OK, I have had quite a lot of developments on this over the past few days. I thought I'd just fill you in.

Well, after feeling the lump in my knee, I decided to go back to A&E to get it checked out. So on Wednesday, I after sitting for 90 minutes, I had another knee examination. The doctor said it seemed as though I had ruptured one of my knee ligaments, and the lump I could feel was part of the torn ligament. However, she sent me to have some X-Rays done anyway.

When the results came back shortly, she explained that there was an extra bit of bone around my knee cap. She said it could possibly be a fractured piece of bone, however she suspected it to be an extra bit which is suppose to fuse with the knee-cap during early teens. I asked whether this was related to the pain I was feeling. She said it was unlikely and still suspected I had ruptured a ligament. Anyway, I got booked in to see an Orthopedic doctor the following day.

So the next day I saw the Orthopedic. He also did a knee examination on me, but said that I didn't seem to have any problems with my ligaments. He said it was likely that I dislocated my knee-cap, but in the process fractured it. He showed us the x-ray on his computer and explained that the lump that was floating around my knee was a the fractured bit of bone. The strange thing was, is that it was at the back of the patella that the bone broke off. How that happened is beyond me. Anyway, he said that I'll need surgery to remove the fragment which was causing the majority of the pain.

Expecting the surgery to be performed in at least a week, he got me fitted in for the following day.

So on Friday, I was put under general anesthetic and they fished the fragment out (which they kindly saved for me to take home and show off ). I know need to rest my leg in a splint for 3 weeks, then go back and see my surgeon for a check-up. Hopefully everything will be OK and I will be able to undergo physio.

So as you can see, things have developed quite quickly over the past few days. Seems that it was neither a Wikipedia reference-linkmeniscus tear nor a MCL tear. There doesn't seem to any serious damage to my ligaments. The only problem is that because the cartilage from the back of my knee-cap has been removed, it is inevitable that I will end up with arthritis in that knee.