Misadventures in Public Healthcare, Part II: Wounded Knee, The Next Generation

The year was 2013 when we got a call from school. Our oldest daughter, who was 12 at the time, had fallen during gym class and hurt her knee. The school nurse had examined the injury and concluded that there is indeed a bruise on her knee. The story didn't exactly end there.

Time passed, her knee healed somewhat, and then she fell again. This time it was clearly dislocated, which we already suspected had happened earlier too. We started to worry that there might be some damage in her knee ligaments, and that it might get dislocated even more easily in the future as well.

She was given crutches and a support bandage. We took her case to the school insurance company, because it seemed clear the two incidents were not separate. To exactly nobody's surprise, that was not at all how the insurance company saw it - according to them, the first time it was just a bruise because that's how the school nurse saw it. Moral of the story? Always take your kids to the doctor if they are injured during school or on their way there, if there is even a remote chance it may be something more serious. Not that it would have made much of a difference in my daughter's case, though.

Not long after, she dislocated her knee again. The doctors concluded that the muscles around her knee are too weak to support it, and we were instructed that she needs physical therapy and exercise to remedy the situation. She was also given a heavier brace to be constantly worn around her knee. She couldn't run and even walking took considerable effort, because she had to constantly focus on stepping just the right way in order to keep her kneecap from slipping out of place.

Years passed and no amount of physical therapy helped her. It's impossible to say how many times her knee was dislocated during that time - she routinely slapped her knee back in place herself whenever it happened. But it was always bad, and we had to take her to the doctor many, many times.

Eventually she had an MRI taken. There was this young bachelor looking at the images. "I think there is something weird going on here" he said. "I'll ask a senior doctor if we can send you to be examined by the orthopedics department in Oulu". And in there she finally received a proper diagnosis: There was a developmental issue with her leg bones (both legs, in fact - the other one just wasn't quite as bad) that had gone unnoticed for all this time.

She needed some pretty hardcore surgery to rearrange her leg bones. The ligaments on her knee were long gone, so they also installed a permanent anchor around her knee cap to keep it in place.

Her x-ray after the operation, used with permission.

Recovery was a painful process, and she needed another surgery after a year or so where they removed all the screws and titanium plates from her legs. But eventually, after six years of suffering, she was able to walk again without the constant fear of dislocating her knee from the slightest excuse.