Say Hello to My Walk-assisting Friend

A couple of weeks ago, I felt a twinge in my left knee. Over the course of a couple of days, that twinge turned into a pain whose only relief came from putting the offending joint into a specific position and then not moving it. Very annoying. It seems that, at some point, I tore my left LCL (lateral collateral ligament) in the area near where it attaches to the lateral femoral condyle. So, after rest, ice, and finding the right NSAID and dosage, I thought I was mending and started tapering back on the treatments. I was then somatically scolded for not paying the proper respect: the knee suddenly got worse.

I know enough about sports training (thanks to my foresight in taking the coursework at UM) that I needed to focus more attention on treatment and rehab. The one thing that has surprisingly helped the most (after the Aleve) was assisting the leg by using a staff. It just so happened that there was one hanging at the ready in the garage.

My dad loved to work with wood. Perhaps his simplest project was making of a staff from a branch of pyracantha. After removing the spines and whatnot, he coated it with a clear urethane. He’d intended to use it when he went walking, but I don’t think he ever took it with him…the nylon button on the base didn’t seem used. Well, it’s used, now.

Using the staff, I’ve been able to relieve my knee of many of the stresses from walking that were slowing my rehab. Until you’ve had a significant knee injury (I’ve had dozens) you don’t realize how much work a knee does–how many forward, backward, sideways, and twisting forces it endures–just so you can get a snack from the fridge.

I’ve started doing some no-load reps on the exercise bike as well as some careful range-of-motion therapies. So far the knee is doing OK. It still twinges when my attention lapses, but it’s getting more naturally bendy than it’s been for over a week. It’s amazing how much faster it’s improved since accepting the aid of a 1.42 m (56″) stick. True, I look like a long-haired, bearded woodsy not long from the forest while using it (though geeky me like to think of it more as a wizard in disguise), but at least it lets me walk.