Days 17 & 18

As mentioned on Monday, I had an indoor match at the Brookfield Indoor Soccer Complex last night. As I mentioned on Sunday, I had been pretty lucky in terms of knee and ankle health up to that point.

Yesterday, that changed for the worse.

What should have been a simple cover-up on a low cross may end up being the end of this adventure.

Early in the second half, I landed on my right knee diving to cover up a lose ball in the box and felt a slight pop. I got up and carried on, paying attention to see how the knee was doing.

There wasn't much pain (other than the near-ever-present carpet burn on my kneecap), but it just felt a little off. As the game went on, I started to get more worried about my knee, because something just didn't seem right.

About 10 minutes later, I took off diving right to left going after a deflected shot. As I launched off my right foot, I noticed a slight bobble in the knee. Trying to scamper across the box to defend the far post, I had a bit of difficulty getting back up. The pain still wasn't really there, but something still didn't feel right.

I took myself out of a game of any kind for only the third time this year (the first being a near-broken hand from being stomped on during hurling match, and the most recent being a concussion suffered from a screened free kick to the face), and put some Biofreeze gel on it to dull the pain and keep the swelling down.

Last night, it was just a bother and only really hurt when I pulled my knees tight to my chest. Put a sleeve on it, propped it up on a few pillows, and called it a night.

This morning was a different story.

What had just been a weird feeling had turned into a dull pain, even at rest. After I took the sleeve off, the swelling appeared rather quickly near the top of the patella on the vastus medialius.Walking was difficult, crouching inspired sharp pain, and it was a challenge getting in and out of the bath tub. Walking up and down stairs normally is impossible, requiring two steps per stair (with the left leg doing all the bending).

From what I know about injuries of this type, the most likely diagnosis is cartilage damage or an injury to the quadriceps tendon.

I have an appointment at 2:45 tomorrow, so hopefully I'll know more after that.

If you hadn't already guessed, I won't be running today.