My Sob Story: Part I

Today was a big day. I walked down three flights of stairs for the quickie fire drill my company ran this morning, and I’m feeling fine. My four-year-old child can walk down three flights of stairs, you say. What makes your descent so special? Well, for the past few years my knees have been in a sort of violent rebellion. Here are the gritty details:

in the beginning…
Seven years ago, I was a starved-for-cash college kid on summer break. I nabbed a job at a local restaurant where I was forced to wear a white, button-down collared shirt and a tie every day. I felt like a quasi man, but that was OK because I was making plenty of cash working throughout the summer.

Back in those days, the restaurant was less classy than it is today. We didn’t carry plates in our hands—we brought an entire meal to the table on a wide brown tray. Sometimes, like when I’d serve a foursome of starving soccer moms, the tray was fairly light. But other times, I’d load my tray with two plates of roasted chicken and mashed potatoes, a pound of pasta drenched in cream sauce, a half-pound burger, and a side of fries. I’d heave the tray above my shoulder and dart through the sprawling restaurant like a flying saucer with feet.

Bad idea.

That’s because in those days I was a lanky 110-pound weakling without much muscle mass. Alright, alright—without any muscle mass. By summer’s end, I was limping through the restaurant by the second hour of my shift. My left knee would swell and ache and beg for mercy, but I didn’t listen to it. Bad move.

A week before I left for my sophomore year of college in Baltimore, I visited an orthopedic doctor who told me my flat feet forced my knees to roll inward and rub my thigh bones in all sorts of wrong ways. He diagnosed the problem as patella femoral stress syndrome, and handed me a sheet of paper with stick figures stretching in a half dozen ways. Do these exercises once a day until the pain goes away. Then build leg muscle strength. Easy, I thought.

I was a model patient … at first. I completed my physical therapy every night, wore a stretchy white knee brace beneath my clothes each day, and introduced myself to the gym. A few months after school started, I breathed a sigh of relief. I was cured.

when in rome…
The next two years of college went by without a hitch. I studied in New Zealand for six months and climbed mountains, scaled glaciers, bodyboarded down towering sand dunes, bungee jumped, sky dived, and navigated city streets without a hitch. Then, in 2004, I joined three friends for a monthlong European vacation to celebrate our graduation from college.

We flew into Prague, traveled to Florence, and then Venice, canvassing each city and hitting as many historic spots as we could in a day. Next came Rome. After walking throughout the Vatican, circling the Coliseum, climbing soaring cathedrals, and crisscrossing the city daily I felt a familiar ache in my left knee. I held a cold can of Coke over my knee, but soon I was forced to face the facts: My old pain had returned.

In Nice, France, I traded a trip to the beach for a day in the ER, where a kind doctor prescribed anti-inflammatories and some sort of French healing gel that took my swollen knee down a few sizes. Each night, I’d invest in a soda to ease the pain. By the time I reached Barcelona and Madrid, I was limping like a circus freak and taking breaks to sit every few minutes.

At home, my doctor prescribed more physical therapy—another sheet of stick figures doing leg lifts—and rest. I followed his orders (it’s easy to stay off your feet when you’re unemployed and living at your parents’ house) and recovered within a few months. I was healed.

ch-ch-ch-changes…
My knee pain returned more quickly the next time. I was working as an editor for a magazine in Philadelphia, rushing about in three-inch heels because that’s what you do when you write about fashion and beauty and style. I was working 11-hour days and chose dinner over the gym pretty much every night. So it wasn’t a surprise to me when my left knee started to ache. Then really ache. Then pulse with pain.

My primary care physician wrote me a prescription for physical therapy, and this time I got treatment from an actual human who examined my knee, taped it up twice a week, and taught me new exercises to build strength. Pretty soon I was doing crazy things like strapping a 3-pound weight to my leg and lifting it 15 times in a row. I was icing every night like my life depended on it. I even wore (gasp!) sneakers to work for a couple weeks.

I made another change that year: I went to a podiatrist to get custom orthotics. My doctor told me that the shoe inserts would compensate for the lack of arch in my feet, rolling my knee outward a bit to prevent the scraping that causes pain and inflammation. That sounded like a pretty good idea to me.

It took a couple months for me to realize two things: First, the orthotics helped my knee. Second, I hate shoe shopping.

Read the second part of my story here.