The Jackuul Blog

See, I had a meniscus cartilage tear a few years back, and then had it operated on.  So you know what they did?  They went in and blew my knee up like a balloon, and then repaired the meniscus (supposedly) by stitching it.  Well guess what, I moved, and my insurance changed – and I was 4,000 miles away when just a few months after the surgury my knee began plopping out of place again.  So that got me to thinking… why not just take a bit of the cartilage out, regrow it, and slap in a brand new chunk o’ junk?  Seriously, all that is needed is funding and acceptance of a cell regeneration program that can use your own stem cells, the ones found naturally in the body, to regrow the cartilage using a method pioneered in Australia (which allows you to grow many stem cells from just a few)  so that instead of relying on hope, you get your knee’s meniscus replaced and the insurance company doesn’t need to worry about you smashing one in again.  Expensive?  Yes at this point it is, but if it gained acceptance as a normal procedure I am sure prices will fall from a few million to a couple of thousand.  Oh, don’t give me that new technology is needed blah de blah crap, the stuff we have now would be used more, and from that would be refined, and of course you know some pimple faced lab tech will figure out a better way.  I just want my knee fixed without having a giant chunk o meat slabbed out (or in my case just the broken part of the meniscus taken out and my knee shaved down).  And I don’t want to be on crutches for two months again. That was hellish.  You try riding a friggen bus every day with crutches and a knee brace.