Three seems to be the magic number.
The swelling has gone down some and I can finally bend my knee to about 90°, which makes getting dressed in the mornings less of a circus act. Thumbs up. It also makes getting in and out of the car a lot easier. Double thumbs up! The only thing that still makes my teeth mash however, are the stairs, especially going down.... I still have a bit more healing to do.
But the exciting thing is I'm finally getting some discoloration coming up to the surface, notably dark purples and blues. OOOooooo. Exciting stuff I tell ya. All that got me thinking about bruises and contusions in general. Like, what's going on in there and why does it change colors? I know the gist of it, but I wanted to find out in more detail. So, I went to our good friend Wikipedia who explains bruises as:
"A bruise (layman's term), also called a contusion (medical term), is a type of hematoma of tissue in which capillaries and sometimes venules are damaged by trauma, allowing blood to seep, hemorrhage, or extravasate into the surrounding interstitial tissues. Not blanching on pressure, bruises can involve capillaries at the level of skin, subcutaneous tissue, muscle, or bone."
Well ok then.... I hope I didn't bruise the bone, that sounds really bad.....
But what about the changes in color, what's up with that? So, I dug around a bit more (on the internet, not my knee) and found this interesting (and most importantly, short) video on the IFLScience website that explains why bruises change color. And according to the video, my white blood cells are separating the heloglobin into heme and globin which gives it the purpleish-blue color. Cool stuff indeed. I'm looking forward to the biliverdin or as I like to call it, the green stage.... :D
So if you're curious like me, have a go at the video, and Happy Friday everyone!
So if you're curious like me, have a go at the video, and Happy Friday everyone!
You guys ever have a really bad contusion that changed colors like this? Remember how long it took to heal?
