November 2008

November 2008 is as far back as I believe events of possible significance may have occurred. The day after a trail race near Hot Springs, I decided to go out for a low-key recovery run on trails near my house. Not long after I got onto the trail, I tripped and fell forward, smashing my kneecap squarely on a rock. It hurt acutely and swelled, and I immediately limped home to ice and self-medicate with ibuprofin. I knew that I had bruised it badly, and treated it gingerly for the next few weeks. While the swelling went down to a small degree, it didn't seem to be healing. I had been training to run the Memphis marathon on December 6, so after a few weeks of not healing, I began to re-think my plans for the race. I decided to go to an orthopedic to get my knee checked out in case there was a fracture or something on the kneecap that I would make worse by following through on my marathon plans. I had x-rays, and they didn't show any problems. The diagnosis was a bruised kneecap, which i was told could take several weeks to heal. I was advised to alternate heat and cold to help speed up the healing process. With a clean x-ray, I decided to go ahead with my marathon plans. I simply had some healing to do, so I didn't do much running for the remainder of the month. I mention this injury because it could have been (?) one of the triggers of the onset. From what I know about autoimmune diseases, they can lie dormant in your body, and something like an injury or stress can push it over the edge and cause it to activate. I remember everything feeling good and right until this point. I never really recovered from this injury, and I wonder if this was around the time that the disease started creeping in.