checked out

I've mentally taken a break the last two days. I haven't done much except read bad novels on my Kindle iPhone App. I have completed two in this series. I downloaded that one (Darkfever) eons ago when it was free and I just read it. It sucked me in so I paid $6 for the second one in the series. I want to go buy the third one, but I think I'll check to see if our local library has it first.

I haven't been this sucked into bad novels for so long. It's lovely. This morning, I even skipped Zumba, mostly because of the bad dark novel. Oh, no! The bad dark novel has me under its power. I plan to go to Zumba tomorrow morning. I rode the exercise bike this morning for 30 minutes (while reading the novel) so I did something, at least. Hrm.... Maybe I can make myself ride more if I allow myself the treat of the bad novel when I ride.

So, I have this knee... I think I've spoken about it before. It still hurts. It isn't horrible, in fact, it feels a lot better than it did back in July, but I want "perfect knees." Occasionally, I still have them. Physical Therapy has helped, but there is still something wrong. Or, actually, I think there are still (at least) two things wrong with my knee. I don't know if the knee is taking forever to heal because of the weird blood test results that indicate I have antibodies showing that parts of me attack other parts of me or if it's just regular old arthritis and I am just getting older and it's never going to heal.

There's a doctor, a plane ride away, who has done a lot of research on the thing I have antibodies for, and I am wondering if I shouldn't go see him and just talk with him. As the doctor who I saw last fall told me, "You have NOTHING wrong with you, so forget it, but I'd like to see you again to educate you on what might go wrong." Um, contradictory much?

There's nothing the doctor I saw can do for me because she doesn't subscribe to the treatment the other doctor (the plane ride away) does--we'll call him Dr. PlaneRide just to keep things straight and we'll call her Dr. NICDFY (short for Nothing I can do for you). Dr. NICDFY's treatments are high risk and cause much worse side-effects than what I have wrong with me (which is nothing according to her). Anyway, Dr. PlaneRide's treatment is very low-risk, minimal side-effects, seems to work for about 2/3s of the people he treats, and is more successful when done early... I'm so early that I don't even have the problem, I just know I have antibodies....and I shouldn't even know about the antibodies in my blood (my OB/GYN ordered the test when it shouldn't have been ordered). It's weird to have knowledge like this. It could be NOTHING or it could be an early warning. Oh, what to do with the information.

Should I go visit him and see if I should do the treatment now? Or, is it to early? Do I just keep eating really well, working out, sleeping a lot and stressing as little as possible because those behaviors may prevent the "thing" from ever occurring? Is that the better treatment? Or are my knees a "first sign" that something is wrong with me? It's probably worth a phone call to Dr. PlaneRide's office, but I'm scared he won't take me seriously.

One thing I learned on the trip to see MWH's family, it's hard to eat vegan, to exercise, and to not stress while traveling*. Sigh.

Now I need to go start thinking about work again. Bleh.


*Actually, I knew all that, but I was painfully reminded of it.