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Torn ACL

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Ben H

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I had an MRI Monday, diagnosed on Wednesday that I have a torn ACL, will be seeing the specialist tomorrow. It happened a month ago at my other job so workers comp is taking care of it. After a month of going to the Dr and PT they couldn't find what was wrong. They ordered an MRI, the insurance took a week and half to approve it but it did find the problem.

Here is something I had written back when I got injured on how it happened:

Lucky to be able to type this, almost killed by a cow. I had two cows to deal with this afternoon at the other herd I manage. One cow went fine. The other I wanted to avoid the stress of sorting her out and getting her into the chute (not a good setup for handling). She has a retained placenta and needed another shot of antibiotics. I gave her a 3cc dart of xylazine to make her sleepy with my dart gun. That didn't do the trick so I gave her another 1.25cc, still getting up so 1.5cc more. Finally I could get a halter on her and tied her head over to her leg. I got the medicine into her. Then I started to slowly administer the reversal drug Tolazine to wake her back up. Went fine on the other cow, this one was going well, giving it nice and slow, then it kicked in almost instantly and she got up before I could untie her halter from her leg. Once she gave up a bit I slowly approached, had to get her untied. She was giving me the "I want to kill you look", I put my hand on her head and slowly moved down the rope to my slip knot. I was going to pull the knot and slip the halter off her head. I got as far as the slip knot, as soon as she felt a little freedom of movement she came after me. I was standing next to a gate a little under 6' high. I scaled/jumped over it just as she came full force into after me. I twisted my knee a little landing on the other side but made it. She came at the gate but couldn't get to me, I sat down and laughed a little for being lucky to be alive. For now on, these cows are not to be worked alone.
 
Sorry for your injury, Ben H. Even though there are a lot of unemployed people in this world, it seems not many want a job in agriculture. The labor force in farming and ranching tends to be stretched very thin, and down time is hard to deal with. Praying for a speedy recovery for you.
 
By the way, this was a Piedmontese cow. I'm really not too happy with the attitudes some of them have. Some of the cows act more like bulls with their aggressiveness. I guess the one good thing to come out of this is they ordered some heavy corral panels plus a sweep tub and alley to feed the squeeze chute they had.
 
Tore the hell out of my miniscus a couple of years ago while at work mopping the floor at the power plant. Workman's comp took excellent care of me, MRI & all. Missed 2 actual work days because of it, but was back at it 6 days after surgery. Of course, taking 12 board readings in a 12 hour period isn't too taxing, especially when the board is 20 feet away from the office. I could have milked it for a whole lot more, but that's not my style. Still can't get on my knees on a cement, tile, or other hard floor, though.

Hang in there, Ben....
 
Thanks everyone.

Had the surgery today, Surgeon was very pleased how it went and said it should be more than 100% after the recover. There were some older issues in there that he cleaned up as well.
 
Funny you should be talking about an ACL, My knee has been giving me fits for about 7 or 8 years now. Two days ago I finally went to Montana Ortho and they told me I have a torn ACL and a deteriorating MCL. I am only 32 so They say I am still young enough and in good enough shape to get it fixed. Im gonna wait till Nov when we are done with cow work and pray like crazy that winter will leave us alone for a few weeks.

Good luck to you on your recovery and keeps us posted so I know what to expect.
 
I debated doing the same thing, I just wanted to get it over with asap. There were just too many things on the farm that I could do, had done, that would trigger the pain. When it did, it was really bad. I won't be doing much of anything for the next week, then we'll go from there.

If I ever do get to farm full time, I'm curious what health insurance would cost me. That's the number one reason I work full time off the farm.
 
A friend of mine works for McDonalds delivering food to the locations and pushing a 2 wheel cart up and down a ramp into the semi all day long.

About 10 years ago he had to have a knee rebuilt and was off work over 8 weeks but got better.

About a year ago they decided his other knee was worn out and they sent him to the Sports Medicine Clinic where the Indy Colts go and they injected what starts out as the comb off a chicken into the knee every friday for 4 weeks and he never missed a day of work and they tell him his knee is much better than it ever was, pronosis is he should need the same treatment in 20 to 30 more years!

He has recommended this to several of our older members of the church and when they go to their doctors and ask they will go that route. One of the members who had traditional surgery was off work for 4 months and is still having some problems - - - he feels the doctors went the traditional way as they get 10 times as much money and feels the doctors are more concerned with the amount of money they can make than the quality of life for the patient!
 
I was looking at an alternative, but in my case the ligament was mostly torn, without blood supply the doctor said it would never get better.
 
I had both my knees replaced...one in Nov and one in May. They
didn't talk much to me about the rooster comb injection...and I asked...
I don't think it is for everyone and it doesn't work well for everyone, works for about 50% of the people is what was told to me.
I wish I had tried it, although I am getting along well. Especially the
knee done in May is really good...

Good luck to everyone out there that has to have something
done with your knees. I'd have to say at this point, I'm glad
I had the surgery and I'm also glad it's behind me!
 
This certainly isn't the fun part, it's pretty painful even after taking 5mg of Oxy every 4 hours. Need to get off it asap, don't want future problems. I also wanted to get this over with before the collapse...just sayin. Employer is being very good about this.
 

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