BABIES, BAD KNEES, AND BICYCLES

By the time our daughter was two years old, we had moved to Alabama. We found an upstairs apartment in a nice complex inhabited by a number of other military families. The apartments were in a secluded area, rather off the beaten path and surrounded by woodland. A great place for long walks in the afternoon.

Shortly after moving to the area, we became acquainted with a family at the other end of our block of apartments. The father and mother were both enlisted, and soon I had agreed to care for their 18 month old twins. I had thought about going back to work, but didn’t really want to because our daughter was still so young, so this was a great arrangement.

All my life, I had been very active. From the time I could walk, I had traveled my childhood neighborhood in the company of my brother and other older children living nearby. It worked out that most of the kids living in closest proximity to us were males, so I had learned early on to rough-house, climb trees, skateboard, run on stilts, and ride my bicycle for hours on end. That’s what kids did in those days. Summers were spent at the swimming pool. Winters were spent sledding and building snow forts or ice skating. We didn’t sit around.

Plus, when I finally found other girls to spend time with, I danced, participated in gymnastics, played tennis, rode horses and chased boys. You have to be in pretty good physical shape to successfully chase boys.

So because of the relatively healthy lifestyle I had lived – I never tasted a fast-food hamburger until I was sixteen – I couldn’t understand the constant aching and pain in my legs. The hip pain had now progressed to my knees. And I was tired all the time. I was chasing three toddlers around all day, and trying to keep up with a very active twelve-year-old, and the regular everyday chores that women do, but I wasn’t doing anything that would explain the intensity of the pain I was experiencing.

I got to the point where I couldn’t find the strength to pick the twins up – the girl was average size, but the little boy was a hefty one – so I began laying them on a towel on the floor to change their diapers. But suddenly I could barely lift myself up from the kneeling position on the floor. I realized the seriousness of the situation one day when the babies all started pushing on my behind and grunting as they tried to lift ‘mamaw’ off the floor. We fell in a heap of giggles and tears while I tickled them mercilessly. The giggles were because the whole thing was laughable, but the tears were because I was scared, and in pain, and I didn’t know if I’d manage to get up or not.

So, back to the doctor I went. I have a deep respect for our military, but some of their practices are ridiculous. Or they were, back in the day.

The protocol at that time was for the patient to make an appointment.  The appointment afforded you a visit with a PA. The PA would screen you and decide if you actually needed to be seen by a physician. If you had cold symptoms, for instance, they would just issue you a ‘cold pack’ and send you to the pharmacy. Too bad if you were afflicted with strep or bronchitis. You’d have to come back when your symptoms worsened and hope to be lucky enough to get through next time. It was maddening, and especially so for me, because I had no fever, no obvious signs of disease, just continued complaints of vague, traveling aches and pains. So it took weeks to actually get to see a physician.

Of course, I could have saved myself the trouble. This time I got a wisecracking expert who again x-rayed my hips and knees, and came to the brilliant conclusion that I was lazy, and needed more exercise. His prescription was for me to start riding a bicycle every day, and to come back in a month.

So what did I do? I dragged my bicycle out of the shed, plopped daughter into her infant carrier behind my seat, and rode my blasted bicycle. I rode it every day. I rode it for miles. I rode it until I literally had to drag myself up the steps to our apartment using the handrail. I rode until I had to sit at the top of the stairs and lower myself, step by step, to the bottom. My knees swelled and didn’t want to bend when I said bend, or straighten when I said straighten.

I quit babysitting. I quit riding my bicycle. I quit going out. I quit doing many of the things I loved. It took every ounce of my draining energy to care for my child. I cried. Lots and lots of crying. My husband was going nuts because he didn’t know how to ‘fix’ things. He’s always been a fixer. He insisted I go back to the doctor, but I refused. It wouldn’t do any good. At that time, I was beginning to think that all Army doctors were a bunch of idiots.

Then my husband received orders for Germany, and I went home for a couple of months until he could arrange for us to join him. Lower humidity. Closer family support system. Life got better. For a little while, at least.