Brought to My Knee

Last night I injured my left knee pretty badly. In the children's karate class, we were doing this exercise in which everyone lies on the floor with their legs in the air, and people take turns going around the circle stepping on their stomachs. This is to strengthen the abs. Anyhow, I was hurrying around the circle counterclockwise, and I stepped on one girl's stomach with my right foot. Just as I stepped on her, she raised her legs, and I tripped on her legs with my left leg as I was taking my next step. I fell and landed on the next child in the circle. So I not only took myself out for the evening, but I took out two kids along with me. Luckily, it was not my night to teach, so even though I was out of commission, the class went on.

I spent the entire evening sitting on a chair with a cold pack on my knee. The two girls I injured also sat with cold packs on their legs. I told the girl I landed on that I was grateful to her because if she hadn't broken my fall, I might have broken my arm. She was glad to have been of service. The other girl who I tripped on felt like it was her fault, but I told her that it was just an accident and it wasn't her fault. At the end of class, I talked to both of the girls' mothers, and explained what had happened. They seemed very understanding, and they were not at all angry that their children had been injured.

I think I got the worst of it, though. I tripped on the one girl's thigh, and landed hard on the other girl just above her knee. I went to the student health center this morning, and apparently I landed hard on my patella and pushed it into my femur, damaging the cartilage between them, and causing bleeding and swelling. Fortunately, I didn't twist my knee as I fell, so there was no ligament damage or anything like that.

I got a sports physician for my walk-in (or, in my case, hobble-in!) appointment this morning, so I think he probably knew what he was talking about. He did some weird things to test my knee, including sitting on my foot and pushing on my bent knee to make it go "thud." It did go "thud," which he said was a good sign. He gave me a list of exercises to start doing in about a week, after my knee starts feeling better, and also a prescription for some super naproxen pills which I am to take twice a day for at least a week and a half.

He seemed to think that it should heal up just fine, in time. For the time being, he said I would probably have to do less teaching by example, since my knee isn't going to want to do some of the things we do in karate. The main source of pain, aside from the swelling, is when the muscles in my thigh pull on my knee. So bending the knee is very painful, and squatting is pretty much out of the question for the next week or two. He said that swimming would actually be a good source of exercise that wouldn't hurt too much right now. I could also do some elliptical training, but walking will have to wait, and working up to full karate will take a while.