Stephanie has been in Korea about a week and a half now. Before she left she dislocated her knee. It popped back in but left behind a lot of swelling and a loss of function. She didn’t appear to have torn any ligaments and x-rays didn’t show anything other than the obvious soft tissue swelling. Her pain was decreasing as her range of motion was increasing up until she left and we all felt comfortable sending her.
One of the sponsors for the school where she is teaching is a medical doctor who is the owner of a local private hospital/clinic. We sent her to the clinic for an MRI to rule out any significant internal derangement of her knee. Stephanie called us and asked why they were doing blood work and more x-rays at the same time. We just reassured her and told her to not argue…
The next day the head of the clinic spoke with us regarding the MRI findings. He said that it didn’t show much more than the x-rays but that there was some cartilage that was loose in the joint capsule and he recommended surgery to clean it up. In fact, he was prepared to operate in two hours!
Stephanie was stressed out about surgery but was reassured when they gave her the option of a local anesthetic. She consented when they told her that yes, she could video tape the operation if she wanted. (As it was, the surgeon emailed us about 50 photos from the arthroscopic procedure.) The surgeon said that the surgery would only take about 20 minutes; it took 40. He also said that she only be staying over night and would be walking around the next day.
As it turned out, she spent the next four days in the hospital, two days letting the knee drain and two more concentrating on rehab. She loved it! I know, you’re thinking, “What? How could she love it? She was stuck in a hospital for five days!” Yes, but she was treated like a queen. She was probably the most popular patient there. She had t.v. (of course) internet (만원 for her stay) and one roommate.
She got out of the hospital today (퇴원) and will get right back into the routine that she never got into in the first place. So far it has been an adventure for her (and her parents..).
