The day before Thanksgiving, I took a step back from a store counter (yes, liquor store) and an amazing and horrible pain smacked my knee. There was no noise, no popping and crackling. Just pain. I grabbed the counter because I’m not crazy about falling in public. It’s actually a bit of a phobia, yet perfectly rational. I got myself straightened up, into my car, and home, figuring I’d just get off my leg. Pretty soon I was no longer able to sit because of the pain. I elevated it, iced it. It only got worse.

Cutting to the chase. There’s nothing more wrong with my knee than there was before I took a step backward. I didn’t tear anything or break anything. It’s my good knee, which means there’s arthritis in it and my kneecap has slid to the side and is sitting on the leg bones, but that’s what it was before the incident. My bad knee doesn’t like to straighten. My good knee now after the incident would not bend. I couldn’t put weight on it unless it was perfectly straight. The pain trying to bend it was nauseatingly bad.

Cut to going to the doctor’s office. Stood up to go into the exam room, two steps and I almost fell on this poor old guy’s lap. Loud crackling, popping, everybody stopped and stared at me. Finally from across the lobby, the nurse waiting to room me asked if I might need a wheelchair. I couldn’t move. So I said yeah, I thought maybe. The pain I felt right then is my new 10 on the pain scale. It exceeded childbirth and kidney stones. So that was productive, anyway.

Trying to get to the point. I spent several days gently working my leg to be able to bend it before I could get a steroid injection which made things get better faster. Being unable to move properly has put added pressure on my “bad” knee and my hips. There’s a lot of pain in both legs, hips, feet, shins. For no new damage.

I’m used to that. It’s distressing and alarming, but bottom line, nothing to fix. I just have to start over with arthritis management. What I was not used to was the reaction I got from the doctor who tried to examine me after the problem in the waiting room. He couldn’t do an exam because I could not bend my leg, no matter how hard I tried. His initial reaction was, who is at home to help me out? Yep, Nikke, Neutron, and Lady, my furry housemates. Waiting to help me out. Then he started ER talk and hospitalization because I couldn’t take care of myself. Nope nope nope. I got wheeled downstairs for an x-ray and then quietly drove myself home. That night I got a call from my primary care doctor. Doctors can really gossip. Again, talk of the ER and hospitalization because how could I possibly take care of myself. Alarmists.

But they were right. I had a few days when I didn’t eat much because I couldn’t navigate the kitchen. There was no way I could drive anymore until I got the knee bending properly. There were a few days when I realized if my knee was genuinely injured, I would need help. I don’t like that helpless feeling. And I find asking for help exceedingly difficult.

The kicker is that even though there is no injury to my knee other than the usual, my pain barriers have fallen. How long will I be able to take care of myself? What happens if I can’t do the physical therapy that keeps me moving right now? How long do I want to do this? My physical therapist says the gentle exercises I’m doing will help retrain my fibro-brain to understand pain better. I trust her. I’ll keep trying.