I FINALLY got around to doing something about my bad left knee—only a year and 8 months after my fateful Ventura-Ojai bike ride. The good news: I can get it fixed. The bad news: all the time I wasted and unnecessary pain I experienced.

So last week I finally went in for an MRI on my knee. This was a result of my getting fed up with the nagging pain in my left knee, the loss of mobility and the fear that I wouldn’t be able to sit in seiza position when I go to Japan. After several referrals, HMO scheduling games and a brief detour to a Rheumatologist (no sign of RA, BTW) there I was under the large, thumping monstrosity.

My greatest fear—more than finding a problem—was that they wouldn’t find anything wrong. I got the results this past Tuesday and sure enough I have a diagonally torn meniscus. GEEZ! I shoulda dealt with this ages ago (my original injury and x-rays were in May 2004 for cryin’ out loud…)

Anyway, I’m back in the HMO paperwork mill to schedule arthroscopic surgery to get it fixed. I’m given to understand that it’s a relatively straightforward, 45-minute outpatient procedure. I’m hoping to get it done sometime in the next 2-3 weeks to make sure I have adequate rehab time before Japan in mid-June. The doctor says I’ll be out of pocket for a couple days, then hobble around on crutches (which arrived on my doorstep yesterday) for about a week.

This is certainly good news, and I hope it truly does get me back to normal. I need to get back in the gym and hopefully back into either triathlon again or into a martial art.