The story of the knees

I hate being injured. I am not a good patient. This is the first time since before I gave birth to Quinn that I have been injured. When I was pregnant and sprained my ankle, I wasn’t really doing anything strenuous anyway so it was easy to rest but now, it’s different. My knees started hurting around 9/10 or 9/11. We were scheduled to move furniture with Jacob’s mom and step dad that next Saturday; still so much to do before our closing on 9/16/15. Both of my knees swelled up beyond recognition and I was barely walking.

Of course, I kept pushing myself. I couldn’t stand watching Jacob’s parents move our stuff for us even if they were buying a bunch of our furniture. It was a mistake. By that evening, I was in terrible pain. Jacob was so stressed. Worrying about all we still had left to move and what the heck was going on with my knees. I called in reinforcements to help with the rest of the stuff (thank you Crissey and Conor) on Sunday and tried to sit as much as possible. Still not really taking it as easy as I should have. Even though we finished the bulk of the move and give-away-purge, we still had so much left. Jacob was still working. Ahhh. I don’t know how we accomplished it, a lot of arguing and high emotions. Fast forward….we got all of our stuff out by closing. The last bits dumped in Crissey’s garage to be dealt with later.

I went to the doctor and was directed to get x-rays to rule out stress fractures in both of my patella. My good friend Kevin Vernon is a talented Physical Therapist and insisted on seeing me the next day. With x-rays in hand I went to his office. His diagnosis was severe bursitis but still some concern I had injured the joint in my left knee somehow. With a lot of pushing we got my PCP to prescribe oral steroids to bring the swelling down immediately. I was instructed to continue to elevate and ice. Of course that weekend I was scheduled to go to a wine fest with all of my close girlfriends. The last Girls Weekend for at least a year. Damnit! All I could do was sit while they went on walks. I sat at the festival. They took good care of me, didn’t allow me to push it. Told me to sit. My knees got better fast with the steroids but still my range of motion on the right need was very limited, still hobbling.

On Sunday evening, we said goodbye to Jen and Ben and drove to Monument to spend the next couple of days with my parents. I had made a “just-in-case” appointment with my Dad’s orthopedist for that next Monday. Good thing. He took a look at my x-rays, made me get more (the cost of this is now skyrocketing, I am sure) and then determined I needed to have the right knee drained and shot with cortisone in addition to blood work to rule out rheumatoid arthritis (negative, whew!).

So, fast forward another week, I am sitting at our campsite at Natural Bridges National Park in Utah. Jacob and the girls are hiking to the amazing bridges and I am stuck resting. My right knee feels great, left, still swollen. Better, at least I am not limping but still feels puffy and hard to bend all the way. I know this is best for me; I will miss many amazing sites if I keep pushing myself but DAMNIT! My dear friend Carrie, says the knees are connected to the root chakra which is your sense of prosperity and security. I have definitely just taken a HUGE security blanket away, it makes sense that on an energetic, psychological level that insecurity would manifest in my body in this way. So, just as I meditated on this morning, “My sense of security is within” “I am ready to move forward and accept change”. I will continue with this mantra while I cut up watermelon to bring back to the thirsty hikers.