My daughters and grandson visited me this last week. We went to Costco - spent time cruising the aisles, went to Farmers Market downtown Thursday night, strolling up and down, stopping to listen to performers (particularly Incendio - wow!), spent more time on the streets Friday night, "First Night", visiting art galleries. Saturday was less intense. We went to a rehearsal of the symphony at the PAC, and had dinner out. Sunday we went to a play in the afternoon, then while Joey and Mary visited friends Elaine and I went downtown for a bit, not long, and then back to the motel. It doesn't seem like we did that much Monday. What did we do? I felt very tired at the rehearsal that night. And yesterday afternoon Elaine and I visited two wineries and went down to Santa Barbara to do some business at a bank, then back.
Yet yesterday I started to feel like I was losing ground. I had some difficulty standing at the bars where they serve the wine tastes, and I felt greater pain going up and down stairs than I had been. And last night my knees, both of them, went into some kind of "dislocation". I don't think anything actually shifted but it felt like that, like things were out of place, causing sharp pains and noticeable inflammation.
It's possible that some of the things I had eaten had an effect. I may have eaten foods that cause increases in inflammation or that remove, somehow, protection. That's something to explore, that possibility. It's also possible that I just wasn't ready to do as much as I did in the way of walking on hard surfaces. I suspect that this is about the worst thing I can do for these knees. I may have jumped the gun.
Mary talks about getting me a wheelchair when we do these things. I do not want to do that. That would mean no exercise at all, no effort needed to stay erect, no ability to build those muscles. There may be a compromise possible, though. I feel that if I can just sit down now and then I can renew myself temporarily. Again, I think of finding a "shooting stick", the kind my stepmother Elizabeth had.
So back to the question. Is it or isn't it helping? The swimming. I don't know.
