I still haven't finished going through my Greek holiday photos - lovely as they are. Maybe I'll get to it this weekend but for now I've got stories of not running and of knees and of trying to figure it all out.
On the last day of our holiday we had a lot of time to kill. Our flight was scheduled for 11.35pm and the first of our tour group needed to be at the airport by 1pm-ish I think. We'd been thinking about this for a while and discovered we could leave our big bags at the airport (which is exorbitant, but the alternative was to hump 20+ kgs of luggage all day in 30 degree heat.) Our first thoughts were to go back into Athens on the metro and just kill time there - but it didn't appeal. We're not city people or tourist people. We asked Sotiris our guide if he had any better ideas for how we could spend our day. He graciously took us to a sea-side town about 20k from the airport. I can't for the life of me remember what it was called but this is it on the map.
My right knee was a bit swollen, but nothing too alarming. We had hoped that we might find a few more butterflies at this location - perhaps even some that we had not yet seen - but when we got there the heat was withering and we saw little more than the ghost of a Painted Lady.
It was beautiful, but so hot that people were hiding in the shade. If I'd known how it was going to be then maybe I'd have brought my swimsuit and a towel - but - I didn't. It's always a thought leaving expensive cameras on dry land anyway.
The point of telling you all this is that maybe it's relevant to my knee. We wandered around for a long time in the heat because there wasn't much else to do. Later we got an Uber back to the airport. Our flight was delayed and we finally took off well after midnight and got back in the middle of the night - 3 or 4am our time. We were greeted by a massive electric storm and a downpour. It being so late there were no trams, and the cost of taxis from the airport just made us dig our heels in. We got the airport bus back into town and then walked the final mile down the road with whatever - maybe 25kg of luggage each. By this time, with the unwanted exercise and also the flight, my right knee had swollen up to football size - but I hoped a good night's sleep or two and some rest would settle it down.
It didn't though. It stayed swollen. At this point my knees weren't that sore - but my right knee was so big that I couldn't walk properly.
After two weeks or so my left knee was starting to swell up too. I went to the GP who was a bit dismissive "are you the kind of person that does a lot?". I told him I'd been doing pretty much hee-haw for 2 weeks because I had big swollen knees, but I could tell he thought I was just some demented biddy who rushes around all the time. He referred me to the practice physio though, which impressed me. Last time I was at the docs with a knee thing I got a referral which was a 5 month wait for a physio assessment. When I went to that assessment - well I'm not a mind-reader - but I'm 97% sure the young dude who saw me wondered why I didn't just spend more time with my grandchildren and stop bothering him. He was kind of weird with me and then after the appointment sent me some exercises I couldn't do because I had a sore knee.
So I got to see a physio there 2 weeks later. I had already been to see a physio anyway because I care about my life. He and I had agreed it was probably a meniscus thing again because at the time it was still just my right knee and it looked like that right knee looked back in 2023 when I probably had a meniscus injury and it took 8 months to heal. By the time I saw the practice physio, my left knee had joined the party. She organised x-rays for me and so 2 weeks later I got some x-rays, and then 2 weeks later I saw her again to get the results. So that was on Thursday - pretty much 8 weeks after getting back from Greece. Two fat knees. Zero running. Cycling problematic. Walking not that great. What a shit show!!
But before I get to my physio appt I've got another related story to tell. While I was going to a million appointments a week anyway, I thought I'd chance my luck and see if I could get an appointment for a podiatrist, because the nail on my right big toe is all warped and it keeps getting sore - I think its in-growing. My big sister who's a nurse "fixed" it for me with some home surgery - but she said I should just get myself to a podiatrist and maybe even get the nail off because I'll keep having problems. I spoke to a GP at the practice on the phone and asked if I could possibly get a referral to podiatry - and she said to come in and see her and we'd talk. She is a very nice doctor - sympathetic to my toe - and she agreed I could get a referral to podiatry, but while I was there something odd happened. She asked me about the medication I was on and I told her I'm not on any - but she looked puzzled - "but don't you get medication from the hospital?" "No" I said, "not on anything" - and she said it must be a mistake then because it showed on the system that I was prescribed for something beginning with V. I can't remember what it was now but I kind of memorised the sound of the medication so I could have a snoop when I got home. She said she'd try to get to the bottom of why it was there - but I wasn't sure if she would because they're pretty busy.
When I got home I asked AI to tell me what medications sounded like the word I'd memorised - and the closest one was an antiretroviral for HIV!!! Crikey. I didn't want to jump to any conclusions but had already created a scenario where someone had stolen my identity and been getting themselves AIDs tested using my name - for whatever reason. It caused a bit of an inner argument - half of me was saying to let it drop because it probably wasn't that - but the other halves of me were annoyed and wanted to get to the bottom of it. I thought I'd maybe ask the next doc I saw more about it - or maybe I could write to medical records and tell them I knew there was a problem there and I'd like them to get to the bottom of it.
I didn't decide anything and I'm trying to be less of a control freak these days than I had to be when I worked in the health service, so I just sat on it. But when, 2 weeks later, I got a surprise phone call from the nice doctor, I knew exactly what it was going to be. Well nearly exactly.
I was so impressed that she'd got to the bottom of it that I couldn't be annoyed - and certainly not with her. It turned out someone else's patient letter had been uploaded to my medical records and then I'd been flagged on the system as being HIV+. I asked her how long it had been there but she'd already had the letter taken out of my file so she was sorry but she didn't know. I think I do know because a few years back I started being plagued with letters offering me extra Covid and flu vaxes - the letter said that this was either because I was a health worker or I had a condition which left me at higher risk. That just annoyed me and I cancelled all the extra appointments but I put it down to administrative head-up-arse-ness (which actually it probably was).
The nice doc said all the red flags had been taken down on the medical system and there was a note about it too - so hopefully all is now well. It's a funny old thing though, knowing that that happened. How much has that factored into conversations that I've had with medical people in the last few years? When I had to have an op in 2022, I was taken in last despite having been there since 7am. Was that why? When I went in to see the physio on Thursday, she brought it up and said that after she'd seen me she worried she might have missed something because she thought I had "that condition" and had gone looking for papers on HIV and joint problems.
So knees.
In the meantime I had had enough of waiting for appointments and wanted to take my fate back into my own hands. Guessing that probably I have a bit of arthritis I had a look to see what injections you can get. There's a physio in Falkirk who has done some advanced training and also does ultrasound guided injections. It was him that fixed my frozen shoulder and then in 2023 when I went back with a big knee he gave me the choice of cortisone, which would certainly reduce the pain and swelling but might cause longer term damage - especially if I used it as a way to ignore my injury - or a softer option which was hyaluronic acid which is supposed to help lubricate and soothe the joint. Trying to be sensible, I went for that one. I didn't notice much difference from it, although it may have helped - who knows. It certainly didn't have the dramatic effect of cortisone. Now they have a new offering which is a formulation called Cingal which is a mix of a thicker form of hyaluronic acid which is supposed to provide more shock absorption, and a less aggressive form of cortisone which is supposed to be longer acting....so I think you'll agree that sounds nice. I emailed the guy to see if he thought it wasn't a stupid idea - and he didn't, so I'm going to go and get that done next Thursday. Back to the physio appointment - the pronouncement on my knees was "minimal signs of osteoarthritic changes" - minimal is like stage 1, followed by mild which is like stage 2. I'm going to get some blood tests too with the idea of probably ruling out some inflammatory thing like Rheumatoid arthritis. I can't get the blood test until the end of September anyway - good old NHS. Having spent quite a lot of time on the internet reading things about knees, I know that it could be all kinds of things. There was some guy in Japan who had knee trouble and when they looked inside his knee they found a thorn had presumably entered his body somewhere else and made its way into his knee. There are insects - ticks and other insects - that can cause inflammation to settle in your joints. There are autoimmune conditions like rheumatoid arthritis. Probably being an older lady now who never paid much attention to staying flexible is a major factor. There's a fairly recent bit of research from the University of Edinburgh showing that elite athletes have a higher risk than the average population of developing osteoarthritis. I was never an elite athlete, but I like to be in good company, so I'm just saying.
So who knows. I've still been doing strength training and I was delighted to find recently that I can do push-ups again - for a long time I couldn't. I think it's the core work that's made the difference, oddly - because I haven't been doing anything with my arms. I've still been cycling my bike - mostly indoors because the long carry down three flights of stairs and then back up again when I'm done is not appealing (cos it hurts my knees)- and I can't give it full gas, and if I have to stop and start - which I do with traffic and weaving through people, that's irritating for my knees. When I'm cycling indoors I have to just watch all the time that I'm not hurting my left knee. It's a hard balancing act - going as hard as I can but always listening out for something that is pain that isn't effort related.
I hope to God that a little modern medicine can help me climb out of this boring hole I am in. If I had a little more range of motion I would happily get down on my knees.
