Oh no my knee...

So when I was little, my mom called me a monkey because I climbed everything. I still like to climb, even things that weren't meant to be climbed. Which brings me to the walk I took with a friend of mine around Fort Sanders...

I used to live in the neighborhood, and I have an herb and flower walk that I love to take. When I finish this walk, I smell like rosemary, lavendar, mint, oregano, thyme, all sorts of wonderful things. I usually go around James Agee Park, but this time David and I went through it. And there's this huge wooden monstrosity that really wants to be climbed. But truly, I think it was built to be a trellis for flowers and vines and such because the would-be monkey bars are way too high for this monkey. I doubt tall Scott at 6' 7" could reach it.

Did that stop me? Of course not! I wedged my flip-flopped foot into the rather small foothold (yeah, that usually means it wasn't built for a foot), grabbed onto the vertical beams, and hoisted myself up. All was well until I suddenly realized that instead of gaining altitude, I was losing it. The wood was slick and at the same time rough, and my foot slipped out. My arm scraped the post and my knee smacked flat against it as I landed squarely on the ground again.

OUCH.

It really really hurt. Luckily, there were no popping or cracking noises. I took a moment, didn't cry, and then hobbled back to Amy's apartment where I disinfected my arm and inspected my left knee, which had already begun to swell a bit and was definitely bruised towards the outside of my leg. Then I went home, and when I walked through my house, I discovered that it really hurt to put weight on it. That scared me. It hasn't hurt like that since then. I keep icing and elevating it, and I think it's probably time to get an Ace knee bandage, but it's very bruised still. The swelling has been manageable: I could tell it's swollen and feel that it's swollen, but it didn't impair movement too much. As of now, I can't tell that it's swollen at all because I can see the natural muscle indentations and bones around my knee. And I was heartened last night because it itched - I always take as a sign that it's healing.

Today I stretched a little, cautiously- first I rolled my upper body down and hung over my legs. No pain. Then I gingerly did quad stretches. Slight pain, then modification, then fine. My unstretched muscles sighed in relief and there was a small pause in their whining: "When do we get to dance? jump? even run? What's up? What's she thinking? Just upper torso isolations? You've got to be kidding me!" My body is not used to sitting still this much at all. But I'm doing it. Rest is in the cards for a bit now.

It's striking how much I take my health for granted, and how grateful I am for it. I am very, very grateful to have a body that works and works well.

What I'm trying to figure out is how much it's just a painful bruise and how much it's affected my actual knee and its functions- ligaments, tendons, and all the spooky mysterious stuff underneath that I just don't know about. Is there a way to tell this? I'm hoping to teach a private lesson tomorrow night, so any additional advice (especially educated) is appreciated. I would like to know when I can dance again...