Weights anybody?

[missliz]

I had congenital knee alignment problems, femoral patella syndrome, that hurt but went undiagnosed and treated because I come from an era when woman weren't taken seriously as athletes in this country, and sports med was an all boy club just like the sports. I reached a certain age, the cartilage went, I got run off the road by a truck up in there and banged up, the moronic doctor that was supposedly "treating" me sent me to quacks for orthotics and PT (there's a lawsuit pending), the orthotics were so horrendous and incompetantly done they caused biomechanical problems and completely destabilized my feet, my feet just blew apart one day. The plantar fascia in both feet ripped apart, one arch collapsed so completely the Pf separated. I got told all along the way I was doomed to this 'cause I had high arched 'unstable' feet. Lying bastards. Nobody makes it in fencing or skating with uncorrected inherent foot problems.
So my injuries are mostly from medical incompetance. My knees deteriorated to chondromalacia pattella grade 4 and 5 ( no cartilage on the back of the kneecap) because they moved over the sharp bit on the side of the femur instead of sliding along the groove they're supposed tp be in.
This explained why I'm the strongest fastest (was) woman in the area but I could never finish the century- I was fighting my own knees. The surgury to fix this (lateral release of the pattela) has gotten so relativly easy, and this bastard just blew it off. Don't these *******s realize that people need to walk around?
I was at university at the time, and was told this was the football teams doc. Big public universities in the US take football VERY seriously, and this was a good recommendation So I trusted him. He wasn't, they lied. The football teams doc was trained by the guy who finally fixed my knees properly, and he wouldn't have made this mess. I never expected this level of incompetance, you'd think people in health care would understand civil liabilityfor maiming people.
I'm kind of pissed. Fortuneately, the one sport I couldn't live without is cycling- the sport of choice for arthritic knees, and nice stiff shoes to help out my feet. On bad days I wear MT bike shoes to the gym to lift, they give lots of support. And LOTS of attractive men, , a nice carrot to think about when doing those awful leg lift things for PT.
I could rant on, but this is quite enough. I've been off sports for three years, and would have gone totally mad without this board. Thanks, girls.

missliz

and I'm not riding much, I think I have the Fear. And a lot of head colds from thinking I'm still race fit and blowing up.