THE PAST
All of my life I've been considered a 'big girl.' Maybe some wouldn't have gone so far as to call me fat, but I've never been average in weight, and most of my life I've known that I was too heavy to be a 'healthy weight.' The funny thing was, I don't remember ever feeling held back physically. Sure I wasn't athletic, but I always had a ton of energy and once I realized I had value, my appearance didn't bother me much.

I remember my freshman year of high school, 14 years old, I weighed 185 pounds. Fast forward 6 years and I had gained another 100. That's when my grandmother stepped in and helped pay for a weight loss program for me and my mom. We both lost a bunch of weight, and I remember feeling sooo different. There was even a time when I couldn't sleep because I was full of so much natural energy. About a year after my weight loss, I injured my left knee. I was told I had torn a ligament. It would take time to heal, but if I was careful it would rarely bother me.

A few years later, I had kept most of the weight off. I was jogging six miles a week and was feeling great. I met the love of my life, and I got married. Over the past five years, amongst my two pregnancies, lack of work outside the home, online school and my simple love for food, I have gotten back to the exact same weight I was so many years ago... frustrating but that's not the worst of it.

THE PRESENT
Last November, I noticed my left knee starting to hurt, occasionally at first and then consistently. This went on for months until it got to the point I never walked without a serious limp. Thankfully my right knee functioned just fine, so I could get around just fine. Slowly, but fine. I started exercising in mid-January thinking it was just the extra weight aggravating my old injury. I lost about 15 pounds. Then, one morning I slipped on my elliptical, and that made things even worse. In the beginning of march, our primary care doc ordered x-ray and MRI. These two tests showed that I had arthritis, a torn ACL, a torn medial meniscus, fraying in the lateral meniscus, damage to the cartilage beneath my kneecap and a baker's cyst (water on the knee). My PC doc referred me to an orthopedic doctor.

This all sounded pretty severe, and before my ortho appointment Ammon and i joked that I would just get total knee replacement. Well, the orthopedic doctor gave me little real hope. He said surgery on the meniscus has a 1 in 3 chance of fixing the pain. The ACL can't be fixed unless it's torn into two separate pieces. Arthritis doesn't go away, and so it's something that I will have the rest of my life. He recommended physical therapy and cortisone shots (for the pain), both of which only really fix me for as long as I use them.

My right knee hurts now as well, almost to the level of my left knee. I don't think I can possibly explain how frustrating it is to have two really bad knees. I have a seven month old who crawls around on her hands and knees, and I can't join her on the floor. I can't even kneel at the bath tub to give her a bath. If she gets into something it takes me three times longer than a normal person to stand up, walk slowly to her and grab her... hopefully before she hurts herself. I have a preschooler who loves going to the mall and the park and who loves to dance around, but I can only walk a few hundred yards without serious pain. I can barely bend my knees sometimes, and spinning in a circle is impossible. Doing simple tasks like cleaning, grocery shopping or planning any activities (like goofy golfing with my sweety) takes twice as long or is out of the question. Don't even get me started on what all of this has done to my emotional well-being!

THE FUTURE
Now, why do I share all of this? Well, partially because I see my blog as a type of journal. Few people read it anymore anyway, so it really is more for me than anyone else. Another reason is because this can't g one forever. I am either going to get worse or get better, and I REALLLLLY want to get better!!! I started physical therapy a few weeks ago, and I feel about about a third better than I did before. Does this mean I have hope? Of course it does. Minimal but it is there. Also, I'm joining Weight Watchers tomorrow. Yes my legs are injured, but that doesn't mean I need to continue feeling the way I do. Unless I try everything I can to improve my condition, I really have no right to complain about it, right? My weight has absolutely contributed to the arthritis in my knees, and to keep myself at this weight is just asking for a knee replacement before I'm forty! If you can or do, please pray for me to have strength and faith through all this because I think that's what I need most of all right now!!

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