When I went to the orthopedic surgeon in Park City in July, I said that in addition to the pain the bullet was causing I was concerned about lead poisoning. I'd read on the Internet how people who had bullets in a joint got lead poisoning even 20 years after the injury. What happens is, a lubricating compound in the joint called synovial fluid breaks down the lead, which is absorbed into the blood and sent to the brain and elsewhere. Lead poisoning causes nausea, fatigue, tooth decay, irritability, inability to concentrate, and memory loss. Like I need more of those last two, especially. In other soft tissue the body encases the bullet, making it mostly harmless. The Park City doctor and my current doctor both told me to leave the bullet alone, since it was in soft tissue.
Well, as you know, I didn't care for the pain and limping, so I insisted on taking the bullet out. Besides the pain now being gone, today my doctor told me the bullet had been wedged between a tendon, which he had to slit, and "the synovia." Keeping the bullet from slipping into the knee joint was a "paper-thin membrane," which the bullet "probably would have moved through" and into the knee joint with its lead-dissolving synovial fluid.
3 comments:
This won't stop you from snowshoeing with me next week, will it?
You should have left the bullet in - lead poisoning sounds like fun.
Mercury poisoning is better. Try that instead. At least you go nutty instead of just ornery and have bad teeth.
Post a Comment