The Invisible Black Woman

Note: For those of you following along at home, you may need a little bit of a map or a recap on where we last left off on my health journey. If that’s the case, let me invite you to check out Life be lifin’, and …hard. If you know exactly where we left off before the Hubbygate detour and some random but necessary musings, then carry on.

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Let me just preface this by saying that I didn’t wake up one day and decide that physical therapy would be my next pit stop on this health journey. Nope. This is the kind of deviation your body forces on you when it’s fed up with all the foolishness you’ve been putting it through. And when I say “foolishness,” I mean years of stress, weight fluctuation, injuries, poor ergonomics at work, and ignoring all the red flags my body was waving right in my face. Because why? Life, that’s why. There’s always something more pressing than taking care of me.

But here I am. Post-doctor visit. Post-revelation that my cartilage had said deuces in both knees, leaving me with a bone-on-bone situation every time I took a step. So, once I got home and talked myself off the ledge—thanks in no small part to hubby—I reached out the doctor’s office for a referral for physical therapy.

The first thing you always notice when you’re in pain is how far everything seems to be. The distance from the car to the clinic? Twenty steps? Maybe thirty? Felt like miles. My knee joints were already crying by the time I made it to the door. But what are you gonna do? Life goes on, and apparently so does physical therapy.

When I walked into the clinic, I was greeted by the smell of sanitizer and the sound of clanking weights. You know the vibe. It’s that sterile, clinical feel, but with just enough equipment lying around to remind you that this is the last stop before you get benched for good. The receptionist smiled warmly as I handed over my paperwork.

“Manuel will be with you shortly.”

I sank into the nearest chair, already exhausted from my walk from the car.

Enter Manuel, the physical therapist who—bless him—was about to deal with the dumpster fire that was my knee situation. I sized him up the way you do when you’re about to let someone into your personal space and hoped he wouldn’t be one of those therapists who’d blame all my pain on my weight.

He called my name, and I slowly got up, gritting my teeth against the shooting pain in my left knee.

“Come on back.”

We exchanged pleasantries, but my knee had already decided it wasn’t here for small talk. By the time I made it to the exam room, I could tell Manuel was doing the quick mental math: What level of pain are we dealing with, and how do I approach this without triggering her further?

“So, is it just the knee, or does the pain radiate anywhere else?”

“It tends to radiate down. Usually lands around my toes, especially when I’ve been sitting too long or when I wake up in the morning.”

“Got it. What about stairs? Trouble going up or down?”

I had to chuckle on that one.

“Stairs are a nightmare. Going down them is probably what flared everything up last week. Tried to go for a walk with hubby before the ortho appointment, and by the time we got back, my knee felt like it was trying to dislocate itself.”

He nodded sympathetically. “And going upstairs?”

“Same story. Honestly, it’s to the point where I can’t even walk around the house for too long without it locking up or feeling like it’s out of socket.”

Manuel raised his eyebrows. “Out of socket?”

“That’s what it feels like.”

Manuel nodded. I was bracing myself for the fun part of the visit—the dreaded examination. He motioned for me to sit on the exam table. It looked like a fancier and sturdier massage table.

“So, you mentioned you’ve been having trouble with walking and general movement,” he said as he pressed around my knee, clearly trying to find the exact spot where the pain was the worst. And oh, he found it. You know that moment when they hit just the right (or wrong) spot, and your body betrays you with a wince? Yeah. I was there.

“Yup, that’s it. Right there,” I said through gritted teeth.

 “Okay, let’s calm this episode down.”

“Episode” was a funny word to use for what felt like my whole life being one long Netflix series of pain, but I appreciated his calmness. He wasn’t overreacting, and he wasn’t dismissing my experience. Small victories, right?

Now, I’ve already been through the wringer with doctors. I knew the drill. I didn’t expect any breaking news after his hands-on assessment. But Manuel wasn’t so sure that arthritis was the only culprit here. As he continued to poke, prod, and move my leg around, he said something that caught my attention.

“You’ve got a lot of muscular pain here, not just joint pain.”

Oh?

He explained that while arthritis was definitely part of the problem, a lot of the pain I was experiencing was likely coming from inflamed muscles and tendons around the knee. Turns out, the muscles in my hip and thigh were also playing a role in the dysfunction of my knee. I didn’t know whether to be relieved that there was more to the story or irritated that my body was just falling apart from all angles.

“Let’s try some pool therapy. We have an aquatic treadmill here that could help take the pressure off your knees while still allowing you to walk.”

I perked up at the mention of a treadmill submerged in water.

“Definitely interested in that.”

Honestly? Anything that might offer even a sliver of relief sounded like a good plan to me.

And then, Manuel did something I didn’t see coming. He started talking about how weight shouldn’t be the catch-all blame for every pain in the body. Y’all, I had to stop myself from audibly cheering right there in the clinic. A medical professional who wasn’t going to blame everything on my size? Where had this man been all my life?

“I don’t think weight should be an excuse for pain. A lot of doctors will jump to that conclusion, but your body is incredibly good at adapting. BMI, frankly, doesn’t take a lot of important things into account.”

That’s what I’ve been saying!

Between him and my perfection assessment from my nutritionist, you couldn’t tell me nothing.

“Tell me about it.”

It was refreshing to hear someone in the medical field acknowledge that I wasn’t just a walking statistic or some number on a chart.

Manuel went on to explain how I could do some pool exercises to help strengthen the muscles around my knees. So yeah, that meant I was going to be adding swimming to my to-do list.

Sir, say less.

He assured me that we’d be working on this for the long haul, not just a quick fix that would leave me right back at square one. It was one of the rare times I’d left a care provider’s office without feeling like my size was the only thing holding me back from living pain-free.

As the session came to a close, Manuel handed me a set of exercises to do in the pool and promised that we’d tackle things step by step. I was relieved but exhausted. Chronic pain has a way of wearing you down emotionally just as much as physically, and it had taken everything in me to just make it to this appointment. Now, I had the hard work ahead of sticking with it.

On the way out, as I slowly made my way to the car, I couldn’t help but feel a tiny flicker of hope. It wasn’t much, but it was something. And for someone dealing with chronic pain, that “something” was more than enough to keep me going.