i *heart* berkeley

another successful berkeley trip complete!

yes, we managed to eat literally the entire day. (cheeseboard, love at first bite, cheeseboard pizza, gregoire's, sketch, pyramid, trattoria)

it was my first time up the campanile since college, and i forgot how gorgeous it is up there. i appreciate the city so much more now that i'm not living there... kind of sad, i wish i took more advantage of it while i was there.


can you tell it was windy up there? :)

i think i may have overdone it a little with my knee, but it was well worth it.

awesome weather, awesome food, great company. thanks God! definitely blessed.

berkeley pics. ready for the next berkeley outing!

**
so i got my MRI & saw the doctor this week. he didn't see a whole lot from my MRI. he did see a mass of new scar tissue that developed under one of my scars (which is consistent with me saying that i developed new sharp pains in that area after this last surgery) and excessive fluid in my knee. (perhaps from all the walking from saturday? note to self - don't walk so much.)

also, just like he noticed when he went into my knee in january, he again could see from the MRI that my ACL graft was not in the ideal location (no thanks to my first doctor) which is probably causing the instablility that i do feel, but not bad enough that he would do a complete revision. he thinks the main culprit is that too much of the fat pad in my knee was shaved off in my previous surgeries. he said it usually shouldn't be touched, but in some cases when it's in the way while trying to put in the new graft, a surgeon will minimally shave some off to get a better view. but in my case, too much was shaved off (again, no thanks to my first doctor.) there's nothing that can be done about that.

right now, he just wants me to focus on, what else, strenghtening my quad muscles. he said i will never get my knee back to 100%, and at best 80-90%. and he also said he wished my stanford doctor didn't go in to try to take out scar tissue (surgery #3).

so basically, yes, my first doctor had a lot to do with screwing me up, and some of it is not even fixable. i think my doctor doesn't think there's much more that can be done to help my knee besides my life-long goal of strengthening my quad muscles but i will see him in the oft-heard "six weeks" (every doctor i've seen who doesn't know what to do about my knee tells me to see him in six weeks. my stanford doctor had me see him every six weeks over a six month period before i gave up and left him for my current doctor.)

i don't know if i'll have ever have a real ending to my knee saga...