July blog challenge Day 11

The worst injury I've ever had.

I broke my left arm when I was two. I fell off a sliding board. My mom did not know it was broken for two weeks.

I broke my right arm when I was eight. I wrecked on my kick-n-go scooter at the beginning of summer and the rest of my summer was ruined.

But my worst injuries were the knee surgeries I had in 2010. We really aren't sure if I had a birth defect that went undetected or if I developed this later but nonetheless, my kneecaps are not centered. The grinding against the other bones eventually wore down and I was faced with the decision to have bilateral release surgery or treat with anti-inflammatory medicine and within ten years have to have knee replacement. I opted for the former but have regretted it since. Not that I think knee replacement is a better option but I should have gotten a second opinion because the surgery really did not correct the problem completely. My knees still grind and I'm still in a lot of pain some days. The  more I exercise the better it is sometimes but then other times, it just hurts worse. I'm trying to take some weight off so there won't be so much stress on the knees but it's a slow process apparently.

Another thing is that the surgeon told me no more running. Now, I've never been much of a runner anyway. I had only started doing 5k's when I had the first surgery. But I was only 40 and I would not accept that I couldn't do something already. Especially since I walk faster than I run anyway. He had no problem with walking, swimming, biking, or dancing. So I didn't see the reason for him to have a problem with the running. So that's when I switched doctors.

My new doctor wanted to do more surgery! More invasive and a longer recovery time. I am in no hurry to do that. So every 6 months to a year, I go in and get steroid shots and joint fluid replacement shots to buy myself more time. They help some. But for the most part, I take a lot of aleve and just power through. What else can I do? I'm not going to stop doing the things I enjoy until absolutely necessary and then I will probably want to put a bullet in my head!