January 3 question: Do you follow back your readers on BookBub or do you only follow back other authors? Remember, the question is optional…

I’ve entered the tribe of Old Age… I need new knees.

Not so bad, you say. Yes but (which, as you know, I never say), I’ve endured intermittent, uncontrollable joint jerks for the past three years. Thank goodness my private earthquake jolts don’t hurt. I’ve acclimated, hoping to preserve my sense of self despite jerks and spasms that undercut cool. 

I don’t mean social cool – I’m not that shallow. However, a hypermobile joint diagnosis underlies the jerks that appear with a suddenness that catches others (and me) off-guard. At least it’s not Epilepsy or Tourette’s or worse, Parkinson’s.

I cope by tightening the muscles around joints to hold them in place because the tendons and ligaments are loose. I know, from the experience of others, that great pain comes with cutting through innervated tissues so that a metal knee can replace the defunct. After being sliced through, the muscles that do the work of loose ligaments won’t be able to help me walk, sit, and stand.

I shudder at the prospect of tender tissues and jangled nerves being jerked.

I’ve been highly compliant with PT exercises that I thought would forestall surgery. I’ve used KT Tape assiduously to support what the ligaments don’t. I’ve iced, heated, and used a massage gun. Advil and Tylenol doses help, too. I feel like a failure for not having achieved the A+ I’m used to in all endeavors.

But arthritis was inevitable.  My body needs patches. I’m not bulletproof.

I must forgive my body for entering the Old Age tribe. How?

By using the technique that famed writer and role model, Joan Didion, left with us: “I write entirely to find out what I’m thinking, what I’m looking at, what I see and what it means. What I want and what I fear.”

So, I wrote this blog post to my tribe.