Catching Idle Butterflies

Ouch!!

Call me the weatherwoman, or to be more precise, call my knees the weather . . . knees?

I have arthritis in my knees, one due to tearing a ligament when I was 15 and never getting it repaired. I found my other knee has it now, I think mostly because I depended on it for so long to compensate for my other weakened one.

I went to the doctor (finally!) to see what could be done, and after the xray he immediately cancelled the MRI. "We don't need it," he said. "Your arthritis is so advanced all we can do is a knee replacement."

"But," he added, "With you being so young, I don't recommend it." He set me up with a knee brace in the hopes my existing knee would last another twenty years.

I wore the brace for a few months like I was supposed to. Until one day I arrived at work and discovered someone had broken into it and stolen everything out of my back seat. That included my workout shoes and my brace. (They ignored the $120 Navy winter coat, so they weren't the brightest of theives). I drove back home and found they had tossed out my shoes on the side of the road. They did the same with my brace, only it ended up smack in the middle of the road. By the time I got to it, it had been flattened.

I turned it into insurance, but instead of purchasing a new one, we had to spend the money on other things because money was so tight. I have yet to spend the $600 on a new one.

But my knee is holding up better than I expected after 10 years since I saw the doctor. The best therapy I've found so far was losing 20 lbs! Now if only I could motivate myself to lose more.

They still hurt once in a while, and I do have to be careful about types of exercise I engage in.

My knees have been aching since yesterday, and according to the weather reports, we have a 60% chance of rain along with a wind advisory of 35-45 mph with gusts up to 50mph.

Wee.