A Shovelgloving Update, Or – Ow, My Knee Hurts

I’ve not mentioned shovelglove or the No S diet lately, so it’s probably pretty clear that I’ve quit doing both. . . just kidding. I’m still doing both, and have stuck to them quite well. I’ve lost around 25 pounds so far, and gone down 2 to 3 sizes in pants (depending on which brand I try on). Believe it or not, I’ve actually had to resort to using a belt with some of my pants, something which my eternally fat self has never had to do before. A bit weird, really, but something I’m certainly okay with.

I am, however, off of shovelglove for a few days. I’ve done something stupid, and gone and hurt myself. You would think that doing an exercise program that involves swinging a sledgehammer around, I would have injured myself with the hammer; but that’s not the case. I actually injured myself by doing the one exercise in my program that doesn’t really use the hammer at all: squats. I think I did them a bit… over zealously.

I don’t remember any sharp pains or anything while exercising last week, but by the weekend, I was in quite a bit of pain. I stubbornly put off going to the urgent care center until Thursday, thinking that it would just get better on its own (it wasn’t). The urgent care center did an x-ray to make sure I hadn’t broken anything, gave me crutches, and some wonderful pain medicine – the documentation on it says it’s akin to morphine.

The crutches seem to be helping tremendously, as I can already note less pain. I’ve also been icing it regularly, as ordered. I’ve got a follow-up appointment with my doctor on Monday, to see if she thinks I need to get an MRI to check for any soft tissue damage, or if I should just continue babying the knee. Let us all hope and pray and do knee dances (just do the rain dance moves and think about my knee) for the latter course of action. You all do the dancing, please; I’m not in any shape to jump around, even with crutches.

As an aside – crutches! I’m not sure if they’re supposed to help me or torture me. I’ve never had to use crutches before, and I must say – they’re a lot harder to use than I ever would have imagined. I’ve had some very close calls, thinking that not only would I need to get my knee checked out again, but also my head. In mid-swing, your balance has a tendency to get a little screwy.