Week 3, Month 1

Week 3 has been a bit challenging. I walked 1.7 miles Monday afternoon on my day off, and some yoga last night to stretch the aches out. I hurt my left knee at the beginning of the week. I slipped on some water and basically S-L-A-M-M-E-D my knee into the wall. To say it hurt is an understatement. This is the knee I tore my ACL when I was 11 and ended up in a full length cast for TWO months during the summer!

I iced the knee for a few hours and there was a massive knot on the top. Now this story, like most I have, is about to take a twist. It's my RIGHT knee that hurts. My left knee is FINE. I have NO IDEA what happened. I do, however, have my suspicions:

Option 1. When I hurt my left knee, I over compensated by walking funny, which led to the right one hurting.

Option 2. It's some of option 1, PLUS: I've been moving more and this was my knee's way of telling me to take it easy.

Option 3. This is the scary one *there always has to be a scary one.*

I was in a car accident a week before the first day of freshman year of high school. My head hit the dash, both of my wrists went through the vents, and my right knee hit the dash. The doctors said I had water under my knee and a lot of swelling. At the time, I had a sinus infection which they gave me antibiotics for.

When I went to the ortho appointment a few days later, the water didn't show up on the x-ray anymore, but I still had a lot of swelling. The theory was that since I had taken the antibiotics, there was a chance that they cleared up the water. Weird, I know. BUT, this was after a traumatic event, AND 3 years after the ACL surgery. I was so excited that I didn't need another surgery, that I went on my merry little way.

A month later the swelling was still there, but they assured me that the X-rays showed nothing that required surgery. Fast forward to the present.

I STILL HAVE THAT SWOLLEN SPOT ON MY KNEE!

I have been living in a state of denial for 12 years. I figured if I'm fat and you can't really tell I have the swelling, unless you look closely. If it doesn't hurt, ignore it. That was my motto. WAS.

I have been trying to get an ortho appointment for 2 days. No doctor has an opening in the next few weeks, so tonight, I'm going to the ER to get checked out.

I hope it's nothing, but I want to know. I know something is off, even if I just need to take it easy.

This journey has brought me to some realizations I never dreamed of having. In the past, I would have let this derail me. Don't get me wrong, this sucks. But the difference now, is that I will continue on with my weight loss and exercise. I am in physical pain with my knee, but emotionally, I feel on top of the world.

I'm really proud of myself.