Last year I was having trouble with my knee — it was painful and swollen. After weeks of limping it along, I went to the doctor and learned I have significant arthritis in both my knees. After a cortisone shot and weeks of physical therapy, it has been doing really well ever since. Knocking on lots of wood here. I continue to do the strengthening exercises at home and yesterday while doing them I couldn’t remember which knee had been the problem; I actually had to look it up!
This made me so happy and reminded me that we really can turn things around. Of course there are many circumstances we cannot control and honestly, that sucks. In those cases, hard work, wishing, hoping and praying don’t result in what we want. The consolation prize in those instances may be a lesson learned or getting what we require versus what we desire. But that is a blog post for another day. Today is about acknowledging our successes.
Even though I couldn’t recall which knee was in bad shape this time last July, I am able to remember with absolute clarity the doctor giving me the results of the x-rays, the injection, the pamphlet about possible future treatments and the feeling of “not another medical condition to deal with”. But here I am now with a reminder for all of us that things can improve.
I have learned firsthand that we don’t need fully functioning body parts to have a really good life, but I will do everything in my power to get them. In this case, the effort paid off. I not only got what I wanted, I got what I knee’d.