HALLOWEEN REFLECTIONS

11 miler w/ Sunstone Saturday. Piece of cake!

Happy Halloween everyone! I just got done hoofing it up and down the stairs of my townhome passing out candy and it reminded me of last year. One year ago today I was wearing my two shiny new knee braces. The operating theory at the time was I had irritated meniscus behind my kneecap that was causing the inflammation. So I got a couple fancy knee braces and was told to go hobble around and see if it got better.

I had a big flare up right after Halloween. While I wasn't sure of the source, the only thing it could have been was going up and down the stairs a bunch to pass out candy - and I was wearing my braces! So that was very frustrating at the time. It was pretty clear the braces were not going to be the solution. I started keeping a "knee log" and soon discovered there was no real pattern to anything, the flare ups seemed to be completely random.

Fortunately, I was near the end of the long road to my psoriatic arthritis diagnosis. By early December I self diagnosed myself with it on WebMD. Unfortunately, I couldn't get into a rhuematologist until early February, so I spent the next couple of months trying to stave off any bad flares. I did manage to run a half marathon during that time too, despite practically no training.

Anyways, a year after that Halloween flare up and things are looking up! My symptoms are practically gone. The only time I really feel anything is if I require a lot of power from my knee. Hiking up an incline is a good example. In those cases I can still feel some lingering inflammation and lack of power. But it is SO much better than it was. Running feels 100% like it did before and my knees have yet to react negatively to it. I'm slowly getting back into decent shape. I could run a half marathon right now no problem. Very encouraging!

The only bummer is I'm still having some side effects from the medication. The day after treatment is not fun, I feel fatigued and crummy. Just a day, but it sucks. Because of this, my body has developed a strong reaction to the process of giving myself the medication, it makes me nauseous. I can't stand the smell of the alcohol wipes in particular. Ugh. It's a mental block I have to get over though.

Oh, and why can't ghosts have babies? Because they have hallow weenies.