Dec
22

Christmas With Tolstoy.

During Level One of my beloved Shred, Jillian says:

“For those of you at home who are looking for a modified version of a jumping jack, look elsewhere… I’ve got 400 lb people who can do jumping jacks. So can you.”

Bionic Knee
OR CAN I?

Feast your eyes upon my new, bionic knee. I spent this morning getting x-rays and being fondled by an orthopedist. Specifically, someone who specializes in Sports Medicine. I never would have imagined that a time would come when I would require the services of someone specializing in the medicine of sport, but life is full of surprises.

My left knee continued to get worse last week, despite discontinuing my morning date with Ms. Michaels. And then I slipped on a patch of ice while taking my jeans to the tailor, and before I knew it things had disintegrated to the point that I was going to bed early in an attempt to avoid the pain with sleep…only the pain prevented me from sleeping, so I spent an hour or so every evening crying and rolling around clutching a heating pad. Early to bed, early to writhe. Makes a girl consider a home amputation.

My knee began refusing to descend stairs, and experimenting with other methods of bending—backward, for instance, or to the side. Sometimes it would rudely comment upon my weight by neglecting to support it. My mother arrived on Thursday, and while we were at dinner, my knuckles white around the stem of my wine glass, she blithely mentioned that she has had faulty knees since Junior High. Apparently, one day she was walking home from school after a particularly vigorous lesson in the Trampoline unit of her PE class, when her knees simply gave out and she tumbled to the pavement.

{Let us pause for a moment to delight in the fact that TRAMPOLINE was a gym class subject in my mother’s small North Dakota town. It was as a result of that particular unit, by the way, that her peers nicknamed her “Crazy Legs.”}

The point is, it turns out that bad knees run in my family—I am physically akin to an overbred puppy-mill Cocker Spaniel. According to the doctor I saw this morning, I have something about an IT Band, and a Hamstring Whatsit where it attaches to something, and Possible Meniscus Involvement. I am to wear this brace, and begin physical therapy, and return in six weeks. I should be much improved by then, and if not she will order an MRI. I have been taking 800 milligrams of Advil every four hours for days and days, to the chagrin of my sensitive stomach, so I asked her whether I couldn’t have something else for the pain. She displayed a miserly attitude toward dispensing medication, and instead of something useful like Vicodin (I’m allergic to Codeine), prescribed me Ultram, the effect of which is to make me feel sleepy and vaguely stupid while leaving my pain virtually untouched. Though I hate feeling drugged—I requested my Morphine be discontinued early after my C-Section, because I found it unsettling—I will put up with a little drowsiness in exchange for pain relief. But this Ultram? Not cutting it.
And the one pill I took will be my last, because I looked it up online and found that it is ABSOLUTELY CONTRAINDICATED during breastfeeding. Thanks for the heads up, doctor! Simone only nurses about twice a day now, but still. Back to gnawing bullets and muffling my screams with a pillow.

The orthopedist said that I can work out in some sort of low-impact way once my knee feels better—like with an elliptical machine. Unfortunately I do not have an elliptical machine, or the room for one, but I do need exercise I can do at home. I loved the 30-Day Shred, and am desperate to find a suitable replacement. I didn’t lose any weight in the two weeks or so before my knees mutinied, but I felt much stronger. Besides, I don’t trust scales: we moved ours to another part of the bathroom, and apparently over THERE I weigh four pounds more than I do next to the bathtub. When I have a little more time on my hands, I am thinking I will try moving the scale around from place to place until I find some forgotten alcove behind a radiator where I am already at my goal weight.

My knee is distracting me, so I will leave you with my favorite moment of my mother’s visit so far:

She was staring out the large sliding doors leading to the deck. It was dark and blizzarding, and she gave a sorrowful shake of her head.
“Oh…Look.”
“What?” I asked.

Here is where she meant to point out the wind blowing the snow across the deck. But instead she misspoke, and for the rest of the evening, from time to time my brother or I would lapse into silence before heaving a sigh and then saying broodily, as she had: “Oh…Look. The wind, blowing the snow across the dead.”

By Alexa | Posted in Ceci N'est Pas Une Ecrivaine |