A big step back in the flabbiness fight

Unfortunately I had a big step back in the flabbiness fight. I really did some damage to my knee (and forgot to blog about it) when I was only trying to water the plants in the back yard and fell when (or because) my knee bent sideways. I didn't break anything but I am now the (not so) proud owner of a lovely knee brace to prevent further sideways movement.

The knee doctor gave me the lovely brace and sent me for PT and said come back in two months and we will see what's going on then. On the good side, I can do my PT at the gym for dilapidated people where I go and not have to bombard my schedule with three times a week appointments for PT. I can go once and get my exercises and then do them when I want, there or at home.. On the bad side, if I don't wear my brace, my knee keeps giving out and I have to wait until I could get an appointment with a physical therapist at the gym.

I will go for my first PT appointment shortly and hope to be able to get back to some exercising. I haven't been exercising and am very concerned about the flabbiness fight. I can't just go for a walk these days. I haven't dared to go to the gym until I saw the knee doctor. And now after speaking with the gym about my knee, their advice was to wait until I see their physical therapist and set up knee exercises before trying too much.

So I am sitting around on my ass too often. I am also closely watching my food consumption to prevent further flabbification. And my knee gives out way too often if I am not wearing the (stupid) knee brace (will I get tan lines from it?) so that I got a second smaller knee brace to wear in bed.

Okay its not cancer, but its a royal pain in the ass. Do I get some sympathy? I can just start whining?

Back to work....

Today I am back to work after almost three weeks off. I had to dig around to find a pair of pants and haven't yet found my shoes. Summer vacation means shorts, sandals and sneakers, not long pants and work shoes. Our lunches are made (yes I make lunch for both of us every week day) but the nice cat is out so I have to get him back in before leaving. The evil cat is busy plotting our demise....

Yesterday I had a good PT appointment. The therapist thinks that I probably didn't damage any major ligaments and probably only the meniscus, which sometimes does not require surgery. It depends how it heals and how badly it was damaged.

Also my rheumatologist thinks I am doing pretty well - this means no blood work for two whole months and no follow up for three months. Sometimes I have blood work every two weeks and appointments every six weeks so this is much better.

Finally my therapist is an idiot. Okay maybe a little harsh but she doesn't seem to understand my family dynamics so it  was a fruitless discussion. She may become my former therapist shortly. After every appointment with her, I wonder why I am still seeing her. But I try to manage the amount of change in my life and next week I see my new PCP for the first time. So the jury is still out but its not looking that good for her. The real decision is do I still need a therapist.

But now to find the cat and my shoes so I can go to work. Maybe they missed me....

My doctor appointment yesterday

Yesterday I saw my knee surgeon. He operated on my right knee, formerly known as my bad knee, 15 years ago. He and his physicians assistant are very nice and have a good sense of humor, which is the most important skill any medical professional should have. I admired his tie - a Jerry Garcia. His PA cracked jokes and made fun of my use of my bad knee to climb up on the table. She told me I was supposed to lead with the good knee.

They both poked and prodded my knee. Physical therapy has helped but not enough and it has been giving way on me.

I did ask which knee was my good knee now. The doctor said the left knee was catching up to the right one (which has two meniscal tears and a partially torn ACL). He thinks there might be a meniscal tear in the left one now to go with the osteoarthritis in both. And he thinks I am too young to need a knee replacement yet.

Before leaving the doctor said does it hurt when I push here on the back of my knee? As I levitated off the table in pain, he decided it was time for an MRI and to come back and see him after.

The last thing I need in the middle of moving is knee surgery.

So I wasn't that smart

I admit it. I wasn't that smart. My husband gave me a hard time too. I probably deserved that but I did get him to cook dinner.

What did I do? Something bad to my knee again. So at the end of July, I fell and my knee bent sideways. I ended up at the doctor who took x-rays and ended up at the knee doctor who said nothing but sent me for PT and gave me a knee brace. I have been going to PT but stopped wearing my knee brace last week because its just too hot and uncomfortable and my knee has been feeling  better.

Yesterday I was out on our side porch trying to move stuff around and pushed things sideways with my foot. DAMN. That made my knee bend sideways again. And its swollen and hurts again this morning.

So I wasn't that smart. I am going to skip the gym today and maybe wear my knee brace again (if I can find it). Damn. But I'm not going back to the doctor. And it was healing so nicely. Triple damn.

At least I can easily blame myself for this instead of being a politician and blaming the other party.

When your body lets you down

It happens to all of us - you reach for something and your back twinges, you get a bad cold, or whatever, they are part of life. But then sometimes your body really lets you down.

This became very clear to me one day when I was skiing about ten years ago. I was having a wonderful time and then I fell on one run. I thought I was fine but some man stopped and said he friend had gone for the ski patrol. I thought he was crazy but since he insisted on waiting with me, he could help me untangle my skis. Then when I put weight on my knee it bent side ways and I knew he was right. I ended up with a torn meniscus and a partially torn ACL which meant knee surgery and the beginnings of knee problems.

My body has since let me down in other ways. I seem to have collected ailments that won't go away. Tennis elbow, lymphedema, bad back, rheumatoid, fibromyalgia, and that cancer crap. They just keep piling up. Yesterday afternoon I got very frustrated with myself. I try to be a normal person and then my body protests.

Sometimes I feel I should be in a geriatric ward some place with all my aches and pains. But then I try to tell myself that I got through cancer twice so I can cope through all this. But its the continued emotional spiral of coping with aches, pains and scars that is difficult.

I haven't been getting enough rest recently. Nor enough sleep. This makes it harder for me to physically and emotionally deal with life. And since we are at the worst part of the chaos of putting our house on the market (which means I will take our toaster oven with us today so it will not be in the way while they take pictures of the house). I will bring it back tonight so we can have toast in the morning and then take it with us again as they show the house. This is on top of the list of everything else I have to do today to make the house picture perfect.

My biggest problem is with everything I cannot do. I can't carry stuff around (one of my doctors told me that I cannot pick up everything after I told him we were moving). I have to wait for my husband to be home to carry stuff around for me. I get stuck and have to wait for help so often. My body is failing me too soon. And it drags me down and I constantly have to fight back.

Okay, enough whininess this morning. I will go back to being positive.

When I do something I do it right

So back at the end of July, I fell and my knee bent sideways (or my knee bent sideways and I fell). I was told at that time that the x-ray showed no bone issues and it was probably all ligament and tendon. I was later told by my knee doctor (yes I am amassing doctors for each body part) that it was probably not that bad and PT was the first step. The PT guy thought it was probably only my meniscus.

I went back to the knee doctor after PT and he sent me for an MRI to find out more about my knee. I had a follow up yesterday.

Well, it turns out when I do something I do it right. It turns out I tore my ACL and I have an edema on the top of my tibia. Basically that means that I have a crack in the bone that is not impacting the function much (think of the coffee cup you have with a crack in it that still holds your coffee - my knee doctor asked me if he could quote me on that because it was pretty much an exact description).

So now the plan is to wait another four weeks and have more x-rays and then decide what to do. He wants my tibia to continue to heal before anything and for me to step up my PT. He said the pain is caused by the bone and the lack of stability is caused by the ACL. I said I don't care about the pain but do care about the stability issue.

I told him I don't want to even think about surgery until after the first of the year.

Now I can say it, to quote Charlie Brown:
AAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!

Physical therapy

This morning I finally will start physical therapy for my knee, nearly four weeks after falling. I have opted to have my PT at the gym instead of through the hospital. There are several reasons for this.

First of all, after my initial appointment, I can do my PT on my own instead of having to juggle three more appointments each week. I just don't have the patience for that. When I have PT, I do my exercises every day. Most physical therapists have told me many patients only do their exercises at their sessions.

Second of all, its free. I won't get three sessions each week for free but I will get a session every week or two, and free advice when I want. Yes I have health insurance but I can save the copays, and save my insurance company their share. This makes it a win-win (I hate that term) situation as far as I am concerned.

Last of all, I have had PT for my knees several times so I am aware of what to expect. I know my biggest problem won't be which exercises to do but which ones I am able to do. Between my back issues and hip bursitis, I physically can't do many of the exercises.

So much fun, more than I deserve.

And how am I doing?

I blogged about my difficult decision. I blogged about our new cats. I haven't blogged about me.

Honestly, I am not doing that great. I have been exhausted for a while. On vacation I would sleep a lot and was feeling caught up on sleep. Since coming home, I have been exhausted. After two nights in our bed, I have slept well but am still exhausted. I woke up a while ago and am still in bed and will probably go back to sleep.

My knee is a clear source of stress. It has a tendency to give way, even while wearing a brace, which is not fun. I start PT next week and will see how it goes. I plan to talk to the physical therapist about my knee giving way before I call my doctor back. Its not making me happy.

I am also feeling emotionally drained. It was a big effort to leave our long planned vacation. My first thought on driving home was to call my therapist and get in to see her. But I am not sure of my schedule this week and I have an appointment in a couple weeks anyway. Maybe I just need to go into emotional hiding for a bit and lick my wounds for a few days.

In some ways its a bit of relief that I stood my ground and left. Everything is now out in the open.

I need a nap. Bye.

I'm so smart I could diagnose myself

Yesterday will probably go down as one of the not so greatest days in my life. Why? Because I pretended I was a healthy person. And it didn't end up so well.

Allow me to provide some of the story. We had to dig up a lot of the plants in our garden because our retaining walls are collapsing and we have to pay big bucks to a mason to fix them. It has been very hot and dry here for the past few weeks. 90s for the last few days even - which rarely happens in Boston. My poor plants which should be in the ground and in the shade are in pots in the back yard in the hot sun.

I noticed yesterday that some of them were very dry and wanted to water them. The spigot in the back yard was put up by giants and I have to stand on something to reach it. I pulled out my usual little 12" high little table to stand on. As I reached up, the table collapsed and I felt my knee bend sideways. That was a very bad moment. No one was home but the mason's assistant but he came to help me get back to the front door and inside. I could hobble.

But because of my extensive medical background, I knew exactly what to do. I went to the freezer and got an ice pack. Then I picked up the phone and called my doctor's office. I knew I needed an x-ray and possibly more. They suggested I go to the walk in clinic last evening but I declined and asked for an appointment today instead. But as I sat with my knee elevated it really started to hurt (even through all my RA/fibromyalgia meds) and I asked my husband to take me to the walk in clinic.

I saw a doctor and got an x-ray as I expected. The bones look fine (as I expected) but the doctor thinks there is ligament/muscle damage (as I also thought) and referred me to an orthopedic doctor. This is exactly as I assumed would happen. I need to call today if I do not hear from them by noon to get to see a knee doctor. (Maybe I should have just called my knee doctor first -  yes I have a knee doctor, and an ankle doctor, and many other specialists.)

They did send me home with a knee immobilizer, a totally worthless piece of equipment as it forces me to overwork my hip (and my bursitis) and causes more pain than is in my knee. They also recommended crutches or a cane, both of which I declined. But I did ask my husband to find one of the crutches in the basement as it turns out I need it for stability and weight bearing.

So one moment of pretending I was healthy allowed me to sprawl on the backyard in pain. The good side? I really need a positive here. I have a reason to sit around on my butt all day (except going to the dr and possibly getting my nails done) with an ice pack on my knee during this 90 degree weather. I am not discussing the downside at this point because I am pretending it doesn't exist. Denial? Yes. But I did know what to do and what I needed medically right away.