It’s cold today and on the way to ATI, it was raining, the big splotchy kind. There was a dull ache in my knee, not a throb but a constant ache. My knee felt a little swollen. We were early for my appointment and when Brad came over and asked how I felt; I searched for the correct word to describe the feeling in my knee.
When the words did not come to mind, I just said it was raining and kind of puffed my cheeks out a little bit. I told him that’s how my knee felt. Once I was on the table, Brad squeezed a lot of massage lotion on my knee and began to work standing up. I asked him how it felt and he looked at my knee and pressed it with his fingers. He said it looked a little bit puffy. Right around the incisions.
I asked him if that was normal, for it to NOT be swollen and then to get swollen. He told me that we are moving it a lot more so it might be from that. He rubbed my knee for a long time and it felt better. Then he started kneading my calf.
It hurt a little bit and I winced. The tone in my legs reacted by twitching away from him. He asked me if it was tender and I nodded. I asked him if THAT was normal. He said it was and told me why. The calf muscles run up my leg and connect at my knee so when the knee is worked on, it can cause the calf muscles to tighten. (Basically, I think).
He sounds super smart when he talks about it because he knows exactly the reasons why my muscles behave as they do. I think that was the gist. He bent my knee a few times but did not measure and then he moved my straight leg out to ward toward him. I could feel the stretch in my groin. And felt good to have a different movement in my leg other than just being straight out in front of me all day!
Before he hooked me up for ice and stim, my knee and calf both felt relaxed. The first time all day! With the cold and the rain, I was reminded that I have MS. I ALWAYS feel terrible in the rain! (Barometric pressure and stuff). So today it was apparent that this is going to be a long recovery; and oh yeah, I have MS.