Taking A Knee

By the grace of God, I have been an overweight person that never had issues with their knees...until recently. 

At the beginning of the year, I decided to become more active. I lounge around my house like a cat and move as little as possible. So, coupled with my meal prepping (which has been awful), I decided to try to be more mobile. BIG MISTAKE! Not long after this decision, my right knee started to act up. I feel like I'm having a flashback! During the pandemic, this Delta I went to college with who was way skinnier and healthier than me up and died out of nowhere. This scared me to the point that I vowed to do more water aerobics. After my first day back in the pool, I woke up the next day feeling like my right leg was about to pop off. I had pulled my hip flexor, and for months, I was hobbling around the house in tears. Since I am uninsured, I just tried to nurse myself back to health with a delicate mixture of Bio Freeze, Tigar Balm, a hot water bottle, and Ibuprofen. It was the worse time of my life. I am now seeing a pattern: exercise = injury. But I have to get moving, so I have just been dancing on my stomach while listening to bounce music with my FitBit on. Just so you know, twerking on your stomach to "Shake It Like A Dog" by Kane and Abel on repeat will burn you a good 500+ calories easy. 

Anywho, I do not do well with pain or discomfort. I have been sleeping extra still as to not upset my knee, which has been both painful and uncomfortable. 

Thinking back on how this all started, I have to blame my clumsy nephew. He came in my room to get something and fell on my already tweaking knee with the full force of his 50+ pounds. I screamed and he ran out of the room. Now, here we are. 

Luckily, I can still get up and move, but I do so slowly, scared to upset my knee, which is now running the show. I creep around my own knee like it's a sleeping baby. It really is tiresome and annoying. But at times like this I have been told it is best to count your blessings, which I'm scared to do. I don't want to injure a finger. 

Flexed

I have never had a broken bone or really any serious injury because I have spent the bulk of my life being almost totally inactive. The most active I have ever been was a short period of time in kindergarten where I was hooked on double dutch and determined to be a playground champion. Well, guys, I'm a long way from kindergarten, and my body told me as much when I injured my hip flexor doing aerobics in the pool at the gym. 

Talk about a nightmare. I am still not fully recovered, I can just tell when my body is about to go south and sit down somewhere. But in the beginning, there was not a day that I didn't cry. I felt like my leg was about to pop off. Ugh, the waddling and the hopping and the maneuvering it took just to go potty. If I would have had insurance, I probably would have gone to physical therapy or something. But I don't, so all I had was prayer and tears. 

Ironically, this would happen after I took a definitive stance to get healthier. The result was me getting increasingly more unhealthy, lying on my stomach, eating junk, and watching Netflix. How many bags of Doritos do you have to eat to cure the resentment you feel towards the universe for making things worse when you wanted to get better? I won't even tell you. It's disgusting. 

I finally made my way to urgent care after I almost fell face first coming out of the bathroom. That was fun, sitting in an urgent care waiting room to be seen while trying not to breathe in coodies in the heart of COVID, only to be told that my x-rays were inconclusive, but that I do have the beginning of Arthritis. EVERYBODY SING! 

I was referred to an orthopedist who told me that he didn't know much about hip flexors, but that my urgent care x-rays were inconclusive. DUH! He wanted me to go to some imagery place and I would have, but I'd had it with being told nothing by professionals. 

So that brings us to today. I'm okay, but I won't be doing any splits any time soon. The first doc said I'd be better in 6 months. People who have had this injury say it takes over a year, realistically. Needless to say I am over it...and out of Doritos. 

The Knee Nightmare

I write to you this morning after what very well may have the been the worst sleep of my life!
Yesterday morning, after innocently aiding my sister in opening a can of ravioli, I slid on a dustpan that someone left in the middle of the floor, thus landing super hard on my right knee. I mean, super hard.
If there was ever a time that I really think I needed a doctor, it was then. I tried to get up, and ended up back on the floor. And as my useless siblings watched me wallow in pain, I did my best not to scream. The next pain that I feel like this will probably be childbirth. Lying on the kitchen floor, I prayed not to get Arthritis from this. My grandma had it and she would cry, rubbing her hip, every time it rained. I had an old P.E. teacher who had to get a knee replacement, and it made her leg fatter than the other one. My aunt had knee surgery when I was in undergrad, and she is just now walking without a limp.
My knee is soooo stiff. I can't bend it. I literally had to stop, drop, and roll to get to the bathroom as Betsy, what I have now named my knee, snapped, crackled, and popped the whole way there. I'm fat, so I can't tell if my knee is swollen, but it hurts like Hell. Like. Hell.
So about my sleep: it sucked. I didn't know what a big part being able to bend your knee played in a good night's rest. A half-baked fetal position and sitting up, those are the only two positions I could muster. I cried, I prayed, I whaled. I wished I had a Midol or some crack or a gun, anything to ease the misery. Finally, God had mercy on me and Betsy, and blessed me with 46 straight minutes or rest, a record for the night.
Here is something you may or may not know about me: I hate being hurt and I hate being sick. I have true disdain for anything that prevents me from doing things at the speed I would usually do them. Last night, it took my brother 20 minutes to prepare me a bag of ice for Betsy. It would have taken me 3!
As I type this post, groggy and annoyed, I try not to resent my siblings for not helping me and for leaving shit just lying around. I have to stop myself from hoping one of them falls. Uh-oh, negative thoughts. Time to turn to my gospel playlist.