Basketball Injury

On September 3, Doug managed to injure himself while playing basketball with the other "boys" at the church. I knew as soon as the door opened that something was wrong. He came directly into the bedroom with his garbage bag full of ice. My innards sunk and my mind starting racing a million miles a minute. We decided to wait to go to the E.R. until the next day. Doug was trying to be optimistic and thought maybe it would be something that he could just "walk off". Well, here we are three weeks later and there hasn't been any change.

We went to the E.R. the following afternoon. Thanks to a neighbor's knee brace Doug had been able to go to class in the morning. A friend watcher the girls because we were afraid we were going to be at the hospital forever. We were pleasantly surprised with the short amount of time we had to wait. Granted, by the time we were done we'd been gone for a couple of hours, but much better than the five or six hours we thought it would take.

The only thing we learned from the visit was that it wasn't broken (x-ray's proved that), which Doug had already figured out. They gave him crutches and an immobilizer to wear until he could get in and see his primary care doctor.

Last week we went to our primary care physician and he gave the order to get an MRI. We went to another hospital and had the MRI done. We got the results a few days ago. It wasn't good. I don't really understand it all, but he has at least one tear in the ACL and a possible tear somewhere else.

We went to a specialist today and he said he wants to wait another three weeks until we decide on if Doug needs surgery. It sounds like it's something he'll have to have done, but they usually wait six weeks after the injury to make sure there isn't any more swelling. In the meantime Doug is supposed to start walking without a brace and to try and wean himself off the crutches. The doctor also wants him to work out on a bicycle machine. Thankfully there's one at the school Doug can use.

So, after hoping for three weeks that we would finally know the outcome of Doug's injury, we are still waiting to know the end result. Hopefully in another three weeks we'll have the final diagnosis and we can move forward.

Here are some pictures I was able to get of Mr. Gimpy. I thought I had some others but I found out Doug deleted them. I think I'll try to make him recreate them because someday he'll be able to look back at this time and laugh at himself.

At the E.R.
I wanted to get a picture of him in the wheelchair while I was pushing him, but he absolutely refused. I'm sure it looked really funny, a man sitting in the wheelchair while his weak wife pushed. I'm laughing just remembering how we must have looked. Notice his face in the picture, he did NOT like me taking the picture. Don't worry, the room was empty when I pulled out my camera. I wouldn't have been brave enough to do it otherwise.

Immobilized
I had to snap these in a hurry because he didn't want me to take them, but I thought it looked HILARIOUS!!! I love the immobilizer over the pants! Now just picture him with crutches and you've got the whole picture.