Looking Like I Need Some Cortisone...

Yeah.  I don't like needles so much.  But this one will be worth it! At least I hope it will. 

As I'm writing this, I'm sitting in my recliner with my right knee elevated and iced.  At some point yesterday...while I was sitting at an all day retreat with my worship ministry buddies at church...my knee decided to crap out again.  And by "crap out" what I mean is that there are currently sharp, shooting pains starting right under my kneecap and traveling up and down my leg.  HUGELY painful.  And frankly, very frustrating.  If I hurt myself running or working out...or had some amazing story to go with the pain, that'd be one thing.  But to be SITTING in a chair and just randomly have this degree of pain???  No fun, friends.  Not at all!!

The last time I went to my knee doctor, he gave me a plan for how we are going to manage my pain until it's time to have my knee replacement surgery sometime after I'm 50 years old...and about 100 pounds lighter.  The plan is to have multiple cortisone injections for the next 6 years or so as I need them to get through the pain of knees that are barely functional because of the arthritis that has degenerated the joints.  He injected my left knee in August.  Seems like now it's time for the right one.  It's crapped out on me too many times in the past 3 weeks.  I need this pain to go away...because I've still got goals to reach that I can't do with this much pain in my right knee!

That picture up there used to scare me.  Just imagining a huge needle going into the most painful part of my body and injecting it with a bunch of thick, uncomfortable-feeling fluid is enough to make me queasy (and I apologize if I just did that to you, too!).  And really, I still don't LIKE getting the injection...but ANYTHING that takes away this nasty pain is worth it!!!  For the next 6 years or so, this is going to be my life.

So, I'm hoping that when I take tomorrow off work to rest this silly knee, the doctor can see me...and take the edge of this pain by shooting me up with cortisone.  It's only a temporary fix, I know, but it'll do for right now.  I need some pain relief!