For auld lang syne

Well, the new year is almost upon me and I've managed to do something to my knee or something as happened to my knee. When I awoke yesterday I noticed my knee was hurting down in the lower right quadrant. It's tender to the touch, yet not swollen, and also pulled by only certain motions of my leg and knee. I had one of the PTs check it out this afternoon and he put it through a wide array of pulling and pushing, moving and bending to isolate what did and didn't cause it to cause to stabbing pain I was feeling. He was not sure what it was, so the head PT is going to have to check on it Friday when I come for my appointment. On the good side, it's on the medial (inside) side, so it's not something like my lateral meniscus has torn again. I certainly hope and pray that it is nothing serious because the last thing I want is for someone to have to go back in and fix something. Heck, I've seen the arthroscopic pictures of the medial side and everything looks undamaged, but then I really have no idea what to look for. All I know is that I've developed a stabbing pain near my knee pretty much anytime I move that leg. So for a day I'll lay off the painful home exercises, keep it iced and take painkillers until next year. Sometimes it's easy to find the humor in bad situations. At least, I always try to.

On the other hand, all things considered, I really don't have too much to worry about. As I left the PT office today there was an elderly man sitting in the waiting room. He had crutches next to him and a bandage on his leg, and he also only had one arm. It may sound cliche, but things could be a whole lot worse for me than they are. I suppose I tend to "complain" a lot more than most, and probably more than I should, or at least more publicly. I don't do it for attention, or pity, or anything self-serving, but rather for some form of catharsis. It makes me feel better about whatever tends to be bothering me to express it to whomever will listen or read what I have to say. There's not much point in me reiterating the day's events to my wife, since she already knows what is going on, and it doesn't offer me the same satisfaction to recount them to Buster. Besides, even he probably already knows what's going on as well.

The other main reason I do it is for those people out there whom I consider to be my friends to know that I'm going through this or that, so in case they are having problems at least they know that they are not alone. Most of the people I know in the world I keep in contact with via electronic means. This, to borrow a fantastic expression from a friend, creates and interesting dynamic in a relationship. I know that it is either very cool or very pathetic, depending on how you see it, for me to be so isolated from the real world in this way, but I hardly ever think of it since I have been "meeting" new people and "making friends" this way since my early teens. There are some people I know, people I have never met in real life and probably never will, that I have known for nearly 20 years. If the true measure of friendships is duration and not quantity, then in that respect as well I must consider myself truly blessed as we inch ever closer to a brand new year.