Well...

We went to the 8:00am appointment.  Unfortunately, the clinician was running late in getting to the hospital, so we were there for a while.  But, that was ok.

Happily, he was a very nice, careful, and concerned fellow who treated my wife very kindly and with thorough care.  After seeing her walk, and in checking all sorts of external features of her leg's musculature, and testing tonicity, strengths of muscle, and tension in resting muscle, he then also looked at the results of the MRI testing.  

His conclusions were that my wife has a tear of her anterior cruciate ligament (ACL), which I also knew from reading the summary of my wife's MRI. BUT... he also felt that the ligamental tear was incomplete (partial) and small enough...... that it DID NOT require surgery!  Instead, he suggested that prescribed physical therapy would be the best way to proceed, with the therapy helping in tensions in the knee region, in building a better gait (my wife tends to splay her feet), and that the incomplete tear can and will be able to heal and re-establish with the help of the therapy.  She has been prescribed three sessions of physical therapy a week for six weeks until she has her next visit with the clinician.  

He further encouraged my wife to continue swim-walking, and to walk (with conscious efforts to hold feet in the paddle-forward stance) as much as could be done comfortably.  

It was extremely good news, and both my wife and I are very happy.  She did walk (gingerly and slowly) with the conscious effort of maintaining a paddle-forward stance.  She could feel it was difficult (but not in the knee) because her muscles had tightened and been aligned for the "splayed" stance she had been using.  

We both are very happy and hopeful.  We are also both wholly exhausted!  As I believe is quite common when experiencing significant stress, worry, and fear.... once those emotions dissipate.... there is a period of recovery where you feel good.... but also "wiped out" physically and emotionally for a while.  That is how we both felt last night and also this morning.  

But, it is such a good feeling to feel.... compared to all of the last month. This is the very best diagnosis/outcome we could have hoped for.  We were able to contact the physical therapy facility and she will start Monday.

PipeTobacco