Discouraging Truth

Knee pain, its limitations, and the anticipation of a year to fix this broken part of myself  (setting aside the fact a start date on that year-long fix has yet to be determined) .... well, heck, it is a tough pill to swallow for me.  

My health was pretty good until I hit 75.  I guess I should be grateful for that.  I had my ups and downs but it has always been a fix-it fast kind of thing and move-on.  Cataracts in those eyeballs?  There is a fix for that.  Get new lenses and in 24 hours see as good as the day I was born.  Gallbladder making me sick?  Cut that sucker out. The body can go on just fine with just a few diet modifications.  Kidney tumor camping out in my body?  Get that invader out along with the traitor kidney that harbored it.  After all I have a spare!  Seriously, it has been like that most of my life.

Don’t you think, however, that all my other body parts would notice what happens if it step "outside the box” and make waves in my health??  Clearly someone wasn’t paying attention.

This knee. While I do have “a spare” knee, we aren’t designed to walk just on one leg. And right now I am walking on “6 legs” (my 2 and the walker’s 4.)

I think I finally might have hit a wall on body parts that can be separated from me with little to no impact.  

And . I . Hate . It !!

At the same time, I hate that reaction.  After all, this isn’t cancer or organ failure.  This is not a life ending disease or the total loss of all my worldly belongings due to a disaster.  And while there isn’t a fix for that small cushioning tissue in my knee - there IS a fix!  Replace the whole knee.  

Regardless, I can’t help being upset that a small cushioning tissue inside my knee - the meniscus - something smaller than a small McDonald’s beef patty (don’t ask how I know this)  - as well as a few other even smaller connective tissues have totally and completely failed beyond a surgeon’s ability to fix it ... and the result is a year long struggle to grab back knee function with a new rookie knee. It just seems unfair.

What is totally fair and discouraging - this whole post demonstrates a significant failing in my personality.  While I can have complete and total compassion and dedication to others dealing with serious life changing health issues, I am pretty brutal in dealing with less serious failings in my own body!!  I should be grateful that medical science has a a fix to offer.  For heaven’s sake - this isn’t even a “new” fix ... they have been doing this surgery for decades!!!!

Well, the simple discouraging truth is this.  

I have bemoaned the fact that I need to exercise and take good care of myself to be normal.  Now to be normal I need a surgical intervention.  I am not ready to be this much of a patient, or an old woman with a worn out “something,” or a person who is clearly perceived to need help. When I look in the mirror, that is not who I see.  Even though in that reflection I also see my walker, pain patches, ace wraps, ice packs, Tylenol - (none of which really mask the pain - darn it) ... that image is not me.  The reflection lies.

What doesn’t show in the mirror is the pain!   I guess it is me after all.  

I am scheduled to start those gel injections on June 9th.  I am hoping to shed all those "reflection lies" for a while.  Gel injections are not a “fix” - just a bandaid, but I'll take it.  If they work, I can pretend with the best that I am once again my nibble self.  That I can walk on only 2 legs just like everybody else.  That I am me when I look in the mirror.

And when the time is right for me and my husband, I’ll get that rookie knee put in and be grateful for it - even if it takes a year of fighting it into submission to function normal like discarded knee before it got broken.  I’ll dig up some gratitude at the same time.  I’ll dig deep and I’ll find it.  

That is a promise.

PS

Listen up other body parts...especially those that are thinking of going rogue in the future.

 Pay attention on surgery day.   I know this doctor with a saw and a drill!!  

You and I can part ways.

😄

 

Who is this person?

Hello All,

Once again I have let things slide in the blogging department.  Sorry.  It seems to be the story of my life now.  The reality is that dealing with limiting health issues both for myself and my husband have become a full time activity. And this “activity” - while it is voluntary and necessary - is just emotionally and physically exhausting sometimes.  It is definitely worrisome.  It seems like every step forward is accompanied by 2 steps back.  And at 78 years of age, backward steps are not always recovered, no matter how much desire you have.  Some may argue this is not true, but the stark reality is that our older bodies simply don’t have the building blocks to fully recover all that is lost.  It is just a fact of nature.  We are not “designed" to be fully functional forever.

In March I was hopeful that I had a reprieve - at least a window of time when I could be “normal” again. But normal for me is a very low bar these days.  While I have a few conditions related to low kidney function, being able to walk around my condo without a cane or a walker was the “normal” I was seeking.  I was “normal” for about 3 weeks.  

Sadly my right knee pain that has become self absorbing.  Pain is triggered by weight bearing activities.  It is mostly an inflammatory condition - that is mostly helped by non-invasive measures such as icing and ace wrapping, sometimes pain patches and anti-inflammatory gels, and arthritis level Tylenol.  But relief is fleeting - never for longer than about 15 minutes ... when normal movement overpowers all the good from my non-invasive measures.  I feel like if I could just take anti-inflammatories - life would be tolerable.  I have come to accept knee replacement is necessary if I want to recover any of my previous life.  After seeing the pictures inside my knee from my Arthroscopy, I know this condition won’t just heal itself.  Those tissues looked like raw ground beef - not like a normal smooth white meniscus.

I am, however, holding up my surgery for 6-8 months.  My husband has further testing and maybe further treatment (a surgery) for his esophageal cancer.  We can’t both be patients at the same time.  I will not put that burden on my children.  In the meantime, my ortho doc has ordered Hyaluronic Acid Knee Injections (called gel shots) and my insurance has approved this treatment.  While these “gel” shots are not an immediate fix, they have a high improvement rate over time.  And time is what I need.  The gel shots have been approved for a year.

Meanwhile I am mostly fighting with situational depression - my enthusiasms in life activities are pretty low.  My main “bandaid” for moodiness is walking - which I can’t do.  I have continued my leg exercises so that I am as strong as I can be.  But I hit a really low point when I could not participate in Maryland Sheep and Wool with my family.  I made it to the fair grounds ok, and I have a handicapped parking lanyard (due to my husband), but the walk from the parking lot into the fair grounds was tough.  I did meet up briefly with family, but they had agendas further than I could go, and I knew I couldn’t keep up, so we parted.  I arrived at the fair at 8:30 am and left at 9:30 am!  I saw some vendors, but my heart wasn’t in it.  My knee was so painful I thought it might buckle - which it had done once before.  I thought it best to leave and not test fate.  I was alone and had only a cane with me.  If the knee buckled,  I would not be able to make it back to the car.  Driving away from the fair grounds was the lowest I felt in years.  And stupid me - I didn’t have tissues in the car.

It took me a few days to recover from that event.

In hindsight, I think the fair was the beginning of this current pattern of pain.  I probably further injured the tissues.  

So I am in a "hold and wait" pattern right now.  I find that days spent at home with no plans or appointments are far more welcome than I care to admit.  It is like the safety of my “cocoon” is what I desire - because it is less painful and safer.   However, as we age, nothing ages us faster than inactivity and social isolation.  And yet, that is what I crave right now.  

Sometimes I feel like I am stepping outside my body and seeing this person I do not recognize.

I am hoping at a bare minimum - that these gel shots give me back just one thing - the ability to take a walk outside like a normal person, and not worry about pain or loss of function.

No promises on when I will be back here - but I will be back!  Somehow it helps me sort out all the things that are piling up in my brain if I put it into words on the blog.  I guess it is sort of like saying it out loud to a therapist ... and like a good therapist, it doesn’t give you solutions - it helps YOU to find your own solutions.