Knees

My knees hurt.  The swelling makes me look as if I have a football strapped to each knee.  The fluid build up is so severe it oozes from my skin because it has nowhere else to go.  I have taken enough anti-inflammatory medicine that by now I should have shrunk to a mere few inches of my former self.  Week eight of bed rest with elevated legs above my heart is making me depressed.  I walk up stairs as if I were a hundred years old and I am not quite fifty.  To walk to the car for yet another doctors appointment makes me cringe and cry when I see my shadow on the warm yard.  I look like an illustration from a children’s book, the Hag from the Hovel.  I just want to fall down and give up.  Three years of this has taken a toll.

After an MRI and a meeting with the physical therapist, I have hope.  After one misdiagnosed injury to the next, the doctors at the big hospital have the answer to my misery and it is something with a bit more of bed rest and exercise can be fixed.  That news, right there, is enough to lift me up.  I cry because now I have an answer.  Now I have something to work with.  Now I have a plan.

After months of therapy and building back my stamina I was able to walk a half marathon with my daughter.  The entire three and a half hours I was trying hard not to cry.  I was in such awe of my body.  I marveled at her and how hard she had worked for me to get me to this point.  I looked over at my daughter a saw a younger version of myself and said a prayer that she would never have dark days like those.  As we crossed the finish line holding hands I could finally cry.  I cried because in six months I had come so far and did something a year ago lying in bed, I only dreamed about.  I cried because my entire family was there for me all the way from start to finish.  I cried because my body ached and this time it was from something good.