The Failure Continues

Well the failure continues... There's been no exercising in my house for a week now.

I saw my family doctor on Thursday who said he didn't know what was wrong with my knees but didn't think it was the patella-femoral anymore and thought it was something worse. He also said they were going to set me up with an MRI and that I should stay on the crutches.

Well the pain hasn't been getting any better. It's been getting progressively worse every day.

I haven't been letting on to people how much pain I have been in. I've tried to brush it off, act like nothing's wrong and that it's not a big deal. Meanwhile I've been in the worst pain I've had since I had my ovarian cysts. 

It all came to a head on Tuesday night. I tried to have a shower and could barely bend my knee enough to get my leg over the side of the tub to get in. Even just standing there was agony. I had lost the ability to put any weight at all on my knee and the pain was absolutely intense. I can't get away from it. It hurts if I lay down, hurts if I sit, if I stand, if I try to walk.. 

Even the pain is the oddest thing. On the right side of my cap it feels like someone's poking a huge needle into it and moving the needle around. On the top of my cap it feels like jello moving around but every now and then someone tries to poke the jello. On the actual cap itself it feels like constant grinding. It's so hard to describe.. but let me just say it hurts like heck.

So anyways, Tuesday night I finally broke down. I burst out crying from the pain and couldn't stop crying for over a half hour. Those who know me should know this in itself is a huge deal. I don't cry easily, especially from pain. I've always had the "stiff upper lip" thing going on. So I lost it for about a half hour. Dad finally told me that we were going to Pan Am Clinic first thing in the morning. I of course objected, saying that I couldn't miss work and that it was sure to fix itself soon.

I lost that debate.

So off to Pan Am we went yesterday. We didn't have to wait too long, only about 4 hours. 

The doc took x-rays and they showed a normal cap which was good news as far as I was concerned. He said it wasn't great because it meant something else was wrong. He made me lay on the bed with my leg flat, which had me biting my lip to keep the tears away. He felt it, jiggled it and poked around a lot.. the whole time I'm sitting there crying from the pain and in all honesty trying not to pass out. 

He said that it is the pattella-femoral and that I'm having a bad flare up. He said there's no surgery they can do to fix it (although I'm sure knee replacement is an option down the road as it has been bantered around before). He said that this is going to happen since PF is not curable. 

He told me that there's no point in my ever trying to wear a knee brace as my knee cap is far too small (it is tiny..) and the brace would have nothing to grip onto. 

So he sent me off with a prescription to celebrex to try for a week and some pain pill that supposedly is good for people who can't take tylenol 3. I can't take T3. They don't do anything for the pain. This doc was saying that supposedly 20-30% of the Caucasian population don't have the enzyme to break down the codeine in T3s. I guess I'm one of them. 
He also told me to elevate and ice the knee 5 times a day.

Then came the really bad news.

I have to be off work for a week. Most people would celebrate having to be off work, but I love my job. I also am one of those people who can't sit still and do nothing or I feel guilty. So taking a week off is basically torture to me. I've already volunteered to do some work at home if need be.

The other really bad news is I had to get rid of the crutches. Saying goodbye to the crutches isn't all that bad, but trading them in for a wheelchair is.

Yep. I have to be in a wheelchair for a week. 

I'm not allowed to put any weight on my knee for a week. 

So there goes any exercise plans. Well, at least I can get some sort of upper body work out seeing as I have to pull myself around in this damned chair, but it won't be enough! 
I don't even know if I'm going to be able to work out much if this thing ever dies down. I really don't know what the future holds. It all depends on how this week goes. If it dies down, then great I can probably get back to it. If it doesn't, then I have no idea what's going to happen. 


This is just killing me. I'm normally a very active person, not physically but just running errands and being busy. I like to keep busy, it gives me a sense of purpose to life. Now I'm forced to sit still and do nothing. ARGGGGG! I'm already itching because there's things I should be doing but I can't. At this exact moment I should be at work but I can't be. The windows in this house need cleaning, the fence needs chicken wire on it so Bailey can't get out, I have pants I need to go get hemmed, I want to change my cell phone provider but I need more info... 
There's things to do and I can't get them done! Driving me insane.. driving me insane!


I have to stop thinking I'm Superwoman though. I have to slow down. Even with being on the crutches I was still trying to do everything I did before. I was massively overdoing it. I was trying to downplay the pain to those around me. I never  like to admit when I'm in pain. And I don't like to bitch about being in pain either. Nobody likes to hear that kind of stuff. So basically, everybody knew I was in pain already, so why dwell on it, why say "Oh it's getting worse, I think the pain is about a 25 on a 1-10 scale". Bitching about being in pain doesn't help it or stop it, so why would I. 
I tried to do too much. I still cooked dinner, played with Bailey (though it was modified playing), went up and down the stairs, did errands.. acted like nothing was wrong other than I had to deal with these stupid things shoved up my arm pits. I now know I was stupid. I have to actually start listening to my body, and when it starts screaming at me instead of screaming back at it telling it to do what I want it to... I should listen to it and rest. 


I actually shocked my dad with how limited my range of motion was and how much pain I was in. I don't think he fully understood until we got to the doctors and the simple act of the doctor laying his hand on my knee without even putting pressure on it, caused me to cry out. 


So the failure continues..


to hopefully be replaced by a full recovery and a restart at all this..

Epic Fail

So yeah... can't write much because I can't say much.


This week has been a total write off. Monday I did my personal best on the elliptical for 570 calories.

But then the pain started. 


My knees are totally buggered.

Monday night the pain started in my knee. I figured no big deal, this happens all the time, by morning I'll be alright.


Morning came and the pain was worse and shooting from my knee down to my toes and back to my hip.

So I went to work with a cane and hobbled along. I figured it would probably calm down that night and I'd be alright.


Nope.


It swelled up to the size of, gosh, I don't know... something between a grapefruit and a watermelon. Dang this is huge.

So off to work I went on Wednesday but I figured I would just limp my way through the day. BAD idea. Stupid stupid stupid! That just made it hurt more. So after work on Wednesday I went to the medical supply store and finally bought those crutches I was talking about back in January or February the last time this acted up.


Went to work on Thursday with the crutches. Sore, hard to get around, but definitely easier to get around than the previous days.


Saw the doctor on Thursday. He says that it's most likely NOT the patella-femoral that's causing it, he figures it's something worse. He touched my kneecap and it just grinded. It was so gross, it didn't matter where around my knee he touched it made this grinding feeling and sound. So he told me he's sending me for an MRI which of course will probably take 6 months to get... in the meantime I get to keep using the crutches, take some anti inflammatories and some pain pills and hope it starts feeling better on it's own.


I'm SO frustrated. So incredibly frustrated. Normally when it acts up it stops within 24 hours. This is now day 4 of incredible pain and swelling and there's no real sign of it stopping. And of course this happens right while I'm doing well with the weight loss and starting to feel a bit better about myself. Now the working out has basically come to a stop. After working all morning (I only work half time) I'm exhausted from the pain and the crutches. Plus, I mean obviously I can't get on the elliptical right now. I could do some upper body work but to be honest all I want to do it MOVE. 


So I'm still going to watch what I eat (although I have to admit the past few days the chocoholic in me has come out and won) and try to lose weight by just eating better.. it'll go a LOT slower but.. I hope I can still do it. 


I hope, I pray, I wish... my knee could feel better right now. I have so much to do that's been put on the back burner because of this. I can't work out because of this.. I can't play with my Bailey pup as much as she wants.. 


I'm petrified that the people I see in person, like at work and such, think that I'm faking this. I've always been like that, worried that people don't believe me when I'm sick or in pain. But to anybody who thinks I'm faking or playing it up... come see my knee. Come see the swelling and that should prove that something is wrong. 


Just when things start to look up.. you get knocked right back down.


*sigh*

Frustration and Success

Just a quick update this week..

There's been a fair amount of frustration. I'm finding meals are getting fairly hard to deal with. Lunch is a pain because breakfast is the same thing every day, then I choose dinner and whatever is left for calories becomes lunch.

But it's hard sometimes to find things that fit into the calories I have left at lunch. The main reason for this? My father. We eat dinner together every night and he doesn't want us eating two different meals. I have no problem cooking two separate meals that we eat at the same time, but he thinks it diminishes the importance of eating a meal together.

I'd love to be able to make what I want. Dad and I unfortunately have very different tastes. I love poultry and could eat a lot of it. It's lean, low cal and very versatile. Dad however, is a red meat eater. He will not eat poultry more than once a week, twice if I'm really sneaky. I also love spicy food, lots of vegetables and trying new things. Dad is very English in his eating. The plainer, the better. He also hates it when I try a new recipe because he automatically figures it has to suck because I chose it. So planning meals sometimes can be really challenging. 

So a lot of the time more calories go into dinner than I'd like there to be; just because I have to make meals he would want. Part of the issue as well is that Dad's tired of eating certain meals, and I'm tired of eating the ones he's not tired of. So we're in this huge rut that we can't get out of because he won't try new things and I'm tired of the same old same old.

But I am trying. 

 I had two cheat days this week. I try to only have one, but this week had to be an exception. Easter was on Sunday so obviously that was a cheat day. There was no way I was going to be able to eat low cal when it comes to a holiday like that.

The other cheat day was Wednesday. Dad and I have had season tickets to MTC for the past 10 years. So we go once a month during the theatre season. We always go out for dinner the night of the play as well, make it a daddy/daughter night kind of thing. Well we went off to the Keg. Yet again, I knew there was no hope of eating well, so I just enjoyed the food. 

Back into routine again for Thursday and the rest of this week. Although today may end up being a minor cheat day. I have had horrible insomnia for the last 10 days  to 2 weeks.. I'm so incredibly tired. I did work out yesterday but it nearly killed me. Today I'm still exhausted so I may just skip the workout.. we'll see how the day goes.

I do have some success now though! It's not a huge amount but it's something. Since I truly started to eat well and commit myself to working out every day (so like.. 2.5 weeks now I guess) I've lost 2 inches in my torso and 7 pounds. I'm startled to see the inches come off my top half of my body considering that the elliptical is a lower body workout. I would have figured it would come off my butt and thighs first. Oh well, I'll take it where I can get it!

so my new stats are:

Age: 26

Height: 5'3"

Weight: 197 lbs

Measurements:

Calves: 17"

Thighs : 31"

Hips: 47"

Stomach: 44"                                      down 2 inches from starting point

Waist: 34"                                            down 2 inches from starting point

Chest (bust): 40"                               down 2 inches from starting point

Upper arm: 13"

Lower arm: 9.5"