Sore knees and psycho dreams....

A few months ago, I began to experience excruciating hip pain. My doctor sent me to physical therapy.

The very nice therapist informed me that 1) my left leg was longer than my right leg and 2) as a result, my body was pretty much misshapen, from my pelvis up to my shoulders. This is not the best news to receive as you enter your fifties, but I remained hopeful that she would make me feel better.

Apart from practically sitting on my chest to pop my pelvis into place, the therapist gave me a long list of exercises that would help me to build up my core and strengthen the muscles around my hip. The good news was that I could feel them working, almost immediately.

Thus inspired, I added some weights and some lunges to my workout. I had hopes of getting back into shape and dropping the 20 pounds I'd managed to gain over the past few years.

One morning, while doing my lunges, I felt a most disturbing pop in my right knee. This was followed by pain resembling having a nail pounded into my kneecap. I began to hobble.

In a bout of faulty reasoning that should win some sort of prize, I decided that I would just keep working out. I'd probably only strained something, and exercising was going to make it feel better in the long run. Right?

Well, no. After three or four days, I could barely walk, much less get up and down the stairs. The pain was constant. I mean so constant that I couldn't sleep at night. I tried Advil and ice, which was about as effective as trying to bring down an elephant with a flyswatter.

After my co-workers informed me that my gait most closely resembled that of Frankenstein's monster, I came to grips with the fact that I had probably suffered another meniscal tear.

The meniscus is, as I understand it, the soft tissue around the kneecap. It can tear due to injury or due to long misuse. Sitting cross-legged on the floor for the past 15 years pretty much qualifies as long misuse. Plus, I'd already had a meniscal tear repaired about 8 years ago, and this felt exactly the same.

"Mom," the ever-cheerful Kelsey informed me, "women have shorter ligaments than men. It's just a matter of time."

So, after a teary phone call to my orthopedic doctor ("what do you mean, the first available appointment is the end of February? I am in pain now. Someone is driving nails into my knee"), I consulted with my doctor, who concurred with my diagnosis (love when that happens) pending an MRI. He also prescribed some lovely pain pills and a muscle relaxant.

Excited about the prospect of actually sleeping for a whole eight hours, I took the first dose of the muscle relaxant the night before last.

Unaware of the fact that I was totally and completely wasted, I announced to my family at about 7:30 pm that I was going to take a bath and go to bed early.

"Mom, you'd better be careful. I think you may drown," was my daughter's warning. I could not make my addled brain think of why she was saying this.

Said bath was delightful, and I dragged myself into bed soon after. I think, but I am not sure, that I actually melted into the mattress. At least that's how it felt. My legs, arms and torso became nothing more than a quivering mass. I read a few chapters of the book I am working on, but I have no idea what any of the words said. Then, I fell into a deep, deep sleep.

When not under the influence of powerful drugs, I tend to dream vividly. According to Steve, I sometimes thrash, sometimes laugh and sometimes scream in my sleep. When I wake up, I don't often remember what caused these reactions, but I figure that there's no reason why Steve would lie to me about it. What would he stand to gain?

But on this night, I vaguely recall dreaming about a dark and evil presence - perhaps a ghost or demon, perhaps a serial killer - trying to hurt, of all things, my dog Toby.

What Steve tells me is that I let out a blood-chilling scream, one so loud that everyone in the house heard it. One so loud that Steve actually rushed into the room to check if I was OK.

I have a dim memory of lifting my head, which by this time weighed about 650 pounds, off the pillow to ask "Is Toby OK?"

I woke with what can best be described as a hangover, and struggled through the day at work, feeling fuzzy and as if I had been on a college-level bender. Had the children set fire to the classroom, I probably would not have noticed.

Anyway, tonight I'm back to Advil and ice. Oh, and Kelsey wants to know if I would scream so loudly should some evil presence be after her.