Check my Defend Equality page TODAY's QUOTE It is difficult to say what is impossible, for the dream of yesterday is the hope of today and the reality of tomorrow. ~ Robert H. Goddard Yesterday's Entries 2000: Paternity Leave TODAY's FOOD Breakfast: Cereal and
toast CURRENTLY READING "Eyes of a Child" TODAY on TV The Apprentice Today on the Internet I hope that anybody who has read this journal for any length of time will be as appalled as I was to see the movie which is being shown on this web site. But when you've had enough of that, reward yourself with the movie on this web site. |
SHOCK AND AWE 1 April 2004 I’m sure it was an April Fool’s joke. This morning I got up and weighed myself, wondering how much damage I’d done to myself in Chicago. Two pounds wasn’t too horrible, and was about what I’d expected. OK...time to settle back into the healthy routine again. As Bozoette said today, "...I'll keep coming back, every time I go away, because that's what maintenance is. Coming back. The little detours are fun, but the main road is the way." So when they called me into the exam room at Kaiser this afternoon, I wasn’t expecting any particular surprises. I knew what I’d gained. I knew exactly what I weighed on the scale this morning. I was even wearing the same clothes, so there shouldn’t be much variation. The trip to Kaiser was to finally get my knee looked at. It’s not getting any better and bothered me a lot in Chicago, with all that walking. In addition to the damage to the patella itself, I suspected I’d developed either a blood clot or a varicose vein because the problem was mostly in the back of my knee, though the knee itself has been uncomfortable ever since the accident. The knee has never really been evaluated in depth at all. The orthopedist kind of sloughed it off every time I mentioned it, since he was concentrating on the shoulder. The physical therapist talked about it a bit, but she was supposed to concentrate on the shoulder too, so the knee was never really the focus of any attention. Other than an ultrasound to rule out a blood clot, nothing much had been done for the knee. I finally called the advice nurse yesterday, when the knee was really aching, and she said someone would call me about coming in to see my primary care physician today. In the meantime I was to elevate it and ice it. I have to admit that when I got up this morning, it did feel better, though the aching started as soon as I began walking around on it again. John (my doctor--I knew him from when I worked at Sutter, so we are on a first name basis) was running late and I sat in the waiting room for 45 minutes before being called back. I’m always very philosophical about things like this. Having worked in a doctor’s office, I know about scheduling problems and I go in expecting a long wait, and am pleasantly surprised if I don’t have one. I was sorry that I hadn’t brought my book with me, but the new Prevention magazine had come and I managed to read the whole thing cover to cover. Twice. (I was pleased to discover that scientists feel that eating blueberries, which I do nearly every day, will help prevent developing Alzheimers. Nice consolation for the niece of someone with that terrible condition.) Finally I was called back and there was the moment that I once again didn’t enjoy--the "step up on the scale here" moment. But at least I knew what to expect. I didn’t expect that the hospital scale and my home scale would disagree by ten frigging pounds!!!!!! It weighed me 10 lbs heavier than I had weighed at home. Honestly, I know I didn’t eat that much cereal this morning!!! I'm sure they've hung weights on the scale for April Fool's Day. For purposes of this journal, I’m going to ignore the hospital scale and continue to go by what I see here at home, and the weigh-in weight will only go up by 2 lbs. And next week IT WILL GO DOWN. As for the exam, for once the knee was center stage. John ordered x-rays and I went to have that done. The x-ray tech put me on a cold metal slab and then disappeared for about 10 minutes. I don’t do well lying flat, so I wasn’t too happy about that, but at least I got to look up into the ceiling and realize that the ceiling of an x-ray room, with all the tubing looped all over the place, reminded me very much of seeing Blue Man Group. She took the x-rays and I returned to John’s office. The diagnosis? He says there is some arthritis visible in the knee on the x-rays, but it didn’t look too bad, and that there was obviously internal scarring, which would explain the "tightness" I feel when I begin to use it much. The vein in back of my knee is also badly varicosed, as I suspected, which accounts for the aching that I've been feeling. He feels that "aggressive physical therapy" will help the problems, so he’s written me a referral back to physical therapy, this time to concentrate on the knee. He also gave me Motrin for the discomfort and an elastic brace to help the ache of the vein. For the first time since I went flying over the handlebars ten months ago, I feel like somebody has finally acknowledged that there were two body parts that were injured and that something needs to be done about the ignored part. One thing he said made me feel like I haven’t been a big slacker all this time. I mentioned that I was really frustrated at not being able to move like I had been before, and talked about the things that I’d tried and why I hadn’t continued (biking, the recumbant bike at the gym, etc.) and he said "...of course not, because those would have made things worse." So at least I’ve been doing--or not been doing--the right things. And now I’ll have physical therapist input to help me figure out what I can and can’t do safely. Good lord, it would be lovely to come up on the one-year anniversary of this damn accident knowing that the end was at least visible, even if on the far horizon. In preparing this entry, I read the entry from one year ago and realized with some sadness that the "April Fools Day" entry I wrote at the top of the column was closer to my real day today and the bottom half of the entry was closer to the "fool's day" entry. Sigh. I want to get back to where I can write the bottom half entry again and mean it! |
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Weight Lost to date:
41.8 lbs
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Created 3/29/04
