The scruti-knee

So my left knee had been hurting for the last few weeks. For no apparent reason. In the past, I had hurt my knee in the gym once or twice by being overenthusiastic with the weights, but I knew that wasn't the reason this time. Because I just hadn't been able to gym.

First, we had the long Labour Day weekend, followed immediately by a school holiday for teacher training and with Viv being away, there was no one I could leave Xena with and go to the gym. Then they had Mother's Day celebrations at school last Friday morning so I was there. I start work around 9 am so if weekday mornings are taken up by something else, I have to skip gym. Also, since I have to drop her to school in the mornings in Viv's absence, if we are delayed by some reason (e.g. Xena not waking up in time, taking approx. 83748947 minutes to finish a glass of milk, etc. etc.) there goes my gym time.

Skipping gym really annoys me. Once I saw a gym named 'Gym and Tonic', and it made me nod vigorously. Because my gym really is my tonic. As long as I can go to the gym every weekday, I feel healthy and happy and I don't have to care too much about what I eat.

Anyway, so with all the gym-skipping that had been happening, I knew that the pain in my knee was not a result of a workout injury. I had not fallen or banged it against anything. I was not walking around in high heels. I did have a knee fracture but that was the other knee and it was 18 years ago.

And it was only the left side that hurt, which really puzzled me. Strangely, as the days passed, the pain only got worse. I couldn't believe it. What had I done wrong? What was I continuing to do so wrong that the pain was actually worsening with each passing day? I was struggling to climb up the stairs to go to the upper level of double-decker buses. I, who does 100 squats without pausing, couldn't even do one anymore. Working out on the treadmill hurt. Working out on the cross-trainer hurt. Working out on the exercise bike hurt. The idea of leg weights had become laughable. I couldn't even do any post-workout stretches involving my left knee. Once, I sat on the floor to read with Xena and I couldn't get up without support.

I wondered if I should go see a doctor. But what would I say? "Hi, my knee is hurting for no apparent reason." The doctor would probably ask me to "monitor the situation" and arm me with some painkillers. Going to a specialist seemed a little ridiculous. After all, I had done nothing to cause it. I had no reason to get an X-ray or whatever-other-scan done.

I didn't even want to Google it. What would I type? "Knee pain?" There are 33782758365896439857 reasons for knee pain and I was in no mood to go and read all the possible things that could be wrong with me.

There could only be one possible reason for the knee to hurt without reason.

Old age.

*GASP*

Oh dear lord no. Surely I, the regular exerciser, strength-trainer, milk-drinker, spinach-eater, broccoli-lover, couldn't be so old that her bones were giving way?

Or was I? Was this what my future was going to be like? No gym? No squats? No climbing stairs? Nooooooooo!

One night, I just couldn't sleep thinking about this. I decided to go through every little detail to investigate what exactly was happening.

1. The knee pain had started about the time Viv left for the US.
2. The only thing that was different since then was that Xena was sleeping next to me on our bed.
3. Only the left knee was hurting.
4. The pain actually got worse with each passing day, even after I had skipped gym for five days straight.

What was I doing wrong? What had happened to me without my own knowledge?

And *ting*! There it was! The lightbulb above my head lit up brightly.

Whenever Xena sleeps on our bed (Saturday nights and when Viv is travelling), she has this habit of pushing me (only me, never her father) to the edge until I'm almost falling off the bed. In addition to having my face punched and pummelled and socked and breathed into by my child, I also have to deal with this. I cannot count the number of times I have woken up and slid her faaaaaar away from me, only to find us nose to nose after approximately 3 minutes. "Please give me some space!" I'd say every single time. (She's probably going to say the same to me as soon as she hits teenage.)

So, for fear of getting head-butted in my sleep, I'd turn and face away and sleep in whatever little space she allowed me. And now with Viv being away on one of his longest trips, she'd been sleeping in our bed for three weeks straight. So I'd been sleeping for three straight weeks in a cramped position, almost at the edge of the bed, with my right leg over my left, most probably with its centre of gravity resting sharply on my left knee or something. All night. And that was probably why I was waking up to that pain every morning.

So two nights ago, I told her what I thought was happening, and I asked her to sleep on my side of the bed while I slept on Viv's side. My hope was that she'd continue her moving patterns, leaving me the humongous space that Viv gets when all of us are in the same bed. Sure enough, that happened (though a part of me was apprehensive that she'd reverse her movement and push me off anyway). I remember changing my sleeping posture several times that night. Because there actually was space to change posture!

For the first time that morning, my knee didn't hurt.

I took the stairs up in the bus when dropping her to school, and the pain was only a fraction of what I'd been experiencing all these days. We followed the same sleeping arrangement last night too. Today I went to the gym and did 20 minutes on the cross-trainer and 20 minutes on the exercise bike. I did stretches that involved the knee. Minimal pain.

What a breakthrough.

I'd like to end this post with this public service message: Please be careful. Having children may be great for your heart, but it's terrible for your posture.