Mavis: The Fitness Curse

Earlier this year, I started noticing weird body quirks. Some foods I ate tasted different, my intestines seemed to have grown tired and become overly sensitive, I had to rule out spicy foods completely and oddest of all was the fact that my knees started to squeak.

At least that's what they did at first. Like a cat toy.

Aren't I adorable?

At first, it was fun... like a party trick. I'd lay on the couch and stretch my legs out and then bend them until my knees touched my chest and listen to their delightful cry. There was no pain - just entertainment. My husband was treated daily to my requests for him to "listen to my knees." He didn't enjoy it as much as I wanted him to, but that was okay because it soon got worse.

A few weeks later, my knees became crunchy. 

Hmmm... let me try again.

Better.

When my knees became crunchy, I got worried. I'm not old, but I felt like I was 90. Without even realizing it, I found myself groaning out loud every time I had to go up a flight of stairs or - God forbid - sit on a toilet seat. It was the sound (and now pain!) that accompanied my attempts at the latter that motivated me to call an actual knee doctor to find out WTF was wrong with me.

$250 for an x-ray copay later, he tells me I have "weak knees." Cute. But what's really the problem?

No, seriously. My diagnosis was weak knees.

He tells me to go to physical therapy which I promptly refuse since there is no injury to rehabilitate, only my damaged ego, so he gives me some exercises to do at home. I immediately set to the task of strengthening my knees. Fantastic!

A few weeks in and I'm feeling pretty good. Coincidentally, during this time I'm working a lot and not making it to the gym very much. So I'm pretty much just doing the knee stuff at home in the evenings and sitting on my arse all day at work. 

The occasional attempt to be active unfortunately resulted in an even worse fate - rusty knees.

 Effffffffffffffffffffff...!

Word to the wise - rusty knees don't work. They simply don't bend. It's like they just give up. Like an insolent child. 

Hope you weren't planning to bend your knees today, Frankenstein.

Lucky for me, I am very stubborn. After a few days of grunting around, I became determined to get my rusty knees working again. So I literally had to go to the gym and work out for 2 hours alternating between an elliptical machine and a stationary bike. And although painful at first, eventually I experienced a breakthrough and at some point, everything was working again... just like it had before anything started squeaking. 

But, as with most things, there's a catch: I can't stop working out or my knees will lock up again. 

It's the only conclusion that I have come to that makes any sense. And it's like a death sentence for me because I hate fitness. I really do. The only reason I work out is because of the love of my husband. Seriously - that's it, the only reason. Because he wants me to be healthy and be his wife for a long time, I work out. Now if I stop - for any reason - my knees will rust over and I'll become a hideous beast.

I had to change this pic. Isn't this so scary...? But he was, arguably, the best Dracula ever. Not that I want to be him or anything. 

So I suppose in the end, fitness is all we really have on our side to delay the aging process. And even with it, it only slows it down a little bit - it won't prevent it from happening. And this is pretty much what every gym teacher - and my parents, and my husband, and my healthy friends, and people on TV - have always said, yet I never wanted to believe them. And now I see it. I'm living it. 

And it totally sucks.