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One of the biggest frustrations of my teenage years were my mother's knees.
Sometime when I was about 12 or 13, a relatively minor accident caused her to dislocate a knee. Thereafter, The Knees became a bane of life.
It caused her a great deal of pain, and I apologize now for not understanding that better, but she refused to deal with it with anything other than physical therapy, ace bandages/braces, icepacks, and dietary treatment. She absolutely refused to use a wheelchair or get a disabled permit even on a temporary basis.
As a kid, this was extremely frustrating and unfair, because her refusal to accept anything that would outwardly reflect her handicapped status meant we could not do ANYTHING that would require her to walk. She could stand only five minutes, and we did nothing as a family that would require more than that. Museum? Out. Zoo? Nope. Aquarium? Maybe, but when she gets tired, it's time to go.
The knee thing has always been a timebomb for me. My grandmother, her older daughter (my aunt), and her younger daughter (my mother) all have or had severe knee problems. At one point, xrays of my mother's knees revealed deformity in the bones of the knee socket, the cause of her problems; given family history, there's a fair chance it's genetic.
This week, my right knee has started to act up. I haven't dislocated it, but it has been exquisitely painful by the end of the day, despite spending most of my day seated. Brian has had to put up with my whimpering sobs when I'm trying to find an unpainful position in bed.
...I just hope this isn't the start of the rest of my life. I don't want to be the one that can't do anything, and Brian and I can't push each other's wheelchairs.
(As for my mother's knees now, years of dietary supplements, physical therapy exercises, and a good deal of lost weight have got her mostly walking normally, though she'll occasionally have a bad week. So there IS hope even if I do get bad, but I don't want the years of pain first.)
Sometime when I was about 12 or 13, a relatively minor accident caused her to dislocate a knee. Thereafter, The Knees became a bane of life.
It caused her a great deal of pain, and I apologize now for not understanding that better, but she refused to deal with it with anything other than physical therapy, ace bandages/braces, icepacks, and dietary treatment. She absolutely refused to use a wheelchair or get a disabled permit even on a temporary basis.
As a kid, this was extremely frustrating and unfair, because her refusal to accept anything that would outwardly reflect her handicapped status meant we could not do ANYTHING that would require her to walk. She could stand only five minutes, and we did nothing as a family that would require more than that. Museum? Out. Zoo? Nope. Aquarium? Maybe, but when she gets tired, it's time to go.
The knee thing has always been a timebomb for me. My grandmother, her older daughter (my aunt), and her younger daughter (my mother) all have or had severe knee problems. At one point, xrays of my mother's knees revealed deformity in the bones of the knee socket, the cause of her problems; given family history, there's a fair chance it's genetic.
This week, my right knee has started to act up. I haven't dislocated it, but it has been exquisitely painful by the end of the day, despite spending most of my day seated. Brian has had to put up with my whimpering sobs when I'm trying to find an unpainful position in bed.
...I just hope this isn't the start of the rest of my life. I don't want to be the one that can't do anything, and Brian and I can't push each other's wheelchairs.
(As for my mother's knees now, years of dietary supplements, physical therapy exercises, and a good deal of lost weight have got her mostly walking normally, though she'll occasionally have a bad week. So there IS hope even if I do get bad, but I don't want the years of pain first.)
