There were a lot of comments after the last post I made. That's great! I'm sure a lot of you are benefiting more from talking with each other than listening to me, as my bad knee experience fades from memory.
One comment struck me as especially interesting, because "Lindsay" listed some things that have helped her. What got me thinking was what she put near the top of the list:
2. Having time in a day where I do not research cartilage/chondromalacia/patient forums etc.
3. Exploring new interests: photography/more reading/films/kayaking
4. Not telling friends too much about my condition ...
I could definitely relate to this. When I had bad knees, I was scouring the internet constantly, looking for advice, for research, for anything I could learn from. If someone wrote a 20-page paper on "the effects of pickle juice on chondromalacia," I probably would have read every single word.
As you all know, I followed my knee progress, during my recovery, with an uncommon obsession. When people asked me casually at work, "How are your knees?", I would answer them as if they really wanted to know, when usually they were just making the equivalent of small talk.
After a while, I figured out I had become a "Knee Bore" and started to limit my responses so as not to drive away my colleagues. Who wants to chat with a guy who's always yapping on about his knees, and his latest ideas for how to heal them?
I also realized, after I wrote my book, that I may have done some harm along with some good. A knee journal was a great idea for me, and I do believe in carefully listening to one's knees, but ...
At some point, you do have to take a deep breath. And exhale. And relax. And try not to think about your knees every hour of the day. My book tends to encourage the idea that you have to be scribbling notes about your knees and running experiments on them all the time.
So, to address that, I want to point out that I found meditation useful. I'm not a natural meditator, so it didn't really come naturally to me, but I could feel the benefits.
Obsessing over your knees can be bad, if for no other reason, because healing takes so long. If you're just sitting around all the time, wondering about your knees, thinking about your knees, you're doing the equivalent of standing in a room watching paint dry.
Anyway, I thought it was worthwhile to give a thumbs up to this idea of exploring new interests. Try to take your mind off your knees for a while. Be knee conscious, but try not to be too knee obsessive.
I think it's a good distinction. 😊 (Boy, the blogger emojis are really bad, huh?)
