I guess it was a matter of delayed inevitability that at some point, I injured myself.
That day came on a Friday.
My right knee has never been completely reliable. When I was a very small kid, it used to lock up in a 70 degree bent position, and I could either snap it painfully back, or wait for it to ease up, unlock, and straighten itself. I remember it being quite frightening to a wee lad.
For the last few weeks, it's been clicking painfully when I stand up - especially if I'm carrying something heavy, or twisting at the same time. And on Friday, standing up made my knee do a really quite painful double click. I don't know how better to describe it.
The closest I have come so far is that if it usually pains in an "up and to the right" position, this time it crossed the streams, snapping up-and-right and up-and-left at the same time.
Well, I spoke to a 4th-year medical student friend of mine, and did come internet, and we have decided that I have an MCL-tear. Probably level 1. I don't have any desire to see or feel a level 2 or 3.
The Medial Collateral Ligament, I now know, is a set of three ligaments inside the knee which support it when your knees want to bend inwards. I strongly suspect that my years of slightly gammy walking; and the last 18 months of daily carrying heavy shit from one place to another have prepared me for a chronic injury, and in the last week, my occupation has mostly been punting large logs from where I was chainsawing them a few meters away to where I would be chopping them.
A standy-uppy-twisty motion whilst heaving 20kg lumps of wood.
Yeah, I guess that's what did it.
Anyway, just as we are coming up on winter and a more than likely diet of see-no-humans-for-the-next-six-months, the internet is telling me to rest. For at least 1 - 3 weeks.
1-3 weeks is the lowest physio-recommended inactivity. I've seen 8 - 12 weeks from other sources, but we're going to ignore them. Obviously.
Seriously, internet. Have we met? I'm not all that great at an hour of inactivity, and you want me to do 500 of them? All at the same time? Good luck with that, my ones and zeros, good luck!
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