Baby steps...

This morning I biked to work again. It was nice.

While biking and wincing at expected pain that didn't actually come I was wondering how people with chronic pain deal with it. How do you live with knowing that things you do will hurt? I wonder if I would build stamina and character or shrivel up a bit from the overexposure to it all...you really never know until it happens. My Mum has arthritis in her wrists now and while she very rarely complains about it, I can see her slowing down and wincing often...many of her old habits are off limits now. How frustrating. She just found new ones to fill the gap, but I imagine it would get to you every once in a while...
Plus, I'm a wuss...I'll take stiff muscles or cramps, but actual pain and I'm running of to hide in the corner for hugs like a 3 year old. I've read blogs of people living with chronic pain and it makes my little bit of knee pain seem rather trivial in comparison...but it did hurt. It impacted how I lived my daily life...and I didn't like it one bit.
To be honest I was scared to speedwalk this morning like I'd planned...it wasn't laziness, I was scared my knee would start to hurt again and I just couldn't deal with that right now. I've been pain free for over a week. Moderation and exercise don't always mesh well for me and it's all I can do from keeping my self back and not pushing myself too hard and hurting myself again. Once my August holiday is over with I do plan on getting back into things on a more serious scale. For now I'll try and eat well and be active, but not push it. My doc warned me to be good. I shall be.

Baby steps...
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Busy times...

Well, I rode my bike to work this morning. It didn't bother me at all, and I took it easy. That was a good sign. Hopefully it means I can get back to being more active.
I think tomorrow I'll do some speed walking in the morning. It's nice and cool in the mornings despite being hot as hades during the day, so it's a good time to be out.
I did a ridiculous amount of yard work and housework over the weekend - lawn, shrubs, hedges, weeds, laundry, cleaning and putting away our camping gear. Whew!
This week I have time to start organising things. We finally got 2 bookshelves, so we can begin organising my craft room and the office. I have a bright red shelf in my room and we now have 3 white shelves in the office...it's exciting to think we may be organised some day very soon.
I'm just liking walking into a room and not seeing all the clutter...just a nice room I can relax in.
And once my room is set up I can make my parents the window they've been bugging me about for the last year or so.
I've also got to actually order my tiles for the kitchen (procrastinate? Me? nah!) - one of the subway tiles I wanted has disappeared, so I need to figure out how to do the back splash in the kitchen - I was just going to do straight white glass subway tiles, but I'm toying with doing a stripe of darker blue or a row of the tiny 1 inch tiles above the stove in middle of the subway tiles for the backsplash as well...I finally took the measurements. Now I need to go to the tile store and measure the tiles I want, so I can figure this out. Otherwise I won't have any tiles for my Dad to put up when he comes in the end of August!

Holiday!

Just got back from a fantastic holiday in the woods. Camping...Thunderstorms in a tent! Tubing on the river! Suntanning! Dancing all night to great music! Grilled cheese sandwiches!

It was lovely.

Best of all my knee gave me no trouble at all, even after 3 straight nights of monkey dancing all night and then swimming and hiking all day.

Wo hoo. I think I'm back to normal again. (knock on wood)
I'm slightly sunburnt and very relaxed and trying to slide back into life again after my week off.
I wish I had more time off...:)
We got to go on a canoe excursion last night as well...beautiful.
I wish summer would never end :)

Power suit

Well...after my yearly physical I had a few minutes before the bus back to work at the mall where the bus terminal is, so I popped in Zellers, and they had all their swimwear on sale half off. Cool. SO I snooped a bit, as my current suit broke last summer and the only one left I don't like - it's my emergency backup suit for a reason.

Soo...I found a burgundy 2 piece I like. It had a skirty bottom and regular bottom...but I couldn't decide and the skirty one felt wierd (albeit looked fine) so I got the regular one, but I might go back and get the other one...you just can't return swimwear, so I just went with what I liked. I had a feeling J might not like it either as he's made frowny faces at skirty bottoms int he past. Plus I have this stupid barrier in my head to skirty bottom suits - like they mean I'm fat. And really the rmain problem I have with 2 pieces is that they sometimes aren't super flattering at the waist. Everything else is OK. I'll never have a perfect ass, I've accepted that, and I like bikini tops...so I'm never totally happy with how bikini bottoms fit. As for the bottoms on this one, it is OK though. Not blech not yay -the colour is good and the tops looks smoking hot...I think I'll feel better out and about with a new bathing suit. Definitely.
And honestly, with a critical eye in the change room I must admit...I don't look THAT bad...just a bit more jiggly. Being reassured by the official doctor scale that in the doctor's office I weigh the same as last year helped a bit....

And it was $22. How sweet is that? :)

I'm feeling a bit better as my Doc says I'm in great health and look fine. She gave me some exercises I can do for my leg and suggested I start at some waist and upper body stuff and that I can go back to walking lots in another week ro so. Already the twingy pains are minimal. So...it's getting better. Yay!

All sitting and no running make Geo something something

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You know that awesome feeling you get after a workout?
I miss that.
I'm really fighting being bummed that I can't really exercise until my knee is better.
I know I'm pretty much the same, but I just feel flabby and blechy...the opposite of hot and fit.

I think I need to do something, even if it's upper body stuff and some situps, because this is really bumming me out. Next week I'll be away for a few days camping and will be putting on a bathing suit, or at least bikini top and shorts...yeah. Not really into that at the moment. This has me not wanting to, even tho I'm sure it'll be fine, just not as kickass super awesome as I was last year, when I was in the best shape of my life (sigh). I'm sure noone will run away screaming! My lovely J still says I'm hotcakes...but he's biased :)

Ah well...What can you do right? It's the long haul...that's what I keep telling myself. In a few weeks I can go walking again in the mornings. Now that company is gone there is no beer left so I won't be tempted to drink empty beer calories...and I made myself a superyummy salad with tuna for lunch - I figure I can still eat well if I can't work out. That's something.

Can I get a hells no?

Went to have my knee checked. Apparently I have patella inflammation - Chondromalacia to be specific.

My right kneecap is inflamed on the underside, causing a rougher surface that rubs on the tendons of my knee leading down from my quads, causing twinges of pain only when it bends a certain way in a fluid motion. Walking is fine, most things are fine...just prolonged bending or going up stairs or (the worst) pedalling my bike will cause random twinges when the bits of my knee that are not supposed meet rub past each other. A few fridays ago I tripped while running. A very minor fall, but I scraped my knee and hit it a bit. It's not clear if this or just randomness was the cause...but now my knee is sore...sometimes. I'm mostly annoyed as there is nothing I can do about it really. I can try and ice it and take antiinflammatories like advil, and try and find exercises to strengthen my quad muscles, but mostly just not do anything that hurts it until I feel better...at least 2 weeks. Then I can start back slowly, and in the meantime do things like swimming (we'll see) to increase strength and try to find some therapeutic exercises for my knee. Apparently women get this a lot for whatever reason. I've tried to do lots of stretching...apparently not enough.

I've learned a bit about the knee in my internet explorations...amazing little joint actually. When you go up the stairs, it takes a pressure of twice your body weight on it. When going downstairs? SEVEN times. Crazy huh? All that and it's just a little cap and some tendons and a little pouch of fluid. No wonder it gets a bit sore sometimes...
I'm trying not to be bummed out. I was just getting back in decent shape and I don't think I was overdoing it, but perhaps I'm trying to do what I'd like to do too soon...this year I've been pretty slack compared to other years so I'm surprised I would cause an injury this year. It's the sort of thing that only happens when you're active...perhaps the inconsistency this year was the issue. Or the tripping-who knows?

It seems that I should be finding certain exercises to strengthen muscles so that this doesn't happen again. I'm on the hunt for some physio exercises to strengthen my quads and hamstrings...I'm going to a music festival in a little while and I'd like to be able to dance by then.

I'm only 35- I'm too young for this...

Grrr

Boo...off and on for a week my knee has been giving me twinges, ever since I tripped last friday on a run. I landed on my palms mostly, and not very hard at that, but a few days after that my knee started to get sore. I don't even really think it's related - it's just the only thing I can think of that might have anything to do with it. Over the weekend it progressed to very sore. This morning it was clicking painfully as I rode my bike to work. Ow.

I am very sick of this knee business...bursitis I think it would be called...a mysterious non-entity pain that just gets in the way of activity caused by nothign in particular.
How am I supposed to work out or do anything fun with my knee being sore? I'm just getting back into shape - how do I keep fit with this?
I'm going to have it looked at, because it's very frustrating.
I danced at a concert on saturday (it was Kool & the Gang - how do you sit still for that?) but I haven't done anything strenuous all week as we've had company here with a baby so I haven't been able to work out (exercise stuff was in the baby sleep area) and it kept raining whenever I tried to go for a walk/run.

I'm getting very frustrated.
Grrr....