Hopefully a sprain

that's my doctor's conclusion after she felt all over my knee and lower leg and pushed on things and asked if they hurt, and had me flex my leg against the resistance of her hand.

So, it's rest, ice, elevate, compress, and use a topical NSAID (my stomach won't tolerate the real kind. And she said range-of-motion exercises (which I can do, it's just hard to find a place tall enough to sit to do them) are good

Fun fact: my bp is up because my weight is up. Womp womp. So now I have to be careful about what and how much I eat for, like, forever now. Frowny face.

I also have the paperwork for advance directives but I am out of emotional spoons to consider it today.

I really hope my knee gets better. I have a follow up in 10 days and if it's not better, it's MRI time. Checking online, as long as it's a sprain, it's almost certain to get better eventually without further intervention and the symptoms seem like a sprain but I can't tell how severe it is - I can walk on it but it hurts, and it hurts a lot to move it after I've been still for a while.

So anyway. I have allegedly five hours of battery life on this thing, and I have my big afghan to crochet on, and the ice pack, and my knee up on a couple of pillows.

I didn't think to drag along the book (over the 1918 pandemic, this is the Crosby book) but meh, not sure about if I want to read that. Though I will need to dismount from the bed for a bathroom break at some point.

****

More, after fixing dinner (Chili, and I didn't put cheese on it, and I didn't eat a dessert - I usually always do after dinner but maybe that has to become a once or twice a week thing now, until I drop the weight/can get more active again)

Ice helps. I had been putting heat on it but she said the injury was still fresh enough that ice was better and it does make it feel better.

I'm less enthusiastic about the Voltaren but it does say on the package it's not for immediate relief, so hopefully I see a difference in a day or two. I'm going to put more on before bed, you can put it on up to four times a day. If it doesn't work, maybe I get Aspercreme or something like that. Or the old local favorite, "emu squeezin's" (something made out of emu oil that's supposed to help, I don't know).

She reassured me about my fears in re: going back to class. Basically: if I am careful in the ways I have been being careful, I should be okay, that masks are really important, that she and her staff have managed to avoid it thus far by being masked up and washing their hands a lot. (She used hand sanitizer before feeling of my legs, but wasn't gloved - she usually doesn't glove up and before this time, didn't wear a mask to see me). She said if I am doing things to avoid TRANSMITTING the virus if I were an asymptomatic spreader, it will do a lot to protect me. (She may have phrased it that way because she knows I am the kind of person who would be horrified at the idea of infecting someone else, and she knows I take steps to avoid that risk).

I kind of flailed at her about "but hypertension...and fat....and maybe asthma" and she said "You are not the kind of patient I would worry about a bad outcome with. (Because I don't have diabetes or heart disease and I generally take care of myself otherwise, and the blood pressure is mostly under control).

But today was pretty much a lost day, between being so worried this morning, and then the appointment in the middle of the day, and then being tired and painful (I did not sleep well last night at all). I'll see how I feel tomorrow and decide whether to try going in (but the stairs) or to stay here and read/write labs instead.

(I still would not be surprised if campus either went "nope, we can't do this" or if a couple weeks in they told us we had to go back to all online. In fact....I think one of my colleagues has got a pool (just for bragging rights, not money) going on that)