It's all there in black and white

{MRI of Jake's knee. The big patch of white is the swelling}

So here's the story.

My son Jake, while riding his dirt bike (motorcycle) up and down our street on Saturday, tried to pop a wheelie and ended up jamming his knee from both top and bottom. It instantly hurt badly, and then swelled to about 3 times its normal size. He couldn't put any weight on it at all, and it didn't take too long to figure out it could be serious. We kept him off of it over Sunday, and had him ice it every hour or two all day long.

We saw our sports medicine doctor on Monday, who looked thoroughly at the knee and took x-rays. The x-rays were suspicious for a fracture of the tibia (shin bone). He was also concerned about ligament and cartilage damage, so he ordered an MRI. We also had that done Monday.

Today we went back to the sports med clinic to see the results of the MRI. Let me just say that Jake REALLY did a number on his knee. NO doubt about that one.

This is a shot of problem number 1. Yep, there are more than one. X-ray didn't show this one, so it was a surprise. That is a fracture of the femur, surrounded by bleeding in the bone. And it's actually dented. That was quite the impact!

Problem number 2. Fracture of the tibial eminence, which is displaced. This is the biggest problem because the ACL (main knee ligament) attaches here. Having the bone it attaches to broken and displaced functions like an ACL tear.

Problem number 3. Damage to the meniscus (probably from being pinched by the bones on impact) causing bleeding underneath. But the good news is it isn't torn.

Lastly, (finally!) damage to cartilage on the outside of the knee, with bleeding involved. This should heal on its own.

Next up for us is a visit with an orthopedic surgeon to talk about surgery to put a screw in the tibial eminence so that it will anchor the ACL securely and heal correctly. There will be more updates to come. It's gonna be a looooong spring for Jake, unfortunately.