This is getting old

I had friends over Saturday for game night, which was great fun. We played Apples to Apples for hours, ate good food, drank a few Brandy Alexanders, and basically had a blast. As my friends were leaving, I turned to give one of them a hug and my knee complained. A lot. I'm back to square one with my knee swollen, and I can't walk any real distance.

It's difficult not to get frustrated or depressed, when body parts hurt all the time and refuse to work right. I have to say I am a LOT better than I was 10 years ago. Back then I had unexplained back pain, which had me bedridden when I wasn't working. It hurt to move, but it turned out moving is what made it better. I'm working on the same premise now, albeit carefully. With the knee swollen, I have to be careful how I stretch, but I continue to stretch. Stretching is better than not stretching, even if it doesn't make the root cause of the problem go away.

I believe this is all due to the arthritis in my S1 and my hip. Things get inflamed, they press on tendons, tendons get inflamed and start pulling things out of wack. At least that fits what I know about my body, and what I've been feeling. I can't exactly afford all the tests involved in finding out for certain. Honestly, considering my experience 10 years ago, I'm not at all confident paying for all those tests would give me an answer. It didn't back then.

I've about given up on February's race. I can't imagine I'll be healthy enough to get back up to 15K in time. I'm still hopeful for April's 10-miler, as well as May's half marathon. I just find out Wonder Woman, who inspired me to start racing, is also racing the half. It would be great if we could pace each other to new PRs!