"Beauty confronts us with the requirement that we place ourselves among...the redeemers, the leaders in the protection of life. Once you have seen the bush on fire, you are not going to get out of the assignment unless you close your eyes to the beauty.... [You] either have to close your eyes or go back to Egypt and set the people free." - Rev. Dr. Rebecca Parker, "Rising to the Challenge of Our Times"

Monday, January 14, 2008

Age-appropriate activities

I had a checkup with my knee surgeon today. He has a good reputation for his work, and is not unpleasant, though his affect is...warmly robotic. However, today he greeted me with a hearty handshake and asked what I'd been doing (with my knee, I reckoned he meant). I described my activities thus: "Well, I went for a 30-mile bike ride yesterday...I've been doing some weights at the gym...I've started jogging a little (described the jog 3 minutes / walk 2 minutes routine that I might kick up to a total of 15 minutes this week)..." and he seemed fairly impressed. Got a little raise of the eyebrows even.

He said, "let's see, you're 4 months out? If you were on an accelerated program you could go back to full activity now, but I'd rather you waited two more months...are you going to play football?" I said no, I wasn't. Then he said "it is probably best if you stick with the age-appropriate activities if you want to extend the lifespan of your joints and your ability to participate in athletics as long as possible. Women are much more prone to this type of injury." Okay, I know all that, but age appropriate? What exactly does that mean? He hasn't met the elder half of my football team, I guess. But I realize that in NFL years I would probably be about 62.5. Maybe that's one of the reasons I love Brett Favre. He's older than I am.

Then he did his usual knee bending and pushing to see how much sideways movement there was in my knee, and seemed nearly...dare I say...delighted? with whatever he found. "Oh! That's Super!" he said. "I'm going to cut you loose, unless you have any trouble," he said. He shook my hand again and headed for the door. So I don't need to go back. I'm glad we ended on a such a happy note.

2 comments:

limes said...

Ha! In yo face, sucka!

adamf said...

That's great Emily--good job! And good job knee!