talked to Carmen

[redbird]

I had my quarterly appointment with Carmen so she can continue to prescribe the Ritalin. I spent part of the time talking about Mom's death, including how the trip had affected me physically, and specifically that my joints hurt much less than I expected given the amount of walking.

A bit later, the three of us went for a walk, and my knees started to hurt a little almost immediately, despite the precautionary naproxen. At that point, I realized that I walked a lot almost every day of the trip, but almost all of it was basically flat, long hospital and airport corridors.

Comments

[otter]

Flat is definitely different than city sidewalk terrain.

[kareina]

One of my cousins grew up on a homstead in the middle of Alaska, running flat out through the forest, hopping over tussocks and roots, dodging branches, and never had a problem. He won a place on a school trip to visit Washington DC, which was pretty much his first experience with smooth concrete sidewalks. He tripped constantly during that visit.

[redbird]

I grew up with and am I'm used to sidewalks and concrete, but the ones in my neighborhood are more tilted than I grew up with. I think that's partly the underlying lanscape--Queens, N.Y., is on a glacial moraine, and there was a much smoother uphill/downhill slope than in this part of Boston, where the streets are curved around the contours of the landscape [1]. Also, part of the difference may be in how well the sidewalks are maintained.

If I hadn't been short on sleep and stressed for the entire trip to London, I might have made the connection sooner; we got back to Boston on Friday morning, and then I mostly stayed in the apartment Friday and Saturday.

[1] The house I grew up in was two blocks from the aptly named Hillside Avenue. My elementary school was a few blocks uphill, a nice easy walk. The subway station was a couple of blocks in the other direction, a shallower slope downhill: my parents picked the location so Dad could count on getting home from work on snowy days, even if the buses stopped running.

[minoanmiss]

*smooths your joint surfaces*