Knee update, straight from the horse's um, patella

Hi. Joan here. I thought I'd butt in to give an update on my knee.

To quote my favorite singer/songwriter (who I hope actually wrote this lyric), "Some days are diamond, some days are stone." In other words, some days are not so bad, some days my best friend's name is Vicodin, and some days are kind of in between. The lovely and talented Stephani at Texstar Physical Therapy has me on a regimen of some truly evil exercises that will really help my knee. Some day. If they don't kill me first.

Except for one other exercise ("Heel raise, unilateral (standing)"), my least favorite time is the four minutes - the four very long minutes - I spend lying on my stomach on one of the beds, with my legs hanging over the end, supported by the bed just above my knees.

"Lying around? What kind of exercise is that? And it hurts? You some kinda wimp, or something?"

Taking your questions in order:
1) Yes.
2) Knee extension mobilization hang (prone).
3) Like a mofo. Especially with a one-pound weight around my ankle.
4) Yes.

But once I've finished with the Quadriceps set, the exercise bike, the walking-sideways-with-a-stretchy-band-around-both-legs-just-below-the-knee, and all of the other goodies Stephani has dreamed up for my torture, I get dessert: electrical stimulation with a TENS unit and a circulating cold wrap. AAAHHhhhhhhhh.............. I bound up from the chair, skip merrily out to the car, and drive home, arriving just in time for the zapping and chilling to wear off so I can drag myself into the house, gulp down a Vicodin, and collapse on my bed. Fun, fun, fun. And I pay $45, twice a week for this privilege.

Mind you, that $45 is just the co-pay. (And the fine folks at TexStar tell me it's the highest they've ever seen.) I don't know how much my tight-fisted health insurer is forking out, but it must be considerable bucks, or I wouldn't have gotten a missive from "Unonymous Subrogation Services" in Wisconsin trying to pin the blame for my injury on somebody else so they could sue them. Let me get this straight: I'm a clumsy person. I strain the living bejeezus out of my knee trying not to fall over stepping up on a curb, I tear my meniscus, need surgery, and somebody, somebody by God!! must be sued?? What the heck am I paying premiums for?

I could understand if I were the injured party in a car accident that was not my fault, or I got squashed by a falling Oxford English Dictionary at work, or had my eye poked out by an exploding soda bottle cap, but c'mon! Clumsy happens. Get over it. Pony up, Untied Health Care. Pry open the ol' corporate wallet and let some of those extortionate premiums fly and be free.

Jen reminds me that if it weren't for insurance companies running around suing everybody else (or trying to) that she'd be out of a job. Okay. Fine. I don't have to like it when I'm the one under scrutiny for subrogation, though.

So, that's the news from Knee Central. Keep those cards and letters coming in. We now return you to your regularly-scheduled all-blogging, all-swimming paralegal goddess, Jen. Take it away, Jen!