My name is Lena and I'm 26. I live in Brisbane, Australia and I'm a Highschool teacher. I started this blog because I wanted to share my story with other people and to create a blog that could provide helpful information for other people who may face situations and problems similar to mine.
I have a large Osteochondral Defect in my left knee that manifested itself in January of this year. The lesion on my knee is fairy unique because I didn't actually do anything to cause it. I just woke up one day and my knee was painful and swollen. This was also the problem, since my pain wasn't localised and my 'knee mice' (the loose bodies in my knee) moved around a lot and caused my knee to swell and hurt in different places.
The biggest problem I faced when I first hurt my knee was that no one really listened to me. I saw four doctors before I was finally given a correct diagnoses. Most doctors thought I'd hurt my my ACL or that I had a soft tissue injury, and would prescribe me rest and pain killers. When the problem didn't go away, two of the doctors gave me a response that amounted to, "Your knee should be better by now as there wasn't much wrong with it to begin with, so you must be making it up."
However, I knew there was someting wrong with my knee and I persisted until I found a doctor who sent me for both an X-Ray and an CT-scan...and the mystery of what was wrong with my knee was solved. My doctor sent me to an Orthapaedic surgeon who then sent me for a MRI and was finally able to tell me the realities of why my knee was so messed up.
The OCD in my knee is pretty big and I'm having MACI surgery to fix it up. Earlier this year I had an Arthroscopy so that OS could see remove the loose bodies in my knee, clean up the crater and see how bad the damage to my knee was. They also took a cartilage sample which is bring grown in a lab for the MACI surgery. It isn't an easy process and the rehabilitation process is going to be slow and painful, but I'm as prepared as I can be - and more importantly - I want to share my story.
