Dave the rapper.... umm... wrapper...

Ahh yes, the ongoing leg saga... Dave doesn't think I should blog about my leg but a lot of you have been asking so I decided that, since it is having a huge impact on my life, it deserves it's own blog...

Here's the easy peasy version... I fell.  Tore a ligament, sprained my knee, yadda yadda yadda.  The fall (and having to stay off my feet so that my muscles would heal) caused the arthritis in both of my knees to worsen.  I have no cartilage in my left knee and half my cartilage in my right knee.  Yes... it hurts.  A lot.  They want to replace both of my knees but I am holding off on that because, if I do it now, they'll be worn out in 15 years and I'll have to have it done again then. 

Over the last few years I had noticed swelling in my right leg that just seemed to get progressively worse.  The fall caused it worsen dramatically.  Up until 2010 I had no health insurance so, although it concerned me, I ignored it.  Now that I have health insurance I went to have it checked out. 

My doctor and I both thought that it was a tumor of some sort, so she sent me to have an MRI.  Good news:  no tumor, which = no cancer.  Bad news:  It is lymphedema.  The best we can tell is that a serious car accident, that I was in about 13 years ago, caused some damage to my lymphatic system and, as a result, lymphatic fluid is pooling in my thigh. 

The only effective treatment is compression.  I now have to go to physical therapy 3x a week for massage and bandaging.  I am bandaged from my toes to the top of my thigh.  At night, and on the days I don't have physical therapy, Dave does the bandaging.  He has been wonderful through this.  It takes an hour to put lotion on my leg and bandage it properly, Dave does it without complaint. 

He says he's a "wrapper" now haha...

I am including a couple photos because it is easy to see the size difference between my two legs (although keep in mind that one IS bandaged which adds some bulk).

 

So far we are already seeing a lot of improvement.  The swelling is going down and my thigh is less tender and hard.  The photos below are for comparison sake... The first photo is my unbandaged foot which also has some swelling.  The swelling shown in this photo is NOTHING compared to the swelling that was in my right foot and ankle (too bad i didn't take a before pic of that leg).

The following pic was taken after a day of bandaging.  I was amazed by how much of my "fat" was really fluid!

So that's the story.  I'll be bandaged until the swelling has gone down as much as it can and then I will have to wear compression hose.  For the rest of my life... because Lymphedema never truly goes away... sigh...