For 1/3/26

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RUMINATIONS

Knee-deep in Grief – by KayCee

I had been dealing with pain behind my knee since last July. I was able to push through it enough to do a 5K, a half marathon, and a 20-mile training run with my daughter until I took a step and felt like I’d been stabbed in the knee.

I will spare you the expletives that I screamed as I limped back to my house in tears. The Rothman doctor told me to stop running for 3 weeks until I could get an MRI. At that point, my husband was wondering why I was angry at him all the time, even when he was traveling for work. I swore that if God could take my knee pain away RIGHT NOW, I’d be nicer to everyone. Then I just got sad and depressed, and if I couldn’t run, I didn’t want to look at Strava to see what I was missing.

The MRI showed a bone bruise and torn meniscus, as well as loose bodies in my knee. Thanks to our health insurance, I would do PT from an app on my phone that soon reduced the knee pain. When the doc told me in early December that I couldn’t run until Valentine’s Day, I accepted that it wasn’t the end of the world after all.

I didn’t gain 15 pounds and get out of shape like I thought I would. I have learned to embrace hot yoga, the Peloton bike, and Barre3 workouts. And on Saturday mornings when the feels like temp is 13°, I’m actually thankful I don’t need to layer up for a 10-mile run.

Denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance – been there, done that. Now I’m counting the days until February 14th!

Read sequel: My Valentine’s Day Run: Miles of Gratitude

–KayCee

FINE PRINT ¶Text by Kristine Corino, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0.

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