Today I walked my wonderful dog and we did some jogging. It's always a challenge with her on the leash because I never know when she's going to catch a whiff of something and slam on her brakes. Other times I'm glad when she does because I'm giving out.
I have learned something though over the course of this month about me and jogging. I don't think I'll ever be a full time jogger even though it feels great. Why? Well, it all boils down to my left knee. Back in 1982 I dislocated my left knee. By the time I had surgery many months later, the bone was sticking out to the left about 1 1/2 inches. Funny thing though, it never hurt. I had surgery in September of 1982 about a week after my birthday - the surgeon wanted to do it on my birthday but I said no way no how. How did it get to this point? Other than back in January or February of 1982 we had a lot of snow. The apartment I was living in, my car was snowed in. So my Dad came over and backed it out barely missing me who got my left leg caught in a snow drift. I backed up and ended up knee deep in snow and couldn't move. Naturally my knee started bothering. So finally in May or June I went to see the doctor who referred me to an orthopedic surgeon. The rest was history.
As it turns out my knee was screwed up to start with. I know my right one is but that's a different tale. The surgeon told me he was going to do an "open" surgery to rebuild my knee cap. You see it was too high on my knee, off center and everything was all out of sorts. So I had surgery. I have a nice scar across my knee as well as four "hole scars". I had PT in the hospital - they didn't want to release me because, as they put it "I was dangerous on crutches". I told them if I had to go up over one step I wouldn't be going there, end of discussion. So they released me on crutches with exercises to do. I was on crutches for 6 weeks - my foot couldn't touch the ground during that time.
What was hysterical was I was staying with my boss's three teenage daughters while they were on a business trip to China for two weeks. They lived in a two story house and the bedrooms were upstairs. My butt got quite a workout! I slid down the stairs and "scooted" myself up to the bedroom. The girls had fun laughing at the craziness.
When my six weeks was up I was supposed to walk with one crutch for another six weeks. Darn it! Not happening. As soon as I was able to walk safely that crutch was gone! My only problem is if you touch the right side of my leg I feel it on the left. I still have to watch out for bruised knee caps if I put too my pressure on it.
My right knee gives me hell - there's no way around it. I can't see the bottom of my foot because I can't bend my leg correctly because of that knee. So I can't see what's wrong with my right heel. I'm not a contortionist. Being diabetic that poses major challenges and problems. I can't even use a mirror under my foot to look at. So I have to rely on someone else to check my foot. Darn it anyway! My best friend in high school nearly broke my leg trying to force my knee to sit "Indian" style as we called it back then.
So my knee causes me trouble all the way up into my thigh when I jog. Darn it anyway! It feels good to run, as long as the asthma doesn't rear it's ugly head. Darn darn double darn. Sometimes you just can win 'em all.
Challenge - that's good. It makes you think. It tells you there's something here to work out. We all face challenges every day. It's up to us to make the best of those challenges and overcome them.
We shall overcome! We will win! We will do this!
Sending you love & hugs,
Ramona