Water on the Elbow

Writing about our family doctor while growing up on Greene Street in Germantown reminded me of the medical treatment he gave me when I developed an elbow problem when I was about ten or eleven years old. My left elbow had swelled up considerably and Dr. Rybachock declared that I had water on the elbow which was actually a bursitis infection. It was very painful and I couldn't move my arm.

He tried several treatments with medication over the course of a few weeks but nothing seemed to help with the pain and inability to move my arm. Finally he decided to drain the fluid with a needle. Now that really hurt. I remember my mother holding my shoulder as I laid on a table in his office two doors down the street. He kept sticking that long needle into my elbow over and over again draining the fluid. The ordeal was finally over and I went home with my still painful elbow. I had to do a lot of special exercises to get my full motion back in my elbow. I had to work at it very diligently and it took a lot of painful exercising of my elbow to get it back to normal.

A few months later the swelling started up again along with the pain. Then the movement problem began again. This time we didn't wait very long before I was back in Dr. Rybachok's office getting that painful needle stuck into my elbow again. It was just as bad the second time and maybe even more so because I knew what to expect. He got the elbow drained and I had lots of meds to fight off the infection. Finally it cleared up and I worked again on getting the movement and flexibility back. It took time. Eventually it was all back to normal and I had a full recovery. It never bothered me again.

Then I developed water on the knee. This was actually different and happened a few years after the elbow ordeal. This occurred after getting kicked in the knee while playing soccer at the Germantown Boy's Club. I ended up only playing soccer for one season not because of my knee injury but I was playing in the school band that had practice sessions at the same time that the teams played. Well, my knew swelled up and was painful but not to the extent of my elbow problem. I didn't need to have another needle ordeal.

My knee had a lump that was very tender for years. Then the lump hardened into a calcium deposit. It doesn't bother me anymore and is still there nearly sixty years later.

I was lucky to never have had a broken bone. Not as a kid and not later in life. I remember my brother Tom falling out of bed in his sleep and breaking his collar bone when he was six years old. Dr. Rybachok took care of him too.