No, I'm all messed up due to a series of falls in 2007, and I have back issues that came on big about the same time. The back stuff is a family wide thing on my Irish side. My Great Great Great Grandmother came over when she was 12, had 8 kids starting at 14 that lived to reproduce, and ALL of their descendants, except one lucky guy, had back issues, bad ones by 42. I was right on schedule, at 42, when I had a major bout of sciatica, one of many. I'm 2" shorter than I was at 40. Then came the falls. If it hadn't happened to me I wouldn't have believed it was possible to do the damage I did from simply stumbling. I was walking into a gas station, and I took a bad step. My right foot stuck and my foot became a pivot point and I slammed my knee into the sidewalk. It went numb instantly, which was good in a way, as I had no pain from the impact. I tore the hell out of my right shoulder trying to keep my face from slamming the sidewalk, and that did hurt a little(Not nearly what I expected it to) I crushed the Femoral Nerve under my right knee, causing (at first) almost total numbness about 4" above to about 4" below my knee. Along with the knee damage, I tore all my muscles in my thigh, calf, hip, shin, and even my foot! I could not tell if my leg was bent or straight (Except at the extremes) for over 3 years. While it was numb to the max, I fell down dozens and dozens of times, as my right knee wasn't locked up, or if I was tired, it would just fold up. Most of these falls were harmless, but about 3 months after the first fall, I fell in therapy, and I unknowingly partially tore my left quadricep tendon. That hurt very badly. After a short hospital stay for various reasons both related and unrelated to the fall, this is long enough without all that, but it is a good "hospital horror story", I was sent to rehab, where on the third day, after knowing somehow something bad was going to happen, my left knee folded up and I totally tore off my quadricep. Then there was surgery, etc. My left knee is treacherous, it seems to have a mind of it's own and sometimes it just folds up. My right knee is actually more trustworthy than the left one is, and it's not close to being right. Steps over a certain height are downright dangerous and I fall about once or twice a year and expect that will eventually end badly someday. This is my right knee almost 3 weeks after the original fall. The camera I took it with had weak red response and it's MUCH worse than the pic looks: As always the late King never left me alone. He really did love me.
What you can't see is that the bruising is the whole pictured area, it's all bruises. All of it, it just doesn't show because of the junk camera. Here is good ol' Bacon Foot:
My foot looked like that for about 18 months. I had about a quart of clotted blood on the bottom of my right thigh that took forever to go away. Here is my torn up bicep:
Again, the yellow area is actually kind of purple, the purple is almost black, and I could dislocate my arm at will for over a year. I was told I needed surgery, but never had it due to my poor walking and needing my right arm to walk with. But somehow after about 3 years, I regained over 90% of my right arm motion, but my bicep is damaged and has about a 30 pound lift limit on it. Any more and it hurts like hell and tries to tear itself off. A UFC, I think, fighter was doing a forward flip after winning a fight recently, and his foot stuck on landing, and it was a career ending deal, and they showed it in slow motion and I got to see what happened to me clearly for the first time. At least I didn't scream like he did the first time I fell, but the next two times when I fell in therapy, I made up for it. Anyway, I'm severely limited on exercise. And that's my tale of woe..
