Ow

My knee hurts. My left knee. For a while, recently, it has felt not-good, as though I had hyper-extended it. It felt stretched-out and often painful in the back of the knee. I felt like it was improving, though, until yesterday after work. I was jay-walking across Cornwall Avenue in Bellingham to get to my car to go home. The way was clear, except there was a car, far off, to my right, that would be coming through a green light into that further lane, so I walked quickly. Mid-way through that crucial lane, I felt something pop—I may even have heard it pop—in the back of my knee and the sensation was extremely unpleasant. I still had to hurry the last painful three steps to the sidewalk, and then I stood realizing the discomfort.

Writing this, I just remembered how, when I played Barbies as a little girl, my brother would occasionally rush in, bend the Barbies' legs forward at the knees, and then rush out again. My knee feels like I did that to myself.

I am not in constant pain. When I sit on a kitchen chair, as I am right now, with my foot on the floor pointing straight ahead, my knee doesn't hurt. If I would try to put my foot back into the rungs of the chair, as has been my habit, it would hurt. Earlier in the day, I put on the shoes I wear into the back yard. They are plastic almost-clogs, but they do have a back. When slipping them on, if I tried to wiggle the lower part of my leg to work my foot into the shoe, that hurt a lot. Instead I lifted my foot and crossed it across the other knee to pull the shoe-back up with my finger. That hurt, too, but less. I took a few steps onto the lawn, but the uneven ground made my ankles bend this way and that, which twisted the knee painfully, so I went back to the pavement. I was outside to bring my dog out to do his business.

When I slept on my recliner last night, as I generally do, my knee did not hurt as long as my leg was straight. It seems to be keeping my foot pointed forward that is the crucial thing.

I tried taking aspirin last night and this morning, in case something is inflamed, but it had no effect at all. So no inflammation, I guess.

I'll give it some time to recover before I call a doctor about it. I don't really like going to the doctor. It's a bother.

I would assume part of the problem is my weight. I'm heavy.  Perhaps my weight snuck up to the point where that one more ounce was the ounce that snapped my knee, like the straw that broke the camel's back. You would think that knowing all the health issues that stem from overweight would motivate me to eat more rationally. But so far I'm not seeing much sign of that. Oh, well. I can't deal with that right now.

Anyway, the knee situation forces me to sit quietly, and that may be what I need. I often do sit around, but usually I feel guilty about it. Why aren't I out pulling weeds and planting flowers? Why don't I finish up some organizational tasks in the house? Heck, why not do a lot of laundry? If I mess with my mind enough, I end up spending the weekend like that line the C.S. Lewis wrote in the Screwtape Letters: I have done neither what I ought nor what I enjoyed. (Or something like that.) Perhaps I will accomplish needlework of some kind this afternoon, knitting or needlepoint or teaching myself (with a book) to crochet. I won't have to think I should be doing something else because my knee means I can't do those other things, or at least that doing them would be too painful. Oh, how dreary are the workings of one's mind sometimes. I will try to simply enjoy whatever I end up doing this afternoon, reading, stitching, or dozing, or some combination of the three.