My knee

You know how you don't think about your feet when you're wearing comfortable shoes? But the minute you get a blister or your feet are cold, it's all you can think about. You take your feet for granted.

Well, that's apparently how I was about my knees. Until a few days ago. One day last week, I noticed that it hurt a bit to kneel on my right knee. I figured that, in my absentmindedness, I must have bumped into something and bruised it. I'm always running around after William or crawling around and picking up toys/food/sippy cups/etc.

But when I woke up yesterday morning, my knee was sore and swollen. And it felt warm to the touch. I compared it to my left knee and immediately noticed a difference. The right knee was swollen up in an arc, while the left knee was still relatively flat. Uh oh. Of course, in a classic example of worst-case-scenarioism, I immediately diagnosed myself with a fast-growing knee tumor. It's cancer, I concluded. I'll have to get chemotherapy and radiation. Or they're going to have to take off my leg. How could this have happened? I won't be able to have any more children. I'll never find a wig that looks anything close to this hair of mine at all. (Of course, would that be so bad, really?) The saner, more rational side of me thought about how William's had MRSA a couple times this year, and I hoped it wasn't that kind of infection plaguing my knee.

I texted David, and he helped me find a doctor to call. Luckily for me, the stars must have all been aligned properly because my new doctor immediately fit me in for an appointment yesterday afternoon. I couldn't believe it. I wonder if that's a world record? Anyway. The doctor graciously fit me in, and he decided that I have an infection of the soft tissue surrounding my knee. The exam form says bursitis/cellulitis. Man, the things I've suffered through for this child. Professional-strength nausea, Bell's Palsy, tendonitis of the wrist, a big old swollen knee. It's a good thing he's so cute, I tell you what.

I told the doctor about our family's little experiences with MRSA and said that's why I wanted to be seen so quickly, that I was worried about having a serious infection, especially since the knee was warm. (I didn't mention the cancer thing, of course. No reason to immediately tip the guy off that I have a very small, tiny tendency to overreact from time to time, right?) He prescribed a shot of Rocephin, two oral antibiotics and told me to keep a close eye on my knee and make sure it doesn't get any worse. David had ominiously warned me about possibly needing to have it drained, which sounds pretty freaking horrible to me, but we didn't really get into that at the visit.

So then Dr. Anderson asked me, in that rhetorical tone of voice as he looked at William in his stroller, "You probably spend a lot of time down on your hands and knees, right?"

You think?

You never miss your nice unsore capable knee until you try to kneel down on the mat at Gymboree and hoist your toddler into your lap for bubbles and parachute time. Ow ow ow.

So I'm grimly taking my horse pills--seriously, they are bigger than those monstrous prenatal vitamins that I used to choke down--and I'm trying to figure out if my knee looks more swollen today than yesterday. I reported in my phone call to the doctor's assistant that I think it's the same. Of course, as soon as I hung up the phone, I started second-guessing that statement. Oh well.

I think I'll go lie down and put my knee up for awhile. It put on a good show for Gymboree today, and I think it's earned a little rest and relaxation.