Too long

Some dear blog reader left a comment (read: nudge) yesterday letting me know that it had been a month since I had written a post. Out there in the universe, someone is actually LOOKING for these things? That's pretty sweet..... Or maybe creepy.... But I have settled on sweet.... But maybe...?... No. Definitely sweet.

So, wow. A month. Really? I mean, ONLY a month? It honestly feels like much longer. And I don't know where to begin. Certainly not at the beginning because there's a lot to cover. I guess I'll just try to hit the high notes, which might be interesting since I am a mezzo at best, and more a true alto everyday. (Vocal music humor. Does this lady's wit know no bounds?!?)

I am legit running again.As in, even my SURGEON says it's okay now. So I  am no longer running based on non-existent, non-verbal communication that I think my PT is trying to tell me. Come to find out, that guy just comes out and TELLS you what he thinks you should do. In fact, the surgeon has put a stamp of approval on my running the Ghost Train Ultra on October 25th. (His only contingency, literally, was that I have send him a photo for his 'success story' board. Can do, Doc!) So, that's the next big (nay, HUGE) thing. I am gunning to run the 15 mile out-and-back course 3 times so I cover my 40 miles for Pay it 40ward plus 5 miles penance for being dumb enough to go skiing.

And the running is going.... OK. I really can't complain. I am slower than dirt but so far my Type A has not destroyed my positive feelings about running. Before my last appointment with him the surgeon had assured PT that I would run and get sore and swollen when I started and then I would back off. So far my soreness is in places other than my surgical area. The areas that hurt are old friends who have always cranked on me a bit when I run. I am definitely more careful about things and have even purchased a "stick" to roll out the ouchies.

If I remembered/had time to type them up, I would have a hundred little chuckles about my post-ACL runs so far, but of course, I don't remember nor make the time. I will share that I was feeling UBER-victorious on Saturday afternoon and evening because I had done a 90 minute/9.3 mile run that morning. My longest post-surgical run (by 3 miles) and my first long run on my training plan for the ultra. Now, I don't discount the legitimacy of these self-congratulatory feelings. It was really something to be proud of, especially since it required me to sleep at camp and get out of bed at 4:30AM. But my ego shrunk about 7 sizes on Sunday morning when my workout reminder "ding'd" as I checked my email. On the schedule? THREE HOUR run.

Ummm. No. I did not take a 3 hour run on Sunday. I, in fact, had such a mom-fail day that I didn't even do any strength training or yoga or SQUAT diddly on Sunday. (Monday, though, I got out and did 8.4 and felt pretty good. Ego size boosted up about a quarter of a point.)

Elsewhere in life:

a. Husband is working and living at camp except for 24 hours a week. This living situation is worthy of an entire Blog in and of itself, but I will just say there are lots of good things about it. And then there's everything else....

b. I am teaching summer school 3 mornings a week. Quite possibly the world's perfect employment situation: not too much, not too little, every weekend's a 4 day weekend. Truly the Goldilocks of jobs.

c. The toddler is expanding his vocabulary rapidly based mainly on observations of his eldest brother. ("word," "that's sick!" and "what the heck?!"); The toddler is likewise being 5,001% more loving and hilarious... except when he is being 5000% more TANTRUM-y. (Good thing for that precious 1%, huh?) At least we are through the week or so of "I do not nap at home so screw you, Mom, I am not napping until September" part of the summer. (No, he doesn't say 'screw you.' Yet.)

d. Big brothers are walking a fine line between being best buddies and practically murdering each other. They have each discovered a few book series they love and are happy (almost EAGER) for the 30 minute required reading time after lunch every day. This doesn't sound like much but compared to previous times, this is borderline astounding. Big brothers will both be official campers for 3 weeks later this summer. Now THAT should be interesting...

e. Finally, we managed to get home for Camp Gungah (i.e. as many of the 8 siblings and 20 nieces and nephews as possible gather at my parents' house) the week of July 4th. Here's a peek at our float for the parade. The theme of the parade was 'songs' and we chose "You Are My Sunshine"...  Sweet, right? But with this crowd, we of course won first place for FUNNIEST! Ya had to  be there, but believe me... it was FUNNY!

In the Books

Here's the false start I got on this blog on Tuesday night:

Like a kid on the night before Christmas - or maybe  more accurately the night before the first day of school - I was super anxious and excited to set my alarm for 4:30AM last night. Even though I knew my run was going to be very short, I had to give myself the extra time for a few reasons:

1. I needed to go somewhere straight and flat.
2. The closest place that is straight and flat is 10 minutes-ish away.
3. I needed to be back in the house by 6AM to start the day with the rest of Team Giessler
4. I needed wiggle room in case I hit the farthest point on the straight, flat trail and things went to hell and I had to walk back.

And then my husband put on season 2 of Orange in the New Black and it was all over from there. Can you blame me?! He and Elliott are off to the Legoland Discovery Center near Boston today in honor of E's 8th birthday tomorrow (WHAT?! EIGHT!?!?), Gabe is taking a nap (WHAT?! A NAP!?!? ON SUNDAY!?!?!), and Tom is in his Minecraft Glory (ummmm, not surprising) so I have a couple of minutes to rattle off the latest in my knee saga.

So, yes. I had a short, albeit longer than I expected, run on Tuesday morning. The reason it was more like 30 minutes than 20 was because I turned off the audio cues on my Strava because, frankly, I could not bear to hear what my pace was going to be. I used the stop watch feature on my regular watch and planned to turn around after 10 minutes. The trouble is, I didn't hit start when I thought I did. A 'bit' into the run I looked down and saw 5:12. That seemed reasonable but a little less than I expected. About five minutes later I looked down expecting to see 10:00 or so.... and instead saw 5:18. Oh. I was looking at the TIME OF DAY. So, no harm done. I ran about 15 minutes out instead of 10 and it was okay.

The run was fine. I trotted pretty slowly and enjoyed the not-too-hot, not-too-cold, pleasant summer-esque morning. My knee did not hurt at all, though my stupid lower back/hip pain of old did show up. ("Hello, Old Friend.")

Later than morning I had PT. Besides kicking my butt with new sadistic exercises involving resistance bands and balance balls (not at the same time), everything was good there, too. He took a look at my stride on the sidewalk out from and, as far as he could tell, I had no hitch in my giddy-up. This week we will use the Super Slow Mo camera and the treadmill so we will have an even better look at my stride. (I feel like this is the equivalent to have the dermatologist putting your face under the magnifying glass. Horrifying. But I'd much prefer the camera on my stride.)

I get a little twinge on the outside on my knee by mid-afternoon so I iced it that night. Next day? Fine and dandy and ready for some Jillian Michaels yoga. She's so BA.

I have promised that I will not run more than every-other-day and that I will not attempt anything approaching a long run until I have seem my surgeon or at least on till my PT has talked to him. I fully intend to follow that rule but I ALMOST broke it yesterday. The boys and Scott were heading to the beach down the road from us and I thought it was a good opportunity for me to get a run in. It is just over 1.5 miles away so I figured I would run past the beach and then turn around and head back to the parking lot at 30:00 or so. I gave Scott a bottle of water to keep in the car for me - it was pretty warm by New Hampshire standards. All was well and I trotted along, passing the guys on the beach. I waved at them but nobody was looking up when I went by. No big deal. When I calculated that I ought to, I turned around and headed back to the beach. Joke was on me: they were gone! I was confused and decided that Scott misunderstood my plan. (Maybe he thought I wanted HIM to be well-hydrated?!) I chalked it up to destiny, adjusted my big girl pants, and set my sights on home. Thankfully, it was only about 7 minutes later when Scott & boys went driving by. The beach was very breezy and the water was very cold, so they decided to head out sooner than later. They went to find me but did not realize I had turned onto my 'usual' road instead of going straight. I was thirsty and ran about 10 extra minutes  but otherwise it was not a problem.

Last night I had, for the first time since February 8th, that delicious total-body-exhaustion feeling caused by a good run during the day. I was delighted and horrified: delighted because I knew I truly worked and horrified because I had only done 40 minutes worth of work. It's going to quite a feat getting ready for 45 miles at the Ghost Train Ultra!

In other great news, I had a friend text me last night that she ran 2 miles without a walk break for the first time ever yesterday! She is doing Couch to 5K and, until a couple of months ago,  did not run at all because she had knee replacement surgery years ago. I'm sure there are plenty of people who hate workout posts on social media (Lord knows they have all un-friended me by now, I hope, rather than curse me!) but I love love love it. This stuff makes me completely and unreasonably happy. Yay, team!

GAWD. I am writing it and this post is boring even ME! So sorry. I think these will get more interesting as my runs get longer. But, here's a cute picture of Gabe from yesterday. So maybe it will make up for some of the droning:

June 10th

I made a half-ass'd confession to my physical therapist today: I confessed that I have been jogging.

(Let me digress: For the record, I don't like the word jogging. I find it diminishing to the act of running. But since I was holding back so much in the effort, hardly changing my respiratory rate, I don't feel like I can call it anything but jogging... 'cuz it wasn't walking and it sure as heck wasn't running... but don't let me hear you call what you do jogging, because I won't let you degrade yourself that way!)

Anyway,  back to my partial confession. In my defense, my decision to take some running-esque steps in the last week did not come without some tacit approval. I present to the court three incidents that lead me to believe it was time to take things up a notch. Officially.

1. Two weeks ago, my PT had me start doing 1-legged squats. The goal was to do them to about 60-degrees. He said, "When you can do 10 of these in a row without losing your balance, that will tell me you are ready to run." I pulled off more than 20 in a row. KA-CHING!

2. On Friday I had another follow-up with my surgeon.The physician's assistant came into the exam room first and, after talking to me and looking at my leg, said, "So, you are at 8 weeks. This is when you can start to do some easy, straight-line jogging." (Cue the choir of angels in my head!)

3. Just after that, the surgeon himself came in. He talked to me about my progress and examined my knee and then said, "The protocol for jogging and running after this surgery is 12 weeks, so you are almost there." (Cue the 'you lose' music from "The Price is Right" - "bum-bum-ba-dummmm-brrrrr"....) But, after I expressed my deep disappointment in that idea, he THEN said, "Well, if you are out walking and you DO decide to take a few jogging steps, you just need to be really careful..." (Blah, blah, blah. I stopped listening after that. The die was cast. I was taking things up a notch. Officially.)

Okay. So, I said I made a partial confession. And it really was. Because, REALLY, really, I have been doing some running-esque movement for kind of a while now. I just felt ready. I just felt strong enough. I just felt like NOT RUNNING was getting too easy... like maybe if I didn't start up again on some level, maybe I would lose my mojo completely and just not start up again.

When I made my partial confession (I never copped to running before this past Friday), my PT was not surprised. Being a runner and having experience with a long recovery during which he could not run at all, he completely understands where I am coming from. He reminded me, though, that I was playing a dangerous game. I have heard the things he said today dozens of times before, but for some reason, today they stuck with me.

Here's the thing: Coming back from ACL reconstruction takes a boatload of work from the patient. You have to be committed to strengthening and stretching (and hurting!) for months at a time. Your quad muscle, which you could swear was JUST there, basically disappears completely. It's about as useful as nipples on a man. And the capacity to bend and straighten your leg? Completely gone. You can't do it. You have to fight for every degree of flexion and extension. If you were any kind of athlete before the surgery, it's almost inconceivable that this useless limb is on your formerly powerful, capable body.

And that's the good news. Because that's what you CAN control.

But no matter how determined and focused and bad ass you are, the bad news is you don't get to control the pace at which your graft heals to your bones. Likewise - and this will come as a complete shock to many of you - you don't get to control the pace of the calendar so that the time of healing for said graft will move more swiftly. Who knew? Certainly not I.

What finally hit me today is that no matter how determined I am, no matter how hard I work, no matter how charming or pouty or witty or sassy or ANYTHING-y I am... I can't make the graft heal any faster than it's going to heal and I can't get any medical professional to sign off on my running before week 12 of my recovery.

I think I needed to hear someone say to me clearly, as my PT did today, "You, Phoebe, are doing great. You are going to be ready to go and if it were just a matter of strength, you could go NOW. But there's no way to be sure that the graft is healed and we don't want to be back here a year from now because you overused the ligament before it had a time to heal properly."

It's a sign of my overall immaturity that I was ready to give up a lifetime of healthy running so that I could get in a handful of slow miles before it was wise. I am done running and jogging for now. It's (now) so obviously not worth it. For now it's squats and hamstring curls and stretching and spinning on my bike... for 3 more weeks.

That's June 10th.

It's a Tuesday.

Anyone wanna go running?

And, just for fun... one of my co-workers introduced me to the App "ChatterKids" today. She is using it with students to help them creatively share the research they have done on different US states. Below you can see that I have used it to make myself giggle. (If you missed my schpeil about the AMR Prove It Challenge - check this post.) You gotta check it out!

Glimmers

Yesterday marked 3 months since my last run. My last, victorious, glorious, record-breaking, incredible 28-mile run. (Seriously: if you haven't read that post and you are up on my ACL/MCL disaster, you just have to. I re-read for the first time since about 2/14 and cried a little. That lady was so HOPEFUL! I will be her again someday!) Three months. More than 90 days. One-quarter of a year. THREEEEE MONTHS!

I was discussing that fact with my physical therapist as I peddled on the stationary bike and he asked the obvious question I hadn't even thought of before that: "When's the last time you have gone that long without running?" I honestly didn't have an answer for him at first, because although I knew "forever" was not completely honest, that's what it feels like.

My second thought was that since I started running at the age of 12, there have been very few stretches of great length where I haven't run. Then I remembered that outside of track season in junior high and high school, I really didn't run. After senior year, though, I DID run on purpose, even during college volleyball season. So maybe the answer was 1992.

Then I remembered that when I tore my ACL in 1994 I certainly stopped running for a good chunk of time. That might have been it.

And then the surgery site got infected in 2001 and I certainly got laid up then....

Of course, there was also three pregnancies and recoveries in there, so you can't forget those in 2004, 2006 and 2012.....

So, REALLY really, it's only been 2 years since I took a long break from running. I guess I have a lot more practice getting back into running than I thought I did.

This time hurts the most though, of course.

BUT... I am getting there. Slowly but surely, I am having a lot less achy moments and I am ALMOST sleep through the night without painful tossing and turning to find a comfortable position.

I have been  a walking fool, even going so far as to walk with hand weights to up the ante on the cardio a bit. I can't say that it makes me work up a good sweat or gives me the heart rate increase I so desperately crave... but it's something. And lately I've been getting to the 3 mile mark, which feels like something to celebrate.

At the appointment yesterday the PT showed me one legged squats to 60-degrees. He said "When you can do 10 of these without losing your balance, I'll know you are ready to run." I  knocked off 20 of them. I don't think this gives me permission to run but it certainly gave me permission to grin like an idiot. Ironically, I tried it on my 'good' leg and although it was much less fatiguing, it was also way wobblier. Guess I better get cracking on the left side or I'll do something stupid like get ANOTHER injury while I'm finishing up this one.

Gotta work on extension. At PT he has a nice 10 pound 'bag' weight to get my leg to hyper-extend/stretch.... This is what passes for weights at my house. A clever FB friend noted that I was "carb-loading".

Okay. I know this is not an award-winning blog entry, but I am trying to get back in the habit. So, here it is.

Happy Mother's Day... Especially if you happen to be MY Mama!

Clear as mud

Have you ever had two people you like and respect disagree about the right course of action?

Have you ever heard an opinion and been completely swayed... until you got in the room with someone of a different opinion whereupon you completely agreed with the second person? 

That's happened to me plenty. Normally it leaves me feeling frustrated with myself for my inability to take a side. This means I might go into a voting booth and check a box I'm not entirely sure about. Or it means I raise my hand during a meeting vote with my eyes cast down since I'm not feeling confident about my choice.

In this case, I don't have the luxury of being one vote among many. In this case, I am the one and only decider. So in this case, I had damn well better figure out what I want to do and believe in it before I make a decision.

In case you haven't guessed, the opinion of my physical therapist, Kevin, is that I should have the ACL reconstruction. He agrees with the surgeon that I could probably get along without it... IF I contained my running to flat, even surfaces with no sharp turns. (Uuuhhhh, there's no such thing in this neck of the woods....) If I "PT my way to health" and start to run, he says, my knee will not be completely stable and I carry the significant risk of doing serious damage to the meniscus - which is pretty much the end of running.

This all sounds really reasonable.

But, remember yesterday? The doctor said he thinks I have a partial, not a complete tear. (The PT's clinical assessment was a bit more grim. He didn't feel the ligament 'stopping' the bones from pulling apart). He said that people over-operate on ACLs unneccesarily. He says, given my first go-round in 1994, the ACL repair might be more trouble than its worth.

Seeing as I have just come from PT, my opinion on the matter more closely matches that of Kevin. 

For now, I go forward with PT twice a week. Even in the short time I was there today, I saw huge improvements in my ability to bend and straighten the leg.  With the seat raised comically high, I was able to spin a little on the stationary bike today. When I started out, it was SO hard to get the knee bent enough at the height of the peddle. But, as I went along for a few minutes, it got less and less tight and I was basically pain free after 7 or 8 minutes. Huh. 

I have lots of exercises to do at home. Not the impressive kind. Just the small movements in the quad and gentle extension and flexion stretches to increase my range of motion. It's boring stuff but very important... and not easy, let me tell you.

I don't have to decide yet what I'm going to do. I am glad that I get to decide, I think, but it would be simpler if it was someone elses job to make the choice.

The idea of surgery is horrifying for so many reasons. First, I have to PT back to full range of motion and strength for a few weeks in order to have the operation... only to then be cut open and destroyed.... so that I can then return to PT in order to regain full range of motion and strength. Blech. Second, surgery itself is hard. It just is. I don't handle anesthesia that well and I am pretty worried about infection, given my history and especially how deadly many of them are these days.

The idea of living my life in a physically-cautious way is also horrifying. I can't fathom worrying about every uneven sidewalk or root-laden hike or fast corner I run around. I still have young kids, so there is a lot of tag and hide-n-seek in my future. Do I want to be 'that' mom who can't run and play? No, thank you!

I feel especially tired today and I don't think it has anything to do with how much rest I'm getting or how much energy I am burning. Not knowing the right road to take is just plain exhausting.

(Weird) MRI Results

No one is good at waiting. I don't think I am especially impatient, but I am certainly not Zen about it. Waiting for two weeks to find out the extent of  my knee injury has  been exceptionally unfun.

There was just so much time for predicting what the MRI would say. Every new bruise that appeared, each new 'tweak' I felt, any glimmer of modest healing gave rise to another cockamamie idea of what I had done to myself. From "I'm just a wuss and it's fine, really, if I'd just put on my Big Girl pants" to "I will need a total knee replacement... and possibly a liver and transplant."

Following each theory, of course, comes recovery scenarios from A - Z: "I'll be running again in March" to "I'll be one of those people on the Scooter at WalMart any day now."

Okay, even I'm not prone to THAT extreme thinking, but you get the idea.....

I sported this shirt, just in case the Doctor was not clear on my objective.

FINALLY, this morning, I got to see Dr. Barton, the orthopedic surgeon. This story starts pretty bleak, but stick with me....

As I sat and waited, I made an outline of information I needed filled in. The paper I was using had a fancy-fonted "HOPE" written at the top. I deliberately chose it because it is my mom's name and because it was what I was clinging to. I traced over the word hundreds and hundreds of times in the waiting room. The fancy HOPE slowly de-volved into a sloppy HOPE as my mannish handwriting covered up the curlicues.

I was teary, literally, waiting and waiting and waiting to be seen. To be fair, he wasn't really that late. I was a bit early and he was about 10 minutes behind. It felt like a century.

When I got into the exam room for more waiting, I sat on the table and did crunches and V-seats and leg lifts and any other strength training moves I could think of. Had to feel like this waiting had some purpose, other than making me weepy.

When he walked in he immediately asked if I had been made aware of the results. I think I earned a gold star for not screaming "NOOOOOO! I HAVE NOT! I HAVE BEEN WAITING FOR YOU!!" Instead, I (relatively) calmly informed him that his office said I needed to wait for my appointment. He was horrified how long I had had to wait and apologized, saying he could tell that I wanted to get things in motion. The results of the MRI were, to put it mildly, not what I wanted to hear:

ACL: Grade 3 (complete) tear
MCL: Grade 3 (complete) tear
Meniscus: no damage

While it's true, it could have been worse, this was bad, bad, BAD news. I have experience with ACL repair surgery, as you may recall, and it was so very hard. And I was so very much younger then..... So, I took this information badly. Very badly, in fact. I laid back on the exam table, not hiding my crying, and said, "Shit. This is horrible. This is the worst news.... (Deep breath). Okay. I want the surgery tomorrow."

It will not shock you to learn that, in fact, I am not having surgery tomorrow....

Dr. Barton reminded me that not all ACL tears require surgery. (And I thought, "Yeah, but I am an ATHLETE. I want the repair!") He said that too many people rush into surgery after something like this and it might not be necessary. ("Right. For geriatrics who only want to shuffle to the mailbox and their bird feeders everyday....") He said even if surgery was the right course of action, he would not touch my knee until the range of motion had vastly improved. (I cannot quite straighten it and can only bend it a tiny bit beyond 90 degrees.) His reasoning, irksomely solid, is that operating on a knee with poor range of motion means that knee will pretty much always have poor range of motion. To go under the knife I will need to be able to go from 0 - 140 degrees flexion.

He then proceeded to do a clinical exam of both of my knees, and this is where things got more interesting and HOPEFUL. He thinks that my knee has healed vastly since my exam by Tim O'Brien a week and half ago and since the MRI five days ago. He thinks, in fact, that I do NOT have a complete tear of the ACL and MCL. His manipulating of the knee leads him to believe that a better guess would  be a grade 1 tear to each of these. There is, he believes, some tissue connecting all the parts together.

I still don't fully understand how the 'picture proof' of an MRI can be wrong. If it's torn, it's torn, right? And I asked him that. But he said something I will never forget:

"I don't treat MRIs. I treat patients."

Well, that works out pretty well, seeing as I am a patient and not an MRI. I like this doctor.

And that's when I remembered the info about the meniscus. "And, not having meniscus damage is really important for a runner, right?" He agreed. A meniscus problem is far worse than ACL or MCL strains and sprains when it comes to running. Okay. Breathing.

Whatever the future decision about surgery is, I need to get into PT quickly, improve my range of motion,and maintain some semblance of strength. I asked specifically for Kevin at Action Sports, the PT I used for a knee overuse injury last spring, and he said "That's perfect. That's who I would want for you." Another big "Yes!" moment. The doctor made the call and the appointment is set for 9:45 tomorrow morning. (Blessedly, this is February Vacation week for us, so making these appointments is not too much of a problem.... come next week it may get dicey.)

Better notes than I took at any of my appointments with my Midwife.
(Well, after kid #1, anyway)

I don't know what I really thought I was going to hear today. I guess I should not be surprised that I am still, somewhat, in no-runner's-land as far as surgery is concerned. I am feeling very confident about the medical professionals who are advising me, exceptionally thrilled with my PT "handler", and -once again - very lucky to be surrounded by people who are supporting me in this. Thank you.

Onward. 

Yup. He totally signed my tights.

Task avoidance: PT Day 2

I have a boatload of work to do for a church committee I am on, but I logged on to the computer and remembered that I hadn't posted about my second round of PT yet. So, here's to avoiding some writing.

The PT guy agreed with my idea to do a run just before my appointment today so that I'd be warmed up when I got there. With that in mind, I ran my easiest, flattest and fastest 3 miles in ages this morning just  before my appointment. His facility, in addition to being super cool and filled with a truck load of intriguing looking torture devices PT equipment, is just steps away from Cotton Valley Trail. This is literally the only flat running place in a 50 mile radius. Well, not counting the track. I was pretty pleased to feel the need to hold the reins tightly on this run. It has been so long since I've run with any kind of speed, I was truly tempted to let 'er fly. I still clocked the last mile at about 8:37. Not fast but certainly not the plodding speed I have been going.

It was another educational session. He taught me a couple of strength training moves to do with a resistance band. These are meant to increase the strength in my glutes, thus helping me stay away from Dead Butt Syndrome. This YoutTube link shows you the "monster walk" (though he had me put the band around my ankles as opposed to just below the knees). After a few minutes (or, for me, about ONE minute) this thing really starts working the hips (or, 'side ass'). His warning to me was to NOT overdo this and to NOT do this just before a run, as it will fatigue the  muscles and probably make you change your gait - thus, making you prone to injury.

The other exercise he didn't name so I can't give you a link. Basically, you stand with the band around your ankles, balance on one leg and pull out with the other leg at different angles. The muscles you are working should actually be in the leg on which you are balancing, not in the leg that is doing the pulling. Once you get the hang of it, you are also supposed to work your upper body into it by bending over, as if you are picking things up. This is also an exercise to be done POST run, not pre-.

We also reviewed the stretches he gave me the other day and had me show him 'how I roll'. Well, how I foam roll. I must have done it okay because his only advice was that when I found a tender spot to 'breath through it'.

He did another round of ultrasound on the tendon. This time he cranked the level a little and I definitely felt some, uh, action. This was comforting, actually, as the small amount of pain helped me feel like there was something going on in there. Healing, hopefully!

Finally, he massaged the muscles in my quad a bit, retaped my leg and I was on my way.

Another good session. Another BEAUTIFUL day out and about my boys this afternoon. I am in denial that we have to go back to school next week. What's the deal with me not being independently wealthy anyway? Humph.

Little Man loves the swing! And he kept his hat on today!

We are in for years bad family photos... And yes, my middle kid is wearing an orange shirt and a red hat. He's got the fashion sense of his mother.

Wa-wa

My Tweet this morning:

I wanna be the Helen Keller to this PT guy's Annie Sullivan. Without all the throwing of food... #GottaHeal #GottaQualify #BostonMarathon

Yes, I had my first day of PT today to see what we can do about my knee problem. I would not say we got Miracle Worker results, but it's early yet.

Kevin, the PT, was completely awesome. I estimated to Scott that the appointment would be about 30 minutes, 45 if I was lucky. I got about 90 minutes of his undivided attention. WOW! Among other notes:

• I was video taped on the treadmill so he could analyze my gate (stay tuned for the that) 

• He put kinseo (sp?) tape on my leg (my beach volleyball skills immediately went through the roof, and if you didn't watch Misty May-Trainer and Kerry Walsh in the 2012 Games, nevermind)

• I had each of my legs measured to see if they were the same length (they are technically the same, though something about the way I walk makes the right one shorter)

• I made a joke ("Well, I wouldn't be surprised if they are not the same length, my parents are first cousins.")

• He made a joke. ("Good news. They are the same length. Must be second cousins.")

• I had my legs bent and my leg strength tested in some bizarre angles. (Felt super wussy during this phase of things but good ol' Kevin did not call me a Pansy or anything.)

• I had Ultrasound therapy, an explanation for which I have lifted from ehow.com because I wasn't sure what it was:

Knee pain can be caused by a large number of factors that include the following; arthritis, tendinitis, bursitis, torn cartilage, torn ligament, strains or sprains, connective-tissues disorders (e.g., lupus) and knee injuries (dislocation of the kneecap). Ultrasound therapy is an approved physical therapy treatment used by doctors, physical therapists and occupational therapists to help reduce and/or eliminate your knee pain by sending high frequency sound waves, which provide deep heat, to your affected knee tissues and stimulate the healing process.
Read more: Ultrasound Therapy for Knee Pain | eHow.com http://www.ehow.com/about_5571145_ultrasound-therapy-knee-pain.html#ixzz2REs8veku

• It's looking like I have tendinitis (I don't know the name of the tendon. He said it but it was more than 4 letters long so it went out of my brain). 

• The treatment is very specific stretches for my quad and hip flexor 2-3 times a day. (He gave me a print out of how to do the stretches, thank heavens.) This trick to this is to get the stretch without stressing the knee. Not simple.

• He also recommends foam rolling "everywhere". (I assume this means everywhere on my body, and not everywhere in the world. That might take awhile).

• He said my hamstrings are actual quite good/flexible... for a runner.

• I am okay to run as long as I can handle the pain. (I ran another hilly 3-miler with the stroller this afternoon... 3 is definitely as far as my knee wants to go for now)

• I have 2 more appointments this week in which he will go over his analysis of my gait and give me some strength exercises. (He agrees that I probably have a bit of Dead Butt Syndrome. Maybe I have MOSTLY Dead Butt Syndrome, like a character is The Princess Bride might have.)

So, I am feeling pretty good about this. We have a glorious week off from school/work, so I can sleep in not worry about rushing out in the mornings. In fact, when I got home from the run this afternoon, Scott had dinner going on the deck. I had the luxury of stretching and foam rolling out in the sunshine, on the deck, boys playing in the yard, baby toddling around my legs, and a beer within reach. Life is very, very good!

Gabe and me post-hill conquering. Slow pace, short distance. Still, I'll take it!

My beach volleyball leg, yoga mat, foam roller, running buddy and sunshine.

This is a camping kitchen my parents gave us for Christmas. Shame to keep it in the garage and use it just a couple of times a year, so we use it on the deck. So good to have spring!

P.S. While Kevin didn't endorse my chosen method of self-treatment (copious amounts of wine, chocolate, and self-pity/loathing), he didn't dismiss it either. For now I think I am going to incorporate both his and my methods of rehab into my life.