Long ago and far away (during my senior year of high school), I was climbing a 20-foot ladder to retrieve a pallet of paint from three-story warehouse. While I was carrying gallons of paint down the ladder, I got my foot caught in a rung and twisted my right knee. Despite fighting the claim, my employee recognized their fault and my injury, and I had my leg braced for part of the summer. I didn’t tear but I did loosen the post cruciate ligament (PCL) of my right knee.
A couple years later, I seriously wondered if my right knee was going to keep me from passing Basic Military Training (BMT) at Lackland AFB in 1992. Thankfully, the requirements for “running” a mile was a 12min/mile. At 12 minutes, you could effectively JOG a mile and not have to RUN it. So I did. At just over 10 minutes, I took my mile at a very comfortable pace and still passed BMT. My right knee was in considerable pain that week between daily exercises, hikes around Lackland in full battle dress uniforms (BDUs), and trying to haul my sorry ass a mile in under 12 minutes.
Fast forward 30 years, I have lymphedema in my left leg (secondary to Mantle Cell Lymphoma) and now I’m having sharp “grinding pains” in my right knee. I’ve been woken up multiple times in sharp pain as it feels like bone-on-bone grinding in my right knee. I’ll need to get my leg x-rayed next week.
It’s always something… isn’t it?
Yes. Yes, it is. At least in my case, even healed injuries seem to be cumulative. I hope YMMV.