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"I'm not trying to say you are setup for failure, but you are. It's just how you are made, you are not built for squats or lunges, thank your parents..." At that comment I got up from the table and wiped my face cause I had begun to cry. My parents are dead now, the mention that they are the reason I have an unfixable problem, what a rude way to say what she said. Blame your parents that you are made broken, setup to fail, beyond your control.
I'm only 33...
Bad news: My knee... I don't even know if I wrote it here, the pain I have going up the stairs, down the stairs (I have a split foyer home), bending to sit, lifting to stand, bending over to pick up with the baby... squats are completely out of the question. If I don’t pay attention and I squat down to play with the baby in the stroller, I am paying for it the rest of the day.
I went to sports medicine to be told my knee is slightly tilted, to do exercises to build up my quad and it should help. I was directed to make an 3 month followup if pain persisted, which it did. I went back to be told my knee is also higher than it should be which means I'm prone to easily overloading the knee. I think the way it was handled, was just bad. The first comment they said, "This can't be fixed." They gave me the exercises but when I do them I hear crunching in my knee, that doesn't feel right to purposely do an exercise when there's loud crunching... she told me that it was the wearing of cartilage, nothing can be done about that either. I ask again, “So doing these is good for my quad but puts further wear in my knee? How is that good?” I'm not a doctor, I don't understand. She then tells me, Ok well do the full leg lift, and you need to lose some weight.
It is only then that I tell her, I've lost over 20lbs! 20lbs ago I didn't have this problem at all! She tells me then.. I can’t do squats or lunges... After my comment of my weight loss the conversation takes a dramatic turn into how she can tell me not to do things but when I’m at the gym doing my aerobics, I will do what I want. I listened to that comment expressed 3 different ways before I finally broke down. Between this and my being setup for failure, I was just done. My weight loss had been the only real comment I had made about my lifestyle, she hadn’t even cared to ask.. maybe it didn’t matter. TO ME IT DID. I finally just spat out that I am not a gym junkie coming in here cause I overstrained something by working out too much, or not listening to my body, or being vain and putting my appearance as some top priority. I am not doing workout videos because I know I can’t. I know my knee can’t take it. I’m going through this because I can’t keep up with my daily life! My babies and taking care of them. As a mother I don’t stop at the thought of, “My baby is lonely, but I can’t squat down to be in their world to talk to them, my knee…” or asking someone else to carry the kids up and down the stairs of our split foyer home for breakfast, lunch, dinner, naps, snacks, drinks… whatever. To carry the baby/babies up the steps to their childcare. She responded, well if one of your kids is 2 years old, she probably doesn’t need to be carried. My choice in that is none of their business to decide. THE PROBLEM, is that I am only 33 years old. I am relatively healthy. I should not be having difficulty like this ALREADY and I would like to know why I am, what I can do. She said I am too young for surgery so I could get a brace and strengthen my quad muscle, it could help. Only after I was apparent I was no longer interested in hearing anymore did she even suggest an anti-inflammatory. And let’s have a follow-up in 6 months.. Well, if you are telling me this can’t be fixed, I’m built this way.. You expect me to be here in six months… but for what? I left so distraught and hopeless.
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Good news: I already posted an entry that I have started running. This type of movement doesn’t give me such stressed knee pain as lift or fully bending my knee. I felt it was something I could do, so I started. I have only done this the past week and I am hoping I can keep it up and build my endurance. I know I should’ve probably stayed at .25 to start, but I wanted to push myself. After the third run my hip really bothered me. I figured, just as our body is connected, when we hurt one thing, we put a greater stress on the rest of that area to try to compensate or function while reducing the pain. It had been a while that I have shifted a bit of my actions to baby my right knee. It felt almost like a Barbie’s leg being pulled out and only half snapped back in. So I decided to rest it. Last night I felt better and expecting to barely get through .25, I was able to get up to a half mile again… panting like crazy but I got it done.
After my run, I ran up the steps to the kitchen to get my glass of water and by the second step in the kitchen I stopped and looked back… realizing.. I just ran up those steps! Talk about feeling like Rocky at the top with arms raised high haha! It was this total sense of… Thank you God, thank you, thank you, thank you!!!! I realized, this could definitely be too good to be true and I accepted that, but what I really take away from it is that there is hope. I do not have to be broken. I don’t have to be a failure just because I wasn’t built perfectly. Some things do take patience and time.
Today the only thing that bothered me as I walked around were my sore calves which I expect from my running.
I hope it keeps up and I am just wanting to be thankful for today!
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