Always injured

I am not doing well physically for the last several months.  It all started with the shoulder injury that left my right arm dead for the better part of two weeks.  As far as I can guess this was brought on by doing thousands of push ups and little else for resistance training while the gyms were closed.  I went to a month of physical therapy which brought basic function back to the shoulder but push ups and pull ups still do not feel normal by any means.

Another thing I started doing during lock down was running the parking garage on Fridays.  It was tough but I enjoyed the extra challenge of running the inclines and declines of the ramps. Three or four Fridays ago I completed a run and didn’t recall feeling anything outside of the normal fatigue during the run.  However that night my left knee which is my “good” one that has not been operated on, started to hurt, badly.

Over the last 20 years I have had a lot of knee problems, mostly volleyball related.  The two surgeries I had were on my right knee for meniscus damage.  Based on that experience I am pretty sure I have some meniscus damage in my left knee as well now.  The symptoms are swelling and pain in the joint that leave me walking around like someone out of a geriatric ward.  It’s especially bad when I get up after sitting for awhile whether it be in the car or my office chair.  The first 20-30 steps it hurts badly to put weight on the leg.

Like I said I have two decades of dealing with knee issues.  I am hoping whatever is floating around in there causing inflammation dissolves or heals.  The last thing I want to do is entertain the idea of getting surgery on the left knee.  There is a good chance that this event has signaled the end of my running days.  It may be exclusively low impact cardio for me from here on out.  I am trying to walk the tight rope between letting it heal and doing my normal activities both at home and the gym.  So far it feels like I am doing a pretty poor job at balancing as my limp is as bad as ever this far removed from the original injury.

The other part of my body that has been not feeling great is my lower back.  I have a pretty steady soreness back there which is punctuated by disturbing crunching sounds from that region when I do certain movements at home and at the gym. That injury isn’t nearly as debilitating as the knee thing so I am more or less ignoring that one.

It really is pointless for a 52 year old man to complain about aches, pains, and injuries.  It’s all part of what you deal with as you age.  My tendency to still try to push myself in ways perhaps unwise for someone my age doesn’t help the situation but I’m unwilling to go peacefully into the night of oldness.