Paula Routly: Watching Winter From the Sidelines

I wish I could wax on about this wondrous winter and all the ways I’m enjoying the snow and ice. I had started to, three weeks ago, in a column revealing my hope that weather conditions would result in a cross-country ski season long enough to improve my Nordic technique. Vermont’s fickle climate cooperated, but my left knee didn’t. The day that issue of Seven Days went to press, it seized up and more or less stopped working. I’ve since been diagnosed with a torn meniscus.

Last time I got injured, I had no trouble getting in to see a physical therapist. Now, in aging Vermont, there’s a shortage of them — along with neurologists and dentists and rural docs. After trying a handful of places, I was lucky to get an appointment at the RehabGYM in Williston; it just meant swapping my Ford Focus, which has a clutch, for my partner’s automatic Prius.

Colleen Bruns examined the swollen joint and asked me what happened. I’d skied a few times, I told her, but nothing challenging. I work out every day, in part to make this kind of injury less likely. And exercise is how I stay sane — sort of. Not being able to do it is my greatest fear.

Then it was Bruns’ turn: Apparently, when you reach a certain age, the meniscus can just tear on its own. Really? She explained the protocols of rest, ice, compression and elevation. And I learned that not every torn meniscus requires surgery, but it takes time — and an MRI — to make that determination.

I’ve gone from being a relatively fit 65-year-old with skis in the car to a scared senior circling suburban parking lots.

In the meantime, “Of course you’ll want to stay off the ice and snow,” she advised, and I could tell from the expression on her face that my winter was blown. Sure enough, I’ve gone from being a relatively fit 65-year-old with skis in the car to a scared senior circling suburban parking lots in hopes of finding a dry spot within limping distance of my destination. I watched a lot more of the Winter Olympics than I’d planned to, with my leg sandwiched between bags of slurry ice.

Bruns recommended I see a doctor at Evergreen Sports Medicine, also in Williston. When I called, an actual human answered and scheduled an appointment with Dr. Scott Paluska, one of the owners of the independent practice. A week later, he gave me an exam, an X-ray and a referral for an MRI.

Four days hence, I was on Williston Road again, driving through a Saturday morning snowstorm to Vermont OPEN Imaging, where I was loaded into the tube, grateful that my head was sticking out. By the time I got home, the test results were in my inbox: I have a large tear in the medial meniscus extending from the front of the knee to the back. Which means I’m hobbling around, grasping railings, asking for help, wondering how older people manage to navigate Vermont in the winter — a preview of coming challenges and anxieties that I would rather not glimpse just yet.

Of course, I’m not alone. One mention of “torn meniscus,” and strangers are recommending rehab techniques and surgeons — by name. On Monday, Paluska agreed the next step is an orthopedic consultation.

Between now and what happens next, I’ll have to settle for snow reports from my cross-country-skiing friends, images from the Vermont Nordic Skating Facebook group and, most tantalizing, my view of frozen Lake Champlain. From where I live, I can see people skiing, biking and walking on it every day. On Saturday, which was warm and beautiful, people ventured out to the Burlington breakwater to watch the sunset. They were stretched out along the length of it, facing west, witnessing the rare beauty of that icy expanse as night slowly fell, turning it from white to arctic blue.

The original print version of this article was headlined “Out of Joint”