Tweaking things

Last night I was reminded that I am not as young as I like to think I am. And it all goes back to things that I did when I was in my 20s. Because last night I was in quite a bit of pain.

The first incident involved working at the amusement park that summer. I ended up dropping a full beer keg on my right knee. No broken bones but lots of bruised soft tissue -- as in all the tissue under my kneecap. While the injury was healing, a normal day of walking was painful.

A few years later, I had a slip and fall that resulted in my injuring one of the tendons in my right hip. There were days that it took me 20 minutes to pull myself out of bed. And there were weeks of wearing tennis shoes because they were the only things that I owned that were flat and gave me a sense of stability. It was during this time that I first discovered the joy that is flexeril as well.

Usually the flare-ups are a result of excessive driving. Because I still insist upon driving a manual transmission. But it's gotten better because now I can drive to southern California and am not in excruciating pain once I arrive.

After work last night, I went to visit family friends in Pacifica for dinner. (It was also to discuss my tutoring their foster daughter in math. See? I still haven't given up on the kids.) As the evening progressed, my right knee and hip started to hurt -- a lot. And all I could think was, "I have to get in my car and drive home."

I ended up hanging out with one of my neighbors on the front steps for a bit after getting home. (He had locked himself out and was waiting for his roommate to return.) Once in my apartment, I headed straight for the kitchen to feed the cats. Not that Natasha was screaming for food because she looked a little groggy. I knelt down to get cans from the cabinet. And that's when my knee gave and I ended up on my ass on the floor. Once the cats were finally fed, I wrapped my knee and popped some ibuprofen and assumed the position on the couch with remote in hand.

And I had time to think. My conclusion was the only thing really different has been the walking/running at lunch time. And it's been making me feel really good -- until last night. So now I think that I have three options. The first is that I start wrapping my knee on a regular basis once more. The second is that I only walk and do not run to lessen some of the stress on my joints. The third is that I find some other form of cardio that isn't so hard on me.

This is kind of new territory for me so I'd love to hear from those of you who do some form of exercise on a regular basis.