“The bodies we have are not made for extended use. We must cope with accumulated DNA damage, cell damage, muscle atrophy, bone loss, decreased muscle mass, and joints worn out from overuse during a lifetime of bipedal locomotion. It might have worked great for prehistoric humans, but it wreaks havoc on our knees and hips.”

S. Jay Olshanski, Ph.D. 

 My legs have always been strong, so maybe that’s why I’ve often pushed their limits and ended up creating weak points.

In childhood the damage was always superficial—a scraped knee from tripping while running on a cement sidewalk and a deeper cut from jumping off a swing and landing on a sharp stone in my backyard. (I still have a faint scar on my left knee from the latter.)

I was also aware, from an early age, that my sturdy limbs had other limitations. They weren’t flexible enough for ballet, though I struggled through lessons. And they weren’t capable of acquiring the tap-dancing skill of my mother, whose shapely, talented legs were enviable. I was told my legs resembled my dad’s. On his athletic body, they looked good; on me, not so much.

After those early years, my legs stayed intact through my teens but my ankle was put to the test one day in my twenties. I loved to play tennis and that time I overreached during a tournament. I went for a ball coming fast and just inside the righthand singles line. I connected with the ball but the slippery line marking the clay court was the problem. I skidded and the ankle went over resulting in a severe sprain. Needless to say, I had to cede the match. I also had to show up for a date that night with a ballooning ankle and on crutches.

In my thirties, I took up running. After an initial, very slow, one-mile outing left me winded, I figured my major challenges were increasing my aerobic capacity, endurance, distance and speed. I plodded along, but as I progressed to regular workouts five times a week, it got easier to breathe and keep going,. My distance increased to three miles and my speed got faster too—thirty minutes instead of forty-five.  Soon I was running a few 10K (6.2 mile) races and even finished a ten-miler. The one challenge I hadn’t thought about was fighting the arthritic wear and tear on my knee joints. They soon rebelled, not by outright breaking, but by letting me know they hurt with every stride.

In my forties, the constant impact of running, combined with wearing shoes without good support and a lack of adequate stretching, led to shin splints, a bone spur on my heel and plantar fasciitis along the soles of my feet. All were painful but easily fixable by a sports medicine specialist. They were warnings of decline.

Through the years since my twenties, I’ve also enjoyed downhill skiing, another sport that puts stress on the knees. They held up pretty well as I progressed from easy blue runs to steeper black trails and moguls. The actual carving, traversing and schussing were fun and pain-free but, as I neared my fifties, the wear and tear was continuing its perverse work in silence. All it took was to catch an edge during a snowstorm in the Alps. It wrenched my left knee outward and I had to descend the mountain with cautious moves and in pain. I figured it was a sprain.

By the time I got back to the States, the knee was still swollen and it hurt to walk. An MRI revealed a torn medial meniscus and laparoscopic surgery was done by my orthopedic surgeon. It healed quickly with physical therapy and I went back to my usual activities.

My right knee held up for another seven years until long treks over several days, up and down the staircases of Roma, made it balloon up and hurt like the devil. Ice was hard to come by at the hotel but I used cold compresses and tread carefully for the remainder of the visit. Back home, I returned to the same surgeon. He diagnosed it as the same kind of tear I had on the other knee–medial meniscus and recommended the same type of surgery.  I was surprised because I hadn’t done anything to twist that knee. He said it was just the daily grind of age and impact, and suggested I give up running and downhill skiing. I told him I could give up running (and I pretty much have) but I enjoyed skiing too much to stop. He said fine, just stop when it hurts. It hasn’t. So, so far, so good.

My knees give me silent warnings now and then and I baby them with stretching, avoiding too-high heels and using a pillow underneath them when I sleep. I’ve also learned that sitting too long makes them stiffen, so I give them gentle exercise by walking. When I’m in Florida, I swim laps with the breast stroke most days. It’s a low-impact sport my legs love. Even so, I’ve had to modify the frog kick. My knees don’t like the side thrust it requires. I can live with that. 

A few years ago, a massage therapist in Thailand made a worrying comment about my knees. She worked the tissue around them and said, “Bad business, bad business.” Despite that, they still function. My legs are strong enough for walking and hiking, sometimes for many miles, but I’ll never move like Jagger. (His heart valve gave out but not his dancing legs.) 

At this stage, I’m just thankful I don’t have spikes in arthritic pain when the atmosphere changes like my Nana’s knees did. She claimed they could always forecast a storm. It might be handy in hurricane country but I’d rather leave it to the Weather Channel.