee from a freak cheerleading accident in high school (and by "freak" I mean I was dropped and am still bitter about it). For all these years I've learned to deal with the pain and have been dancing on it. I fought the pain and continued cheerleading that year, as well as playing soccer. I fought the pain when I was dancing 6 days a week for my college dance team, and I still deal with the pain now when I teach dance classes at night. After a while it actually doesn't hurt anymore.

Unfortunately, your body develops the pain response for a very good reason. Rather than listening to my body, I chose to take the advice of a doctor who didn't think that my injury was worth taking an MRI and ignore my physical symptons. Long story short, I should have had my ACL in my right knee repaired way back then. My doctor now, who realizes that knee pain deserves at LEAST a little investigation, has advised me that if I don't get my ACL repaired now I will have debilitating arthritis by the time I'm in my early 30's. Oh, and since I didn't get the surgery all those years ago, I've also done irreparable damage to my meniscus. Guess who's getting double surgery!!!

So my surgery is going to be Tuesday... I'll be out of work on short-term disability for a few weeks. I'm obviously going to be in a lot of pain. Crutches for a month. Hideous leg brace for an who knows how long? Physical therapy. Gigantic scar. On the bright side, after about 6 months to a year I will be as good as new! Well, almost like new. But definitely better than I am now.