Torn Meniscus

Here is a picture of my knee looking from the inside. The arrow is pointing to my medial meniscus and if you're a better doctor than I am you can see a tear in the meniscus. Above the arrow the big white thing is the end of my femur and the bone below is the end of my fibula. I learned something very interesting today. Did you know that the only purpose of the knee cap is to provide mechanical advantage to the ligament that pulls up your shin bone? It pushes the ligament forward so that it pulls more forward rather than straight up. Without a knee cap you would have 25% less power in your leg. How fascinating.

The doctor is suggesting that I get a meniscectomy which simply means that he will remove the torn part of the meniscus. I told him that it doesn't hurt unless I run and if I do run the pain is bearable and my only question was that if I keep running will it get better or worse? He told me that it will get worse and if I don't fix it and I keep running on it then it will destroy the surface of the bone and then I will end up with an artificial joint. If I don't fix it he would suggest that I quit running. I told him that I need to lose weight and since I don't want to eat less I needed to keep running. He laughed and told me that he'd never had anyone say that they exercised so that they could keep eating. He even put that in his notes. I really liked this doctor. So I guess it is off to surgery I go since I do want to keep running.

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While we lived in Rosemary I had pretty much every calling in the book. I was the instructor for the Elders Quorum, primary and Sunday School. I was a stake missionary, the ward mission leader, the scout master there isn't much left. I wasn't ever in any presidencies but believe me, that doesn't hurt my feelings. One of my favorite callings was when Lisa and I team taught the blazers and merry miss class (they're the eleven year olds). That was fun. My other all time favorite church calling was when I was the traveling companion with Don Gibb. Don was on the high council and once a month they have a high council Sunday where the high council visits your ward and speaks in sacrament meeting. Down here we have two high council men come visit our ward but perhaps because the Taber stake in Rosemary was a hundred miles across they paired the high councilman with some one from their own wards. Don asked me to travel with him and I loved it. I don't know if I bored the congregations out of their minds or not but I enjoyed speaking and I enjoyed the long drives with Don. We had many good conversations. For those reading this who may not know the organization of the church let me explain. A ward is the local congregation and consists of a few hundred people. A stake is a group of five to eight wards. I guess the ward would compare to a parish and a stake would compare to a diocese. The stakes are led by a stake president and in addition to his two councilors he has a group of twelve high councilmen who assist him. All leaders in the wards and stakes are lay ministers and volunteer their time. The bishops that we had while we lived in Rosemary are Don Gibb (before he was a high councilman) and Gary Norton.