Gearing Up For My Next Trip

I just ordered one of these. You can get them on Amazon. Wish I'd seen this about 2 years ago. With my bad knee, the worst pain comes from standing still for a long time. It's like my knee jams into the socket and it really hurts, not to mention that it takes a bit to start moving again.It's like it gets stuck. I didn't think I'd need to worry too much about sitting when I went on that first trip last year. I'd just find a bench or duck into a coffee shop, restaurant, or bar. I'd get off my feet for a little bit, and then get going again. But the problem with that idea, is that sometimes the people you are with either want to talk for hours somewhere  where there's no place for you to park your butt, or they don't want to spend money on even a beverage, because their travel budget is so tight, or they haven't budgeted enough time for that kind of enjoyment. I'm okay if we're moving. Walking is fine. But after about a half hour to an hour, my knees still want me to get off of them even if we're moving constantly. I have a very skinny friend with a bad knee who confirmed for me that standing in one place is the worst pain inducing activity for her also. Well, barring jumping around or running. I had actually made two trips before even thinking I needed to get something like the Walkstool. The last trip I took, there was an episode, where after walking all day, we ended up waiting for a bus for over a half an hour. It was excruciating. My knees were already hurting, and this made it so much more worse. The person I was traveling with wouldn't let me pay for the cab, it had to be split 50/50 and she didn't want to pay for even half a cab. Even when I explained to her that I had budgeted for cabs and was willing to pay the full fare plus tip. It still frosts me that she was that stubborn and unsympathetic. My other friend, the skinny one with the bad knee, told me that I needed to learn to stand up for myself when I told her about what had happened . I now know that's true. It took me a week to recover physically from that last trip. My left knee and foot were so swollen, I tried to stay off of them as much as possible. Believe you me, I can't wait until next year when I turn 65 and can qualify for Medicare. I will look into getting a knee replacement.

But in the meantime, I have a trip coming up in January and one coming up next summer and I don't turn 65 until May of next year, so I have been looking for something that I can carry with me that will make those situations where I need to get off my feet much better. The Walkstool is what I found. It weighs two pounds and comes with its own carry sack.

Even after I get my new knee, I know I will still want to bring this with me on my travels, because I'm not getting any younger. You can buy them on Amazon.com

Bad Knee Theories

How did my knee get to be this way?  It hurts sometimes when I'm not even standing. It can get sort of out of place. And when it does, it hurts like hell and I'm almost afraid to move and afraid not to move at the same time. Totally sucks. It moves around, but is also too stiff to bend. If I catch my toe while I'm walking - YOW!!  I walk fairly okay, except going down stairs. I go down stairs like I'm ninety years old.

When my knee first started hurting when I was in my thirties, I thought it was because I'd injured it a couple of times. Although the injuries were so long before then that I had no idea which knee was hurt when or if it was even the same one, the injuries were the only thing I could think of that would cause the kind of pain I had. In college I dropped from a second story window to get out of the dorm. Yes, I was stupid drunk at the time and yes, in the freaking free sixties, I went to a school that had curfews for undergraduate women. It was so stupid, the guys could roam around all night, but we had to be in a 10am on week nights and midnight on weekends. We protested and broke the rules and got in trouble. Finally when I was a senior, we lived in a co-ed dorm - although not on co-ed floors (every other floor was male) and there were no curfews for women. My first knee injury was directly related to the draconian rules for women at the University of Wyoming. When I dropped from the second story dorm window, I slipped on the ice and landed on my knee. I went to the infirmary the next morning after being in agony all night. It turns out that the one time I snuck out, there was a bed check and not only did I injure my knee, but I got caught and put on social probation. Sounds like double secret probation from Animal House, doesn't it. It meant that if I broke any more rules I could be expelled, kicked out.  At the infirmary, they gave me crutches and darvon. With darvon, I didn't need no fucking crutches. That shit was powerful.

The next time I injured my knee was playing softball with my ex-husband, George on the Boise City Leagues. Hyperextended the knee - OUCH!

Those injuries may have been part of the problem, but now I think my knee problem actually relates to my foot problems. The reason that I didn't think my feet were a problem when my knee first started bothering me was because my feet didn't hurt and they looked normal. Actually, let me rephrase that. My feet didn't hurt when I wasn't wearing high heels for a long time. But now my feet look like this: (brace yourself for a gross out picture of my left foot)

My left foot now

It took a long time for them to look this weird. At first the big toe just leaned a little bit to the left. As the years went on it got worse, but my feet didn't start to hurt until the last 10 years.  So I ignored the way my feet looked, because hey, they didn't cry out for attention other than looking hideous. Witch Feet!  I have witch feet!

The bound foot of a Chinese woman

After reading a few articles, I now realize that I hurt my feet and thus hurt my knees when I waited tables in high heels. My feet would hurt like hell after a shift and even worse after a double shift. But the next day, I'd put the heels back on, because they were cute and wearing heels made me a bit taller and I thought a bit sexier or cooler, whatever. Stupid!  My feet didn't hurt immediately when I put the heels on, but after an hour or two it was constant pain.  All because it was the style and I was brainwashed to think it looked cute. High heels are our equivalent to the Chinese practice of foot binding. The Chinese bound little girls feet in a belief that it made them prettier according to the fashion at that time. It was quite painful.


How different is that than what we women do to our feet with high heels now?  And add to that the fact that we should be more informed medically and make decisions based on ideas other than what advertising tells us. Check out this graphic:

So there you have it. Everything's connected, so if you are hurting yourself in one place, you can be sure that other parts of your body will sustain collateral damage. 

Despite all this I was determined to travel when I finally had paid leave time from work. Why didn't I go to the doctor and get my knee and/or my foot fixed? First for many jobs, I had no health insurance from my employer and no money to buy it myself. I now pay for my own health insurance, but it's catastrophic. It has a $5,000 deductible. Plus if you have no paid leave time, how are you going to recover from a knee operation, that comes out of your own pocket and add on top of that, that you'll not have any pay coming in if you just take time off, or you might even lose your job. I can't wait until next year when I qualify for Medicare!  WHOO HOO!