Ok, a strange thing happened this morning. I ran 2 miles in 13:30
with cadets and for the first time in months the knee really did not
bother me. I felt it a little but not the normal every step pain that I
have been experiencing for months on end every day. So maybe something
has happened. I have a theory but we will wait and see if it pans out.
If so then I may still get the miracle I had been praying for and not
end up with surgery. If not then I am still ok with surgery in July if
required. So my theory is this: We were in Moab hiking a lot at
Arches National Park this weekend and I was really stressing the knee
quite a bit with a lot of climbing over rough terrain. During our last
hike on Sunday evening in the "Fiery Furnace" of all places I was
hopping from rock to rock across a large crevasse and felt a severe
sharp pain in my knee that was the worst pain I have felt in it to
date. It was bad enough that I was gritting my teeth in pain for a
couple minutes and wondering if I was going to be able to continue the
hike and make my way back out. After that the knee was sore but I
managed to continue and make it out of the "Fiery Furnace" ok. So today
when I started running I noticed immediately that the knee was not
hurting like it normally did. I could feel the knee but not anywhere
close to like before. My theory is that when I made this jump and felt
the pain that it was the torn piece of meniscus tearing completely off.
I am not sure if this is possible but I imagine it is since a torn
meniscus is a flap of torn tissue/cartilage and the pain is normally
caused by the torn piece interfearing with normal knee movement. During
surgery they go in and cut this piece off to smooth things out and
restore normal movement. So I wonder if this is possible? I guess I
will find out as I continue to run over then next month and see if the
pain completely goes away or not. Either way it was nice to run a
couple miles and not be in so much pain. So this weekend I was thrown
into the "Fiery Furnace" and came out better than when I went in! Also did 175 push-ups and 175 sit-ups. |