The weblogs of Beth, Christian, and the cat: updated daily, weekly, or occasionally.
Tuesday, 31 January 2006
Beth: Weak-kneed
Has anyone ever commented on how cruel it was to build the new YMCA right next to a Burger King? You get out of your car, all pumped to go exercise and do something good for yourself, when up through your nostrils wafts the smell of Burger King fries....mmmmm....Burger King fries....Cruel. Or when you leave the Y, all sweaty and a bit tired, the smell hits you again and you realize how hungry you are from working out...and that dinner won't be for another hour...and how quick and easy it would be to just grab a small order of fries...Mean. Not that I even eat fast food. Only really on very rare occasions. But when you smell it like that...it smells good.
Anyway, today I was at the Y trying to shake the January grayness off of me, when I decided to try something that I hadn't done in a long while: lunges. It's this easy little exercise where you "lunge" forward on one foot and lower your upper body down, bending the other leg. Your legs essentially form the shape of one half of the Nazi swastika, to be graphic and inappropriate. Then you lift back up and lunge forward with the other leg. And a good time was had by all. My former roommates from way back in the day, Buffy and Sara, used to do lunges up and down the dorm hallway during "Dawson's Creek" commercials, and sometimes I'd join in. It felt good back then, so I thought I'd give it a shot today. I did one lunge: pain. I lunged forward with the other leg: more pain. My knees were screaming.
Now, anyone who's ever heard me go up or down stairs, or crouch down, or walk, or move, knows that something is not all "right" with my knees. I have so much creaking cartilege in there that when I go down stairs it sounds like Bigfoot is tramping through some nice crunchy snow in a quiet forest. The problem first materialized on one knee in middle school when I joined the track team for my mad sprinting skills. I wore a brace on that knee for the duration of my track career (yep, I stopped after middle school) because that made it feel better. My uncle, a physical therapist, checked it out at that time, but determined that it wasn't something to be overly worried about...then. Since then, the problem has gotten louder and spread to the other knee. Now they are both equally as bad, to the point where I don't remember which one went bad first. Sometimes in recent years, if I was wearing higher heels, it would be a little harder to go down stairs as fluidly as I used to. But I never really worried much about it, or had any pain, until today.
So now I'm all concerned, because really, I'm only 25, and one's knees aren't supposed to give out this early. Plus, I'm not fat - it's not like the poor guys are having to hold up 400 pounds or anything. They really don't have anything to complain about. And of course my mind jumps immediately to "knee replacement surgery," because really that's the only kind of knee treatment you ever hear about, and I know that the surgery's a bitch, so that freaks me out. No more surgeries!! Haven't I suffered enough?? Why me????
Anyway, I'm freaking out, but I'll get over it. Probably. Perhaps I'll give my uncle a call. In semi-related news, I'm half-watching the State of the Union and getting annoyed (as usual) at all the standing ovations. Give me a break. If I were there in person, I'd be even more annoyed...because all that sudden standing and sitting would probably start to bother my knees after a while...*sob*
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