in omnia paratus: July 2008

Monday, July 28, 2008

Tales of the vertically challenged

In a previous post I mentioned that I am annoyed by the fact that I am getting more sports injuries as I get older. The main annoyance is my knee. In short, I have patellar tendonitis aka jumper's knee. The diagram to the right is a depiction jumper's knee. And yes, I do have lightening bolt-like sensations around my knee-cap. That part of the diagram is fairly accurate. I have had this issue for over two years. Two years! I have been to the doctor twice for it and they both told me the same thing - "Rest". I have no idea what that is so hence why, two years later, I still have knee issues. I rested for about a month once. No gym. No soccer. No basketball. I still hurt. So I made the conclusion that if it wasn't going to get any worse then I should just suck it up and keep playing.

I went to a Jock Doc a few months ago and he told me to rest and limit my sports to one activity per week. I responded by asking if I DIDN'T stay off of it, would I be at risk for any permanent or severe damage. He said no. He should have lied. He should have known that I was only asking that because I had no intention on staying off my knee. I have gotten to the point where the pain while I play is no longer an issue because I'm so used to it. But the major annoyance with the severity of my condition is that the pain is not merely exercise induced. If I sleep in the wrong position, it wakes me up. I have a limited number of sitting positions that don't irritate it. I can't walk for long periods of time. I can't wear my sassy high heels as often as I'd like. Basically, I feel like I'm 80.

I have done some research on what I can do on my own to fix this problem and not really been able to find much. Has anyone ever had jumper's knee and successfully cured it? I have decided that if the only solution to fixing my knee is this "rest" thing the doctors keep talking about, then I am only left with one option - a temporary moratorium from all physical activity. I am planning this moratorium for a few months from now. Around November/December, I will be done with my fall sports seasons and will not start up again until February. I am going to make an official break from all physical activity. I am making this declaration public because if I don't, then it'll be easier to back out. I am also making this public as to forewarn all those that normally are my teammates to be prepared for the pending lapse in activities. If, at the end of my dark days, my knees are not better, I fear that I will need to go back to the doctor. When this is the case (when rest can no longer bring the swelling down), it means that the swelling in my knees can only be reduced by surgery. Yippeee horrayy! Here's to getting older...

Wednesday, July 23, 2008

NY (what does that mean? "no way!" That's NW!)

Tomorrow morning I leave on my very first trip to New York City. We will be gone until late Sunday night. The trip was kind of thrown together rather quickly so I hope it all turns out well. We only have two full days there and lots to see in two days. Here are my main goals for the trip:

See the Statue of Liberty
Buy a hot dog from a street vendor
See a show
See the big fountain in Central Park
Not get anything stolen
Make out on the top of the Empire State Building
Visit Ground Zero
Take some kick-a pictures

I will report back next week on the success of the trip. Wish me luck!!

Thursday, July 17, 2008

My quest for power steering

A couple of months back, I wrote a brief blog post about how I can relate to Buddy the Elf when he goes for his first escalator ride. I finally feel that I'm at a point where I am no longer keeping that one back foot planted on the ground floor.

I don't usually write down my New Year's resolutions, or even really any goal for that matter. One of my unwritten goals for this year was to find a new job. I went much of the early part of the year looking at job posting after job posting thinking that nothing looked remotely like something I wanted to do. I realized after some searching that it wasn't that the jobs were not what I was looking for, but that I didn't know what I wanted... at all.

Within the last few weeks, I have decided to make some real changes and get my life more harmonious with, well, anything. I've felt very scattered for a very long time and was very tired of it. The moment that my real changes started to happen, even if they were only internally, life became much more... something... clear? simple? obvious? easy?

I'm not sure exactly how to explain it but maybe this little comparison will help clarify. I don't know much about cars. But I have driven a car with power steering and without power steering. I don't know what technically is the difference between the two but I do know that driving a car without power steering is tough. The car will function the same, you can make the same turns, drive down the same roads, but it's just a touch more difficult. That's the best way I can describe how my life felt. I was going through the same motions but everything felt like I had to put way too much effort in to make things happen. And in case my vague analogous prose isn't clear, the incorporation of righting the wrongs through the Lord and allowing someone else help carry the weight of the decisions is what makes every day just a touch less difficult. Most of the time, that extra assistance is through the Lord and the Spirit. But occassionally, this help is most evident in the people in our lives. Some that come along when you least expect it.

That being said, as of yesterday, I have landed a new job. A job that I truly wanted. Not just an excuse to leave my current job but in an area of law that will be perfect for me and my experience. I have a perfect start date of one week after a much anticipated vacation with my family. I am getting a significant raise. And I'm moving. Luckily I have a great friend that works in Chapel Hill that is also looking to move out there. Christa - I'm going to talk about you right now. :) About a month or so ago, Christa and I about had our perfect apartment ready to go but then it didn't end up working out for Christa to be able to live in Raleigh. If she was going to move out, it needed to be in Chapel Hill, which I totally agreed with. She was worried that I was mad. But I really never was. It immediately made sense to me that there was a reason why we didn't end up getting an apartment in Raleigh. I said that then too, so don't think I'm back-tracking so I can be a know-it-all. Ok. I'm done talking about you now Christa.

I have been incredibly blessed in such a short amount of time. And when I say short, I don't mean the past six months. I mean in about the last three weeks. I don't usually get this gushy and personal with my posts but I guess it happens every now and then. Plus, it saves me time from having to retell all this information separately to everyone that reads my blog. Not that it's THAT many, but you get the idea. I am extremely grateful for my life right now. I know we all deserve great things to happen in our lives, but it's still hard to ever feel that you've deserved them.

Thursday, July 10, 2008

Cubicle-induced craziness

The effects of aging begin to manifest in various aspects of our lives. I am quite bummed by the fact that I don't bounce back from my sports' injuries as quickly as I once did. Or the fact that I actually HAVE sports' injuries. I'm beginning to notice another area of my life that is waning in stamina and that is my ability to sit in front of a computer. Even before this point, I frequently got up and walked around my office when I'd been sitting for too long. I started to think this recent problem was because I'm ready to change jobs so my motivation has diminished. But I'm beginning to think that I am actually losing the ability to sit in front of the computer for hours at a time like I used to. Right now, after sitting for a couple of hours of hard computer work (drafting, writing, researching, etc) I get up feeling like something has been repeatedly punching me in the face. I'm a little dizzy. My eyes and contacts feel like I've been staring at the sun for 5 hours. My back hurts. My brain gets foggy. My head feels like it's slowly being taken over by an invisible electronic force field. I believe that my monitor is taking years off of my life. Does anyone else feel like they have this problem? Does your computer suck the life out of you like mine does?

I have a plant behind my monitor. It's the only plant I've ever owned and not killed. It sees no sunlight. I water it regularly every 2 months. It is a mystery to me why this plant continues to live. For one, it's almost 2 years old which makes its duration in my office longer than half of the employees here. I was fully expecting its death to be self-inflicted by this point. But it keeps on truckin. I am now thinking that my monitor has been absorbing my life-force and transferring it back to the plant.

In a conversation with Tim, we realized that we have both done the same thing on a number of occassions. I thought I was the only one and I'm actually surprised I haven't been caught doing this yet. Some days, when I leave work, especially on the days when I've been smothered by the attention my computer gives me, I get in my car to drive out of the parking deck, and yell my way back to near-sanity. This tends to help me break out of my computer-induced coma. Though sometimes I'm not yelling to break the coma. Sometimes I'm yelling just to yell.

Am I nuts? Does anyone else have this issue? I swear I didn't used to have this problem. That being said, I'm sick of looking at this computer screen... I'm going to talk to real people now.