Moving On, Happily!

So the leading cause of depression on the male side of the Armstrong household was the continuing constant pain and discomfort with my legs and hips. From the first week in September, when I played golf right before my knee went nuclear and had to be cortisoned through the followup visit with the orthopedist, my legs have been getting more and more pained. I mentioned to the doctor that they seemed to be weak and he did a simple test. Lying on my back, I lifted my left leg a few inches. Then the doctor said I am going to press down on your leg. You try to resist the movement as hard as you can. With the tip of his fingernail, he pushed my leg back down. "Were you resisting?" "I gave it everything I had." So I had no strength in either of my legs at all. They seemed to have weakened considerably in a very short time. I started Physical Therapy at the Hospital and found that it helped. My legs did get a little stronger and I now have a list of exercises to do to keep strengthening the legs now that PT is over. I do them diligently every day.     

This week I went to see my regular doctor and explained to him that I was a little nervous about what could have caused this quick degeneration. On my list of questions were multiple sclerosis, muscular dystrophy, and other neurological disorders, cancer, leukemia, and any thing else he could think of. Luckily the blood tests were negative for weird things and I wasn't showing the other symptoms that go with these illnesses. Dr. Carlson's advice: get your knees replaced as fast as possible. Then you will start to see some relief. So January I go back to the orthopedist and we will talk about options. In the meantime, keep slamming Advil through the day and take it easy. Hope that Ann doesn't grow tired of doing many of the active things (walk the dog, put on my socks (nope - can't do that on my own)) for me and wait it out until January. I feel better mentally after the doctor visit. I feel better physically after three Advil. I'm sure I'll make it. On a very positive front, I have lost about 37 pounds of weight since last year. Fear is a tremendous motivator. Unfortunately, I have to lose that much weight three more times to get down to a reasonable (though still not really healthy) weight. I hope to be healthy enough to walk around Portland with Tammy and Mike next summer and to play some golf. Eventually, let's get rid of the cane, too. It might take a little longer to get to that point. We'll wait and see. Thanks for listening. I appreciate it.