Past My Sell-By Date

One morning last October I woke up and noticed that my knee hurt. No big deal, I thought I might have pulled a muscle at the gym the day before. But it got worse and eventually took over my life, becoming just about all I thought about. Then along came the war in Ukraine, and so I started crying about that every morning when I woke up, right after crying because of my painful knee.

Since then I have gone to my primary care physician (a nice man who knows nothing but is good at Googling), a sports medicine doctor (a smart man who knows about sports injuries but not much else), a physical therapist (a jovial man who is happy to move your body parts around but don't quote him on anything), all to no avail. I had an x-ray and then an MRI, both of which revealed the presence of some arthritis in the knee but nothing to write home about. A visit to an orthopedic surgeon with a possible knee replacement was suggested. (I decided to save that for when Hell freezes over.)

I've iced it and elevated it and rested it, swallowed countless tabs of Advil and Tylenol and CBD, rubbed it with Voltaren and Arnica gel, and still it hurts. So yesterday I went to see an acupuncturist. Right away he asked my age. I said 75. He said, "What did you expect would happen to your body after using it for so long?"

Finally, a wise man.