bikelovejones

Every morning for about a month now, I have awakened to a new sensation: my knees positively ache.

I know this has been a hard winter (by Portland standards), longer and colder than usual. I also know that we all get older. But it seems like only a couple of months ago that I could spring out of bed without a thought. Suddenly my knees are making me feel like an old lady. And not just when I wake up in the morning. They ache whenever I get up from a sitting position, and sometimes when I am just sitting at a desk. 

I called the nurse at the clinic I go to. She knows about the connection between Crohn's and other auto-immune issues, like arthritis, and suggested that there could be some correlation here. However, she said, "you're also forty-six, and a little past due for beginning to feel the creakiness of middle age."

"You're joking," I said.

"Nope," she said. "It happens. We get older, and our joints start to creak."
She advised me to ease up a little bit on the cycling, maybe stick to commuting and avoid longer distances for a few weeks to give my knees a break. "And you know you can always toss your bike on the bus if you need to," she reminded me. She promised to research treatments that would play nicely with my Crohn's drugs and get back to me; and in the meantime I should keep taking the Glucosamine I started on two years ago (I suspect I'll be taking it forever). She also said that physical activities like running were maybe not such a great idea. "You know that cyclocross thing you want to do next fall? Pay attention to your body between now and then, and be prepared to maybe not do that if your knees feel this bad or get worse."

Great. Just great. Aging knees were NOT Part Of The Plan. At least not for awhile yet.

I am officially, supremely bummed.