The youngest I remember feeling pain in my knee was when I worked at a Movie Theater back in 2008/2009. Being on my feet for 8 plus hours a day was extremely painful. I thought I was dying at the end of every night. I got an internship in LA at an office and I began the other struggle....SITTING ALL THE TIME.
It wasn't until the summer of 2012 that I started experiencing pretty constant pain. I developed a crunching sensation and sound (very loud) anytime I went up stairs. I was working as a Post-Production Assistant and spent most my days driving around LA, lifting heavy craft service supplies, and walking all over tarnation to find office supplies and post-production gear needs. I was wearing a knee brace constantly, taking ibuprofen constantly (knee was always swollen) and was trying to swim a lot to rehab whatever was going on.
I was exiting my car on an average day sometime in September 2012. I was parked at home on a drive way that had a very steep incline. I stepped out, put weight on my foot and when I pivoted to stand I felt one of the most painful sensation I have, had right below my knee cap.
I fell to the ground and started balling immediately. It was scary. All I did was get out of my car. What the hell.
I quickly made an appointment with a doctor. I had, and currently have Kaiser. This proved difficult. The next 2 months were filled with jumping through hoops and doctors and PT and imaging, never resulting in anything real. Here's how it went down:
1. Primary doctor
Referred me to a knee specialist
2. Knee specialist
Got me an x-ray
3. X-Ray was normal (WTF?)
Referred me to a Physical Therapist
4. My first session was useless, the therapist could't even teach me moves and exercises to help because of pain
Referred me to a sports orthopedic specialist (They thought it was Arthritis)
5. Sports orthopedic specialist ordered me an MRI
I was at the Hollywood Museum of death on November 15th 2012 with my friend Joe. I was in the coffin room when I got the call.
"Hi Rebecca, this is Doctor...., we finally got your MRI results and we are seeing a rather large, golf ball sized tumor under your knee cap, We are going to need to take it out, we believe it is something called PVNS"
I had no idea, at that point, they made me aware that there was no guarantee it was benign or not
He set me up with an appointment on November 19th with a specialist orthopedic oncologist in Baldwin Park (Only person in Kaiser IN THE ENTIRE COUNTY) that deals with this kind of thing. In the meantime, I turned to Google. I was crushed, I was scared, I was angry. Drowning in web pages of sorrow and horror stories I was enveloped with a grim and negative outlook. It is very hard to find success stories out there, it's very disheartening. The tumors are not self contained, they latch on to tissue and bone and cartilage.
As you can see in the MRI the tumor blobs up and behind the knee cap. This little marble sized blob carved a whole in the patella. It also went into the meniscus and ate away at the front end of it.
My next blog will go into the surgery, treatment and some of the worst and most difficult days I have ever experienced.
Thanks all!
-Rebecca
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