Tag Archives: knee

Back on track

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I got home from work last night and realized that The Husband was probably not going to be home till at least 8 pm. So, I plunked myself down on the couch with an icepack on my knee and proceeded to tink back to the mistake I made in Birch Sunday night. It turned out to be a rather easy mistake to fix. I hadn’t lost or gained any stitches. It looked like I had gotten distracted half way through a pattern repeat, and when I started knitting again, began the pattern repeat from the beginning. Apparently, I even got distracted once more, but the second time I actually looked at my knitting before continuing because the end of the row was fine. It only took me about an hour to get back to where I had been when I realized there was a problem. I even managed to get started on my tenth repeat after dinner, which is spectacular since I had had 2 glasses of wine (this is spectacular due to the fact that my diet has made me a cheap date… 2 glasses of wine is all it takes to get me a wee bit tipsy these days).

This morning I got the weekly email reminding me that the massage therapist is going to be on campus today. On the spur of the moment I decided to sign up for a 30 minute massage after I get off work (I got here way earlier that usual today, which has the benefit of getting off way earlier than usual). It’s a nice thing to have to look forward to, and I’m hoping it’ll help with the general crappy feeling I’ve had all week so far.

Why is it so hard to find a pair of shoes?

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Nothing like making a stupid mistake in a lace shawl. I was working on Birch while watching an interesting show on The Da Vinci Code Sunday night. I was getting to the end of pattern row 7 of my ninth repeat when I realized that something didn’t look right. I somehow got off pattern on the previous pattern row, so there were yarnovers where there was supposed to be knit stitches, and k2togs where there were supposed to be yarnovers. I’m trying to decide if I want to tink back the 2 rows to fix it, or if I want to try dropping the stitches. I’m leaning towards tinking because there are 4 or 5 leaves that are off… it would probably just be quicker to tink back.

I think my knee is starting to feel a little better, and here I stress the word “little.” The biggest improvement is that when it’s bent I can’t find the sore spot. When it’s straight is still a whole ‘nother story.

In order to distract myself from my slow recovery, I bought shoes. I have a pair of slip on dress casual Clarks that I bought about 5 years ago, if not longer. Due to their age, they are falling apart… literally. There are holes in the soles and the leather upper is separating from the sole. Not shoes to wear on a rainy day as I would be walking around with wet feet. A nice man at the Clarks store in the mall had given me a number to call to get a preaddressed envelope to get my shoes resoled. So, I finally got around to calling only to be told by the person on the other end that they don’t resole ladies shoes. Squeeze me? Upon reflection I decided that while I could take them to a local place, I wasn’t sure that resoling would fix the entire problem (losing 40 lbs has apparently made some of my shoes a bit loose).

Thus, new shoes were the order of the day. I really like Clarks (NAYY), so I hit the store at the mall to see what they had. What they had was crap. Nothing but sandals. Was I asking too much by wanting a simple pair of shoes? Apparently, shoes without any holes, planned or not, are not really available during the summer months (so, why can’t I find swimsuits for sale in August? But, that’s a whole other issue…). So, I checked out Clarks website to see if it was just that one store or the company… sadly, it is the company. But, in my search for Clarks online, I came across places that sell shoes on the Internet. One place had regular Clarks shoes… and a fantastic return policy. I ended up getting Clarks Glenwood. They are so cute. 🙂 They got here yesterday, and I couldn’t be happier to have shoes… real shoes. Now, I have to break them in. Hopefully, this pair will last as long as the last pair… they were great shoes.

The shoes are dead, long live the shoes!

Ow… The Burning

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According to the knee doctor, I have bursitis of the knee. Even the little walking I’ve done (and every time I bang it into something, which is a lot) has kept it aggravated enough that it hasn’t healed. So, he gave me instructions similar to the instructions my doctor gave me almost 2 months ago: don’t bang it into things, baby it, ice it, and let it heal. Unfortunately, I’m a horrible klutz… guaranteed to bang my knee into things more often now that I’ve been told that I should avoid doing so.

He also told me to try a muscle rub that he gave me the name of, claiming that it’s better than BenGay (which is fine since I’ve actually been putting arnica on it of late). The reason it’s supposedly better than other stuff is it has capsaicin in it. I hit the drug store after my appointment and spent 10 minutes trying to figure out if I should get the regular strength (0.025% capsaicin) or the “high potency” (0.075% capsaicin). I ended up getting the high potency in the fear that the regular wouldn’t be strong enough. When I apply this ointment to my knee it feels fine for a few moments, then the burning starts… and the burning, we are told by the packaging, is normal. Oy! Hopefully, this works.

Meanwhile, The Husband and I just finished watching Anthony Bordain’s new show, No Reservations. This episode had him returning to New Jersey, the land of his youth. They were in a bakery getting cannolis, and boy, do I miss good cannolis… I only lived in NJ for 4 years, but that was plenty long enough to appreciate a good cannoli. (I am ever on the search of a good cannoli and good NY style pizza here in CA… still looking… although, I did find good pizza made by New Yorkers in Arcata, CA of all places.) During this scene, I made some comment about pizza… The Husband took offense at me saying I haven’t found good pizza here. Zachary’s is good, but it’s too big to be considered pizza in my mind — pizza should be flat and have cheese on it. (I’m not asking much, now am I?) The conversation ended when The Husband was unable to stop laughing while making comments about how I’m such a NY girl (which is to be expected I guess, I was born there, and my family has lived there since 1642).

Mmmmm… cannoli…

One more hour

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I get to head out to my knee specialist appointment in about an hour. Hopefully, I’ll soon be enlightened as to why my knee still has stabbing pain 2 months after the accident. I was slightly afraid that I would get to the appointment and find that my knee feels better than it did when I made the appointment a week ago. But, that doesn’t appear to be the case; in fact, it hurt all on its own this morning. The Husband thinks the pain is due to the walking I did this weekend, which sucks cause I actually like walking. So, I’m killing time here at work, worrying over two stupid knee-related things: that there’s nothing wrong with my knee, I just banged it up real good, and I’m about to waste my time and the doctor’s, or there truly is something wrong with my knee, which is a whole ‘nother can of worms. *gah*

Meanwhile, I composed a blog entry about my opinion of the Knitpicks.com flap, and decided that I come off totally bitchy, so it’s staying in draft form. All I have to say now is “Chill!” Too many other more important things in this world to worry about.

At least my doctor’s appointment will have me home at a relatively decent hour… I’ll probably curl up on the couch and knit while I wait for The Husband to come home.

The week marches on

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I’ve been having fun finding blog entries of people who were at Stash on Tuesday. There were a couple of times that I looked around the room and wondered how many people there were knit bloggers.

Knitting-wise, the only things I’ve really been working on lately have been Birch, which went with me on Tuesday, and trying to finish off my second afghan square so I can send them off to Annie.

I saw my doctor yesterday, and it was decided to send me to a knee specialist. So, now I have an appointment next Tuesday afternoon with orthopedist/sports medicine doctor. Joy!

I get to go clothes shopping yet again tonight… woe is me. 🙂 Actually, this is a good thing. I’ve discovered that several shirts, which used to fit quite nicely, now make me look like I’m wearing a sack. Thus, tonight is a hunt for a couple new shirts to replace the ones I’m getting rid of. Shirts aren’t the only thing that suddenly got too big. I put my leather coat on last Thursday, and the Husband said I looked like a little kid playing dress-up. So, the coat got replaced on Saturday because it is safety gear and because it’s nice to have a coat that doesn’t go all the way to my fingertips. The new one has blue and white stripes down the sleeves… very cool.

Friday

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The Husband is going out to play Vampire tonight, leaving me home alone with a movie, wine, and my knitting.

But, what I really want to do is spin… and I can’t. My knee is still too sore to use it that way. All the talk about spinning that’s going around is making me miss it. I haven’t spun since the last weekend of May. I had just started spinning up the fiber I had dyed.

Of course, I also want my knee to get better, so it might be time to pull out a drop spindle.

I’ve got 2 increases left on the first sleeve for my Ribby Cardi. I’m not sure if I’ll continue working on the sleeve or if I’ll try to work on Birch tonight.

Fun car news
Last week I discovered the chrome on the inside passenger side door handle was peeling off on my car. How did I discover this? Why I managed to slice 2 fingertips open on it while trying to get out of the car. While chrome may look insubstantial, it’s rather quite sharp. Thankfully, neither injured finger is terribly important for knitting.

So, yesterday I took my car in for it’s 35,000 mile oil change and asked them to take a look at it. Wouldn’t have been any problem except the warranty that covers such things expires at 36,000 miles, and I was a bit late bringing my car in at 37,000. I managed to use my blonde powers (don’t worry I only use them for good) and the nice car guy ran off to speak with his supervisor about. He was back within a minute to inform me that they’d cover it. Woot! So, they replaced the door handle assembly; no more sharp chrome.

The Husband took a co-worker out to lunch today and discovered that the new, shiny door handle doesn’t work. You can’t open the door from the inside. Unfortunately, he was unable to get it in today, so we have an appointment Monday morning to have them look at it again. *sigh*

Dope Fiend

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So, I would have posted this last night, but we didn’t get home from the hospital till almost 10 pm.

I had a bit of an accident on my way home from work yesterday. The cars in front of me stopped suddenly. I put my scooter down instead of slamming into the back of a car.

Thankfully, nothing is broken. I was walking (albeit with a limp) and talking after it happened. (I doubt anyone who stopped to help me reads any blogs, but I would still like to put my thanks out there.)

I called Josh to tell him what had happened and he left work. The nice people in the car behind me had called 911 and said an ambulance was on it way, but it never showed. A cop did cruise by, but I guess since I wasn’t still laying in the road he figured everything was cleared up. I’m glad I had my knitting with me, it gave me something to do other than losing it in a Safeway parking lot (Besides, my favorite Elizabeth Zimmermann quote is “Knit on with confidence and hope, through all crises”). Josh arrived and it was decided that he would follow me home, then I would get in the car and we would go to the ER.

The nice ER people weren’t too worried about my head, since I had no head pain or vision problems and had been wearing a helmet. The main reason I went was the searing pain in my right knee and hip (the first 2 things to hit the ground). They took x-rays of my knee, but they looked fine. The doctor pronounced contusion and hematoma, saying something about the cartilage on the back of my knee cap. My hip is just bruised (ha, just bruised… the thing is about 5 inches across… ow). I was set up with a knee immobilizer and a prescription for Vicodin and 600 mg Motrin (just so you know, regular Advil is 200 mg)… the Motrin stuff is kinda scary… the instructions say in big capitalized letters “Do NOT lay down for 30 minutes after taking this medication.” WTF?

As the triage nurse assured me, I am feeling pain in places I didn’t know I had today. My shoulders and down the tops of my arms are stiff and sore. I’m going to try to see my chiropractor on Monday to make sure I don’t have any whiplash problems. Thankfully, my knee and my hip only hurt if I touch them. But, I pretty much feel like I would expect after hitting the road at about 30 mph.

Sorry, if this is a bit disjointed… I’m going to blame it on the happy drugs.

The really sad thing is I just started spinning up some roving a dyed a few weeks ago… now I probably won’t be able to get back to it for at least 1-2 weeks. *sigh* At least I’ll have plenty of time for knitting. 🙂