Pins and needles

You know you're getting old when things snap, crackle, and pop when you do something simple like attempt to catch a ball and turn quickly to toss it to someone else. After landing somewhat weirdly on my left foot, I felt my knee lock for every few steps that I walked but not much pain (yet). I iced it as quickly as I could, but after sleeping through the night, I still had trouble walking (not sure if that was because I was afraid to put weight on the leg, which would cause the knee to lock, or because there were spurts of pain depending on the position I stood in). We went to get a cane from my in-laws so that I wouldn't have to put weight on my leg -- I was so worried that I had torn a ligament or meniscus (Google is hypochondria's worst enemy!). Then I went to the acupuncturist (a first for me) this afternoon.

His office is in one of those old tenement-like buildings in Ctown and it was quite interesting to walk/limp up those three flights of stairs. Unlike other doctor's offices in Ctown in similarly old and narrow buildings, this one had no markings at all on the outside and I thought it was all residential apartments. Upstairs, the first thing you see when you walk through the door is an old sink by the window, then some chairs and couches throughout the kitchen-like room. You would have no clue that this is a doctor's office except if you look carefully, a few certificates and doctor's credentials are hung up in the corner.

The old dude, which Dear has seen for various ankle twists and a knee injury, didn't try to be friendly at all, even though I was there with my FIL, who can be quite friendly and was trying to turn on the charm. My terrible Chinese was an embarassment, which I think added to his condescension towards me, and I ended up having to explain myself in English. I'm not sure he fully understood though (he has a certificate from a SUNY so he must know enough English, right?). He started to press various parts of my knee which caused no reaction at all. Then he pushed one of his fingers into the back of my knee, right above the calf, and it started to hurt like crazy, but not enough for me to scream out instinctively. After a few more squeezes, he said he'd know for certain once I lay down. He walked through curtains and I almost lost him, not knowing where the curtains opened. A few more squeezes while I lay on my back, and then face down and he determined that I had twisted/pulled a tendon so that it is very inflamed. He disappeared for a few minutes and when he came back, I was so scared of the impending pain. He first swabbed some iodine on my calf and then stuck a needle somewhere. Then another and another (five total, I think). All I felt were pinpricks and miniscule sore points where the needles were. I thought I'd be safe from pain until he attached a bunch of wires to the ends of the needles, turned a few knobs on this old-looking machine and flipped a switch. The first set of exercises?/massage?/electrocutions? was a vibrating sensation and it hurt at times, but not too terribly. It felt like the moment right before a cramp would start where any slight movement could cause the entire muscle to cramp up, but prolonged over a 30-minute timeframe. This made me very afraid to relax my leg and I'm surprised my flip flops didn't just slide off my feet. At times, I also felt undulations of warmth around my legs (I didn't notice he had moved a heat lamp right over my leg). The warmth, coupled with the classical music being pumped from somewhere caused me to drift into sleep, despite the weird tingling in my leg and the loud talking in the other room. But my relaxation was disturbed by the acupuncturist coming back and switching the nodes to what he described as a numbness mode (I think the needles started to move in circular motions instead of hammering up and down). This was a new level of discomfort/pain/weirdness but I quickly got used to it. Before I could drift again, the treatment was over. Everything was removed and my leg felt stiffer in the calf, but freer to bend at the knee. Now, as I sit, the muscle just feels very tired and sore, like I need to stretch it, but I'm afraid to. And I have another treatment Thursday. Hope I'll be healed to non-limping by this weekend! (I also wonder whether an orthopedist's treatment would be more effective?)