The column/puzzle experiment is over. The heal-the-knee experiment is on.
Starting in January, every column has had some content that would make the I Swear Crossword easier to solve. That is, there has been a tie-in between the two items. For 20 weeks.
Also, there was a contest. With a nice prize offered to the person whose name would be drawn from a list of winners.
All you had to do was “name the change” in the column. The change was that each week the column and the crossword were connected.
There were no winners.
There were no entrants. Iron-ically, fan mail has gone up geometrically, but no one entered the contest.
Meanwhile, another experiment has begun. Perhaps you will find this one to be of more substance.
At a Web site called coimed.org you may learn that “Platelet Rich Plasma (PRP) therapy is a non-surgical treatment” used to treat orthopedic problems such as sprains, cartilage tears, tendonitis and osteoarthritis.
Quoting: “This injection of a concentrated mixture of the patient’s own blood has been shown to relieve acute and chronic pain and accelerate healing of injured tissues and joints.”
Blood is taken from the patient’s arm, then spun “in a centrifuge to separate the blood into platelets and white blood cells, plasma, and red blood cells.” A solution that is “platelet rich” is then injected into and around the patient’s wound.
The platelets release “growth factors that promote a natural immune response.” Special white cells (Macrophages) “remove damaged cells and prepare the tissue for healing.
“Stem cells and other cells multiply, repair and rebuild the damaged tissue. This accelerated healing response reduces pain, promotes increased strength, and improves joint function.”
I’ve had four major injuries to my left knee. A football injury at age 15, a basketball injury at age 25 and a fall from a top bunk at age 35 pretty much decimated the cartilage, most of which was removed in 1987 after the third wounding.
For good measure I popped the ACL in 1996 and had that repaired in 1997. That was when my orthopedist said that I’d need a knee replacement someday and that I’d know when I was ready.
In 2008 I thought I was ready, but the same doc reassured me: “You’re not in enough pain yet.”
But I was in pain, daily pain. On a 10-point scale, I was living with 4’s and 5’s, with occasional bursts to eight and nine. I had the PRP injection on May 5. I’m, writing this on May 12. For three days my knee was practically pain-free. Some pain returned on day four, but seemed to diffuse by day five.
The past two days have been marked by occasional levels of two, with long periods of no pain at all! Swelling is down for the first time in years. I have almost full range of motion in swinging my calf, with no pain during some movements that, just eight short days ago, were excruciating.
I’ll keep you posted.
Vic Fleming is a district court judge in Little Rock, Ark., where he also teaches at the William H. Bowen School of Law. Contact him at vicfleming@att.net.