I’m in the waiting room of my Orthopaedic surgeon’s office, awaiting X-rays of my right knee and right foot. I’ve been nursing these two appendages along for months now, gutting it out, wearing braces and doing truncated workouts and otherwise babying my leg, but we are going on vacation that’s going to involve walking and hiking and general frivolity, and I’m in desperate need of something to get me through. Something being a VERY long needle full of cortisone and lidocaine.
This is what happens to former athletes—our bodies begin betraying us, and we need medical intervention to continue a normal lifestyle. I’m also exploring testing to determine if I have Ehlers-Danlohs syndrome, a genetic disruption of collagen in the body. It explains my double-jointedness, my propensity for joint tears, sprains, and now, arthritis, and the bonkers heart issues that started after my COVID vaccines (3) and subsequent infections (2).
There are things they don’t tell you about getting older. We’re all so attuned to our bodies, but perhaps not in the way we should be. Regular exercise, maintaining a healthy weight, wearing sunscreen, eating your veggies, limiting alcohol and sugar, getting plenty of sleep and clean water, we all know these to be divine truths. But the flexibility and weight-bearing portions are often overlooked. Taken for granted. Your feet. Your knees. Your shoulders.
If I could go back in time, I would hie myself to the nearest yoga studio daily. I would have let those Dry Januaries become Dry Life sooner. I would invest in the best possible shoes and arch supports and weight train religiously. These are the things that will become your preventative best friend later in life. Inflammation is the enemy, in all its many guises.
[[Hold please. They’ve called me back.]]
Oh my.
That is my knee. It’s not supposed to look like that. It is not what I wanted to see, but it is as I feared. He said the nastiest two words I know.
Knee Replacement.
Not the news I wanted to hear today. After 4 meniscal tear surgeries—2 in my teens and two in my late 40s—there’s just no meniscus left on the interior of my right knee. My leg is starting to bow inward, a phenomenon I’ve been weirdly aware of lately as I climb stairs and walk. It’s like my ankle is pronating but from my knee. That kind of structural abnormality will have me all out of wack soon. You know the song…
…Your leg bone connected to your knee bone
Your knee bone connected to your thigh bone
Your thigh bone connected to your hip bone
Your hip bone connected to your back bone…
As it is, I can’t go more than 1/2 mile without stopping. And believe me, I like walks. Walking is my creative gasoline.
Surgery sucks. No doubt about it. And I’m young to be considering a replacement. Young enough that I’m going to gut it out a while longer, another six months at the very least, because I’ve *just* gotten my creative sea legs again after the back-to-back knee surgery in 2019, and anesthesia fucks me up. And I’ll admit it: I’m scared of the pain. I’ve seen it firsthand; my mom’s done this more than once. It. Is. Not. Fun. I don’t want to have to do this again, and the appliances don’t last forever. Twenty years, tops. But I can’t wait too long, or the cascade of issues will catch up to me.
Listen. Joints fail. Minds soften. Bodies ache. This is the privilege of aging. As my 89-year-old father, who golfs three times a week, says, getting old isn’t for the faint of heart. My beloved, recently retired ortho has a slightly different axiom—growing up is hard.
But I’m telling you this today because I want you to avoid this conversation for as long as you can. We writers are sedentary creatures. Sitting in front of a computer for hours a day is not good for us. We need to move our bodies. Breath deeply. Nourish our souls and creativity with fresh air and movement. It’s not until those simple pleasures are taken away that you realize how much you take for granted being able to walk without pain.
So if you can, get off your phone, step away from your desk, and go for a walk. If you can’t, join me in some lovely stretching and deep breathing. The work will be there when you finish.
(And if anyone has opinions about joint replacement versus other, experimental treatments, I am all ears.)
Such great advice, thank you!!
Vandy pain management got me two year before my knee replacement…love them! Good luck my friend!