Random
I’m not sure what I want to say tonight, so I’ll start talking and we’ll see where this goes.
We have been home for a weekend or two now, and we’ll be home this weekend and the next (I think). Although we have stuff going on every weekend, it’s nice to stay home and feel a little relaxed. This weekend my sister & her husband are coming to town to celebrate their anniversary. We plan on doing some touristy stuff with them, and generally hanging out. It is also the 2nd birthday celebration for our neighbor’s son. I can’t believe the kids are getting to be so old. We would usually hang out the afternoon and into the evening at the birthday party, but obviously this year we’ll cut it a little shorter to spend time with my sister and brother-in-law.
In other news, my knee still hurts, although I think it’s getting better. I still can’t walk a ton on it, and I limp, but the sharp pain is mostly gone, which is nice. I did go see the doctor on Monday, just because it didn’t seem to be improving and I didn’t want to ignore something serious (although I was pretty sure it WASN’T serious). I was right; he said I most likely have patellar femoral syndrome. It’s basically an inflammation of the tissues under the kneecap. He said there is also some inflammation of the soft tissues on the inside of my knee, where I was feeling the most pain. He said to rest it, and not to worry about exercising until I can comfortably walk as far as the Y (2 blocks). I’m continuing to wear my brace, and for the most part I have been taking it easy. I did go shopping for party stuff tonight with Serina, so that was a bit more walking than I should probably be doing, but it was nice to get out, and good to spend time with her. It felt REALLY good to sit down and take the brace off, though. The doctor said healing will be measured in weeks, not days. So I expect that it will hurt for a while still. He also mentioned that running just might not be in the cards for me; that some people’s bodies just can’t handle that kind of repetitive motion/stress. So I guess now I have a doctor’s excuse not to run, right? On the one hand I’m ok with it because I have never really liked runnning and it’s nice to have a reason why I can’t. On the other hand, this was supposed to be the exercise that I could just DO, without barriers. Just throw on my shoes and go. And now that’s gone. Sure, I could do workout videos, but you have to clear a section of floor, set up the video, and feel like a fool while doing it. I could ride bike, but I don’t have one, and there are a LOT of hills in this town, if you hadn’t noticed. I could attend fitness classes, but I have to find ones that fit with my schedule. That means either during peak evening hours or extending my lunch (and working a little later). I know these things aren’t a big deal. Any one of them I would argue is no excuse for not exercising. But you know what? I don’t need more barriers between me and exercising. They might not be good excuses, but when I’m tired from work and just want to spend the evening with James and Ryan, it doesn’t take good excuses. It just takes any excuse at all.
That’s my whiney rant about the whole running thing, I guess. I don’t really have many other thoughts on it at this point. Once I can walk again I am going to try to start swimming. I like to swim, even though I’m not great at it, and it’s good exercise while being low-impact, which the doctor said will be important as my knee heals. We’ll see if I’m willing to overcome the barriers to do something I enjoy (driving back downtown to go to the Y in the evening for lap swim, finding the pool/locker room, changing in and out of my suit, dealing with anxiety over whether or not I’ll know all the rules and be ok during lap swim. You know. Just the standard.
There’s not much else new around here. Ryan is up at Burrito Union with some friends having a couple of beers. I’m about to head to bed to watch Bones and read my book (Stephen King’s Full Dark, No Stars). James is sleeping.
On a closing note; how is it September already? I feel like I must be missing something.
