And I’ve lost her…
For now anyway…
Since my trip the emergency room put a hold on running, the frequency of my posts declined. This is partly because I started to write a few times about how frustrated I felt, but I stopped myself from publishing them because they felt more like journal entries. Running always made me feel strong, helped to clear my head and also got my creative energy moving. Time to find it something else to stir up creativity and idea generation.
After some tests and doctor appointments, I am scheduled for surgery in the middle of July. The cartilage behind my knee cap is damaged and it’s completely gone in one place, which causes a bone-on-bone situation. B-o-B is B.A.D. The plan is to fix the damaged cartilage, move my kneecap away from other bones and take cartilage cells to harvest. I’ll be in a knee brace for six weeks and myself again in just over three months. At that point, I can see how I feel and if I want to have the harvested cartilage put in my knee at some point. That second surgery is optional and takes a lot longer to recover from, so I’m going to take it one procedure at a time. Though I know in the back of my head that I likely need to choose to either have the second procedure or to stop running for good.
It’s emotional…and not just the stopping running part. Our wedding is less than three months after the surgery, which is really what makes me wary. I know that wearing a knee brace for half the summer isn’t that bad (my wedding dress will cover the sweet tanlines)…but I am scared that my body will change as I rest and recover. I have a vision of me in my dress that I want to achieve, especially because it just requires me to maintain where I’m at…but that’s a place I’m at with the help of running and yoga. I also want to dance up a storm at our wedding, which will be my inspiration to follow the doctor’s orders. I feel funny even writing this because, in perspective, it isn’t bad at all. Other people have more significant problems than fitting into wedding dresses and being able to dance. But sometimes I just get a little female about it. I flirted with waiting until after the wedding to have the surgery, but my knee locked up in the car again yesterday. I cannot put this off.
So I will keep trying to see this is an opportunity to rest, to write, to try different exercises and to get stronger mentally.
