Like Dancing on the Moon

In my house we love to listen to Stephen Fry. He could basically narrate the phone book (do people still know what those are? It's that big squodgy book full of advertisements that they leave on your doorstep wrapped in a plastic bag. You know the ones. The ones you deposit directly in the recycle bin without even glancing at) and we would listen to it in the car. Anyway. So my husband tracked down a silly little show he hosted a few year ago that featured gadgets and gizmos (aplenty. That song is SO STUCK IN MY HEAD.) and we've been watching it here and there.
Tonight's episode showcased this crazy thing:

it's an "anti-gravity" treadmill. It basically seals your lower body in a big plastic box with increased air pressure, which supports your weight so you "float" up and barely touch the track under your feet. They say it reduces the load on your legs to 20% your normal weight, the equivalent of walking on the moon.
It certainly has all sorts of wonderful uses in physical therapy. I mean... that is surely what it's intended purpose is. I should probably be thinking to myself "wow, that would be an amazing way to work out without causing my knees so much pain and wear".
So, why is it that all I can think is "HOLY CRAP let me at that thing in a pair of pointe shoes"

The End of This Whole Physical Therapy Debacle

So my physical therapy appointment this morning lasted all of ten minutes. I told the PT what happened after my last appointment and he made me lay down and moved my legs a bit. My hips instantly responded with echoingly loud cracks, pops, and crunches. If it was TV they would have thrown up a flash screen. Heck, they would have thrown up several.

And then he looked at me and said  "yeah, you are too screwed up for me to do anything with. Keep doing the clam as well as you can but unless they get this rheumatoid thing under control then you are pretty much fucked." Or words to that effect, anyway.
So, back I go to my primary care doctor, I guess, and once again beg him to send me back to the rheumatology department (he ignored me last time). Yaaay.

Hummingbird Ballet

Our resident (and very vocal/cranky) Anna's hummingbird, Mr. Smalls, warms up at the barre:

I missed class last night because my knees swelled up in a rather disturbingly grapefuit-like manner. I am guessing that this was not the result the PT was aiming for.
So I spent a few moments on my own in the backyard after work today (it's cloudy, breezy, and cool, which is a miracle of no small measure in August in central CA) attempting to be graceful and balletic. Wearing street shoes is a bit of a hindrance, though.

FYI

Okay, just for the record? That knee cap stretching business this morning has equaled an unparalleled  amount of pain this evening. I think if I saw my PT right now I would kick him in the shins just to even the score.
 Or the sack, because this shit hurts.

Already Crazy

So I am just starting to come down from a terrible flare-up that took me out pretty seriously for a few weeks. Pain in every joint, exhaustion, waking up feeling like I had recently been hit by a truck... you know. All that good stuff.
Some idiot booked me a 9:30 AM appointment with my physical therapist on my precious sleep-in day of the week. Oh, yeah. I did. That was me.
The PT didn't get on my case about my clams, which is great. I was dreading that. He gave me another resistance band and told me to up the ante on them, though. He grumbled at my doctor's lack of a definitive diagnosis for my rheumatism (dude, really? You are preaching to the choir, here) and then spent some time stretching the business around my kneecaps (which I am now supposed to attempt at home every day, he suggested I make my husband help) which was strange and a little painful. It was pretty okay, though, and at least he had strong warm hands. My own hands are always freezing. In the Winter time I reflexively try to cram my hands in to the warmest thing I can find. Usually my husband's shirt. I am pretty sure it's grounds for divorce! Right there after "irreconcilable differences" and "incurable insanity of spouse".

Feel the Burn

So I am taking this coming Monday off from ballet. It was a tough call, but Monday nights are dress rehearsals at the theater where I work, and while most of these are totally passable for me (Music Man? AGAIN?) this one is going to showcase costumes that have basically been my waking world for the past month+. It's going to be a really stupid show, honestly, but the costumes I have broken three nails on and acquired four fingertip calluses over are making it a must-see for me. Besides, there is a chance that someone might spontaneously combust, so I have to be there for that, right?
So, I am taking Monday night off. I took a make-up class tonight, just to try and even out the number of days between classes. It wasn't super awesome fun times after my physical therapy yesterday (and the lamentable ten minutes I spent on the couch last night attempting to "do the clam". My husband says if I injure myself doing this silly exercise he is just dropping me off at the emergency room and leaving me to explain to the nurses how I did myself bodily harm while "doing the clam". GOD, it can't just be me that thinks it sounds like a HORRIBLE euphemism!) but it was alright. We had a substitute teacher, though, while my regular instructor is on vacation (which she TOTALLY deserves after teaching 17 classes a week!). And after class, while we were all on the floor doing stretches with the pre-beginning class that meets after us, she made us do CRUNCHES! Oh GIRL! Argh! And then we flipped over and did some sort of backwards crunches! It was probably terribly good for me and I am sure that I need to be doing such things on my own time every day... but I am such a workout pussy. I did a pilates "crunch and burn" video a few weeks ago... I hurt for the next week!
Sigh...

first physical therapy appointment for my knees

So the PT came in, poked at me, and made me lay in various positions while bending, lifting, and otherwise manipulating my legs. Then he left the room and came back with a life-size plastic model of the structure of a healthy knee and pointed to a join between the unnaturally blue tendony thing and the plastic bone. "This is the problem" he said "you see this thing? It's right in the middle of the leg bone? Well, on you it's not there, it's all the way over here" and he poked the little bump under my knee. " So, when you bend your knee the tendon isn't moving through this groove above the kneecap, but is grinding against the edge of the bone. So, it's already real susceptible to inflammation. And right now you have a LOT of inflammation going on in here."
And there is that word again.
So, the verdict is that I am put together all wrong (tell me something I don't know!) so when you add in a ton of inflammation you get a ton of pain. He gave me these day-glo rubber tube things and instructed me to do an exercise called "the clam" (No. Really. They thought that was a good name for it). And to ice my knees "aggressively" which means five times a day, both sides. And then we'll see how things are in another month. The thing in my knee that forms a little lump that clunks around when I squish it is the muscle supporting the inner edge of my knee cap going in to "emergency spasms" (or some damn thing) in an effort to deal with the effects of my shitty skeletal structure combined with my shitty auto-immune thing. Well, that explains that, anyway.
While I would dearly love to address the root cause of all this pain, the inflammation, there is very little that Kaiser can do for me besides give me anti-inflammatory drugs. But, hey, at least I *can* take them and haven't had any serious troubles from them yet. I bleed like a stuck pig when I poke myself in the finger at work (constantly) but otherwise I am not experiencing trouble. And it keeps me, at least for now, from having to try disease modifying drugs like TNF inhibitors (which my sister uses because YAY this is genetic and she can't take the anti-inflammatory drugs, but you have to give yourself injections and I am pretty sure that would make me throw up)

The good news is that the PT was very impressed with how strong and flexible my legs are, which is all thanks to ballet. When I was first starting in September my legs positively shuddered during pliés. After my first class my teacher spent quite a while with me, sitting on the floor showing me exercises I could use to strengthen my janky thigh muscles to protect my tricky knees. Aside from enjoying dancing I feel better when I think I am doing something positive for myself, being proactive and taking command of my own body. Also, considering I wouldn't have quit anyway even if he'd told me I was just doing myself more damage... I am glad to hear that that is NOT the case.