What a difference a year can make!

I reenact the 1780s-1790s. Here I am at the Ft. Bridger Rendevous last year and this year. Same costume, same location, 12 months apart

What fun....(not!)

I found out today that I have Chondromalacia Patella, that is my kneecap is out of alignment and causing problems. According to one of the medical sites, it can be defined thus:

Chondromalacia Patella is often used by physicians as a catch-all term to describe anterior knee pain that results from patellar malalignment. The strict definition, however, is simply the degeneration of the cartilage on the posterior aspect of the kneecap.

Over the last week my left knee has been really hurting, and getting worse. It wakes me up during the night. It hurts going down the stairs. It hurts changing from bent knee to straight knee. It pops with a kind of grinding feeling when it didn't do this last week.

Classic symptoms.

Doctor gave me a drug called Mobic for the inflammation. I have trouble with large dose NSAIDs...they eat my tummy up. One dose hurt and had me running for the acid blockers...

Ginger for the next few days, I can see. And Protonix. Leg exercises to get my quadriceps in gear. And no high heels (boohoo!) - at least not to walk in. And I may pull out my danner hiking boots. They are good shock absorbers.

Last week I sat in the wrong chair watching all that hurricane coverage. It no doubt was the straw that busted the camel's knee-cap.

This time I was being so careful not to do things to hurt my leg, just some walking. I have injured myself twice trying to get into shape in the last few years. Can't ride my exercise bike cause it hurts my knees. Can't run on the treadmill cause it hurts my feet. I need a gym that has a pool so I can swim laps or something.

Leg lifts and isometric exercises, sore stomach lining and night pain it is for awhile. Yuck.

And grouse season opens this weekend, and I was wanting to see how much better I climbed up that long three mile in, 1000 ft up walk this year to the place we like to go. Rest of the year the place we go is either filled with sheep or snow. And it's so pretty once the aspens start turning color, and magical when they start dropping their leaves.

I am not happy. But at least it wasn't a torn ligament.

I have read that people who are obese have a different walk than thinner people. Could be this is also a sign of how my walk is starting to shift. Hope the exercise gets it corrected.

Weigh in

Current weight: 199

Chest(not bust) 38 3/4
waist 38
abdomen 45 1/2
hips 44

Original weight 252

Chest (not bust) 45
waist: 47.5
Abdomen started measuring a month into the diet): 52
hips: 52

(Ok, I like to keep repeating those initial stats because it pleases me that every part of my body is now smaller than my smallest original measurement.

Well, I plateaued for three weeks then zoom. 4 lbs. gone. I am not starving. I eat an average of somewhere between 1300-1400 calories daily. I work hard to keep a balance, with lots of green stuff, protein, not too much fat since I make gall stones (boy does that keep me honest on the fat issue!), and restricting of carbs.

When I started, I couldn't eat much over 100 cals of a high carb food like bread at a time without getting the craves. Now that I have lost more weight, I can handle two slices of bread at a time, which means I can have a sandwich for lunch on something besides a small hamburger bun.

I do feel better. My right knee was starting to hurt much of the time when I started. Now it very seldom does. I'll know more as we get into winter!

Milestones

I did finally make it to 199. Below 200 at last, although the news has been so sad from New Orleans I haven't really felt like crowing.

I have sort of set me a wish/goal for Christmas of 185. Don't really care if I make it by then or before then, but it will be sort of the next milestone to reach for. Hopefully, by that time there will be more to celebrate!

Ghostwatch

Impuissance mixed with hubris,
swirling in the dark waters over yellow bus hoods,
Bodies as powerless as some leaders await their turn,
victims of death from negligence,
cost analysis,
cold decisions
aided by lawyers.
Trapped in attics
dark,
sweltering,
longing for water,
waiting to drown,
did they realize that someone, once upon a time,
decided they were too much trouble to save?

Do you know what it means to miss New Orleans?

What you lose is standing on the Moonwalk at 9 am on a late March morning, when the light is sweet, next to the crepe myrtles, smelling the coffee from Cafe du Monde as you watch the huge swell of the Mississippi flow down.

Turning around, you walk down past the artists setting up for a day's work of painting tourists and canned scenes that will grace the living rooms in Missoula and Omaha, down to Royal Street, where shop owners are washing the sidewalks and getting ready for the day.

What you miss the riding the streetcar uptown, old, wooden and filled with memories, past the CB, past that wild area of rich and poor intermingled while the azaleas bloom pink with spring promise past antebellum mansions that are rundown apartment buildings, but still shine with the glimmer of their past.

What you miss is seeing all the churches, built with great sacrifice and care by poor working men and women who really believed.

What you miss is the taste of boiled crawfish eaten off newspapers at a picnic in City Park.

What you miss is Friday night at the ER at Charity Hospital, where the walking wounded and the almost dead mix for hours with the aches and pains and illnesses that man is subject to, all hoping for help.

What you miss is the music percolating through the city, Jazz and Zydeco and everything else.

What you miss is the taste of coffee and chichory, heavy with milk.

What you miss is the cries at graduation at Delgado Community Collge as sometimes the first member of a family ever gets their associates degree.

What you miss is the bread.

What you miss is the light.

What you miss is home.

Comment box spam

I got one piece of comment box spam too many. I turned on word verification to post comments. Sorry if you find this a pain, but they are getting a lot more agressive with this lately.