Wednesday, October 27, 2010

Taking Stock...with a Healthy Dollop of Personal Flogging

Warning: LONG personal rant post.....image snitched from http://www.aaos.org/

But first, a bit of self-flaggellation: I am SUCH a brainiac(sarcasm)/dipshit/flaming-idiota who never learns things easily...

OK, enough of that...moving forward...

So a couple of years ago, I started noticing the stiffness in my knees. One in particular became stiff and remained that way for days at a time. I'm the size of 2 people and quite clueless, so I took myself to the doc, who recommended an orthopedist, who wasted my insurance's money on an MRI (which cost me NOTHING back then! Dammit, why does insurance get worse the longer you're on it?!)...

Whoops, digressing.....so anyway, the orthopedist determines that because of my flat feet and knocked knees, and the extra ::ehem:: number of pounds being inflicted on them on a daily basis, that I have osteoarthritis and should be doing physical therapy to retrain my body to do stuff like oh, stand, walk, move with correct posture, etc. So I start the PT and go at it for quite a while, but at $25 a pop, there comes a point where I have to stop. I tell myself that I'll continue the exercises at home ::insert laugh track here::. I continue eating and ignoring my health. Several years go by.

Important to note here that while I do remember the orthopedist saying that my kneecaps pointed out to the sides instead of straight ahead like they're supposed to...that the terms "unstable kneecaps" or "patellar tracking disorder" never left his mouth.....

Fast-forward to 3 months ago...my knee locks. Serious pain. Freaks my shit. I sign up for the Y the next day.

I work out fairly steadily, 3 to 4 days a week for 3 months. Don't change my diet at all (idiot move #1), because I'm a hedonist who loves food, has emotional eating issues, and I'm so delighted that my body's getting stronger and changing shape, I tell myself it's OK that I haven't lost weight yet. Biggest load of bullshit I've heaped on myself in quite awhile, but remarkably, this ain't even about that.

Thanks to glucosamine supplements and the exercise, the pain in my knees lessens. I'm able to go up and down stairs easier. I'm not throbbing at the end of the day, and the swelling's barely noticeable when I overexert. So I stop wearing my orthotics, except to exercise (idiot move #2).

Seriously, did I think my flat feet had reversed themselves?! What the hell was I thinking? I was thinking: my current orthotics are slowly falling apart, cause blisters after a long day of walking, they don't fit in my brown flats comfortably, I need an extra pair of Dr. Scholl's or something to supplement, but the $50 those cost always goes to something else.....

Michael: "No really, rationalizations are more important than everything...they're more important than sex!"
Sam: "Oh, c'mon, nothing's more important than sex."
Michael: "Oh yeah? Ever go a week without a rationalization?"

~ From The Big Chill

Where was I? Oh, so anyway, in the past 3 months, I've also had recurrences of that knee locking thing like, 3 or 4 times. Chalked it up to the extra punishment my knees have been taking in my quest to rebuild the bod. I recently found I was able to jog on the treadmill, that it actually felt good. It did kill my body the next day, but the fact was that while I was doing it, I was comfortable and didn't feel like I'd need a defibrillator before leaving the Y. Oh, the ways our bodies trick us...

Last night I even had a triumph...5 minutes on an elliptical. Hopped on it just out of curiosity...haven't tried it in years, because last time I did, I was gasping in pain within 30 seconds. But my legs are stronger, so I thought I'd just see (and I was at my apartment complex fitness micro-room, thus sparing myself any embarassment of trying it in front of the masses at the Y). That 5 minutes was about my initial limit of endurance on the sucker, but it was so frickin' empowering...I'd started that workout in a slump and was ending it ready to leap tall buildings.....

And then my knee locked as I was drifting off to sleep.

That pain hits my core somewhere. A lightbulb went off deep in my cranium, and I started thinking about how temporary it was, that if I was tearing something, then I'd have continued pain, swelling, etc., which thank the gods, I'm not. So I probably wasn't off target blaming the kneecap area. Trolled Google earlier today, found the AAOS website, did some reading.....and it nudged my past information about my kneecaps from my memory banks.

This weekend while I'm helping Mom through her 2nd pain management trial for her back, I will also be reading Bob Greene, Yoga for Arthritis, and WebMD...they have a good section on patellar instability with exercises that were VERY familiar looking.....mirrors the stuff I learned in PT and have since stopped doing ::pause while I slam my head against a wall mentally::.......gee, ever think if you just created an exercise regimen and stuck to it, you might not have these problems now?!?!............::sigh::........

Anyway, I'm going to wear my knee brace more, get the damn orthotics back into my shoes, and buy an extra pair 2 paychecks from now. I'm going to create a diet plan, get the hell off the treadmill for now, and get the hell on the bikes and back in the pool. Three months from now, I'll reassess again.

And I'm going to try to let up on myself.

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Taking Stock...

Outside: not worth discussing...the temperatures are awful. My hair exploded today.

Inside: bright

Wearing: purple & green blouse, beige highwaters, the aforementioned-cursed-totally-comfy-without-orthotics brown flats

Creating: MIL sock and all the crap I mentioned above...

Reading: see above...

Going: back and forth to Baptist Beaches tomorrow, back and forth to Mom's...otherwise, a homebound weekend...

Hoping: Mom's 2nd trial goes A LOT better than her first did and that my 2nd Dad, B's health issues resolve themselves quickly (send some healing energy please)

This post is already holy-crap-long, so I'll just say that my 2nd Dad is my best friend C's Dad. Her folks took Lil Bro and I in when Dad had aortic dissection #1 back in '82...we stayed with them for 2 weeks, and they taught us a lot about...stuff.....while providing the stability we desperately needed at that time. His health issues are putting him in the hospital, and C's Mom is struggling with Alzheimers, so I find I'm digging out my faith and petitioning the gods for assistance. I know I'm a fair-weather believer, but when the gods take one real parent and then start sneaking jabs at surrogate parents, you grab whatever faith you have and start praying.

Sorry for the length today, gang, but thanks so much for listening.

1 comment:

Michelle said...

And we love you too.