Upset Applecart

There’s a funny T-shirt featuring a black cat with frizzled hair and bloodshot, googly eyes that reads, It’s Fine. I’m Fine., Everything Is Fine. We all have days like that so laughing about it is appropriate, even healthy. Keeping life in perspective allows me to moderate the inevitable misfortune that strikes now and then.

Getting older means many things, one being a slow but steady physical decline. How and what form that takes varies for each of us. Luckily, I’ve been healthy all my life and look young for my age. Maybe that’s why having to deal with increasing left hip pain has upset my proverbial applecart in a way I did not expect.

At first, I blamed it on the many years I spent traveling 2-hours/day to and from work, left leg basically frozen in place. After retirement I set about correcting things. I began physical therapy and walked more miles. It seemed to work. In six months, I was able to stop physical therapy and added an exercise regimen which was gratifying. I was eating less salt and carbs, added more veggies, drank more water, and lost 10 pounds. Happy that I was doing good things for myself, I was surprised when the hip pain returned accompanied by knee pain.

What was I doing wrong? I knew I had osteoarthritis in my knees and hips, but surely that hadn’t progressed in one year from moderate to possibly needing surgery. Over the next few weeks, the pain went from troublesome to incapacitating at times. Intriguingly, it would come and go. Some days everything seemed back to normal, others I was pretty much laid up. Finally, it settled into every day regardless of whether I exercised or not. I was not in constant pain, however, and was sleeping pain-free through the night. Back in physical therapy, it was decided I needed an MRI to see what was going on.

An MRI of my spine revealed nothing alarming for my age. And, as I suspected, further X-rays of my hips and knees confirmed surgery is not indicated. An additional MRI is scheduled to evaluate the tendons and soft tissue of my left hip. I’m confident we’ll get to the bottom of this, and that relief is forthcoming. Meanwhile, it’s not hard for me to find an abundance of reasons to remain grateful, excited about life, and full of optimism.

After all, though my applecart was upset, it WAS full of apples!