In Kneed

Hey blog,

Well I owe you a quick update.

Knee

It's still attached, which is a good start I think. I saw the doctor a couple days ago (the first one who isn't a knee specialist) and after inspecting my x-rays, with much apprehension on my part, he says there isn't any new bone damage that would be the cause of the pain. There are some bone spurs, but comparing the new x-rays to old ones taken before I had my knee surgeries, they haven't changed and there aren't any new ones. So bone damage is ruled out. That's good, it means I probably won't have to replace my knee and it confirms that the bone allografts are holding up well. Dat ist goot. The doctor believes that the pain is brought about by some issue with the cartilage. Either the cartilage in the painful spot is rough in some manner and grates against the knee or it pulls back when I bend the knee and allows the bone to grind against bone. The only way to find out is through MRI scans, so now comes the fun waiting game of "MRI when are you going to call me to get done and then afterwards will I have to wait two weeks to actually learn the results?" Perhaps we can shorten the title to "MRI how long will this take?" Or even shorter: "MRI be on time." I like that.

(Note: The last couple times I've had MRIs it took over two weeks to hear back about the results, which left me stressed out and anxious because waiting is the single worst thing people have to do on a regular basis.)
(Second note: The picture above is substantially less gruesome than the other one I thought briefly about showing. There's an interesting story about that shoved into my book somewhere though. Basically: don't open computer files from your doctor unless you are absolutely sure what they contain, unless you like being surprised by blood and body parts.)

This is what I look like when I'm surprised, although with more of a beard probably

So that's the knee. Besides that there isn't a whole lot to report. I just spent the last week doing essay after essay and knocking back some reading and doing a couple tests and all that jazz and funk and blues and other musical genres that relate to that. Nothing interesting on that front. Nothing new with writing, nothing new with anything else. Too busy for new things. Maybe that's not so bad though? I did write a poem. It's kinda weird. Okay it's a lot weird. That's good though, it's one of the few poems I've written (and one of the only ones I've liked). That's it on writing.

OH!

Nick, who was in Italy training for this insane race called the Tour of Giants (Tor des Géants), did his race and placed second (making him the first America to ever finish on the podium in this race)! He hasn't put out a race report yet because he just got back to the states yesterday, but here's a post he did about the list of things he learned while training for this brutal race of doom: Thing he did before the race. Tor des Geants is probably one of the more insane things he's ever done. Before you go "Oh it's probably not super crazy. Like a couple marathons maybe?" No. No. Try 205 miles (330 kilometers) over several days of running up and down mountains. His time? 76:29:38. Yea, just over three days of running. In case you hadn't figured it out yet, Nick is insane. 

That's all I have for you today. Check back later when more things will be added.

Your knee'dy ruler,
Andrew