I’m sure most, if not all of you who read my blog, know that I have a bad knee; a knee which I injure too many damn times, and therefore must have something wrong with it. It’s my right one, specifically, you know. The one I strain my tendons and ligaments in all the time? One wonders why I haven’t blown it yet, like destroyed my ACL or something.
Anyway, this morning I had Kinesiology lab and were were doing Manual Muscle Tests (testing a specific muscle group for strength and to see if there’s any pain, if there’s any at all) and goniometric measurements of the lower extremities (lower body, feet to hips, basically). Anyway, setting aside my minorly sprained ankle (which I may tell you about in a minute), I made a discovery about my knees.
Goniometry is the measurement of angles, basically. In kinesiology’s case, the angles are our joints, thus we’re measuring the range of motion of that joint. When measuring the knee, the start value is our knee extended, straightened, but not fully extended. When we measure the full extension of the knee, we’re measuring how much it hyper-extends. Sooooo, I got my knees’ ranges of motion measured.
When you measure the degree of extension when it comes to the knee, you prop the foot up on something—a sweatshirt, a book, something similar—and allow gravity to pull your knee “backwards” until it locks. My left knee was relatively normal, it’s extension range of motion was 3°, a relatively normal range. My right knee, on the other hand, was a completely different story.
When we propped it on the sweatshirt, it didn’t lock. This meant that it wasn’t fully extended. So, I tried to adjust my foot’s position, but by the time she actually took the measurement, it still wasn’t fully extended. But even with it not being fully extended, the measurement we got was 19°. So, I’m saying that my estimated ROM for my right knee is at least 20°. One of these days, I want to get a more accurate measure.
So, it totally threw me off when I found out my right knee was about 16° more extensible than my left knee. When I thought about it, I figured hey, maybe that’s why I’m having ligament and tendon problems with my right knee, and maybe that’s why I always hyper-extend my left.
So, anyone else have any thoughts to add to this? Any questions you might want to ask? I’ll answer what I can. So be sure to check your comments, because I don’t think I have a plug-in that notifies commenters if/when their comment is replied to.
Oh, before I go, I said I was gonna tell you about my ankle, right? Well, if I didn’t who cares? I’m telling you anyway!
Okay, so, last Friday, some of the female members of the track team met up to play Ultimate Frisbee (I’m not running track this year, unfortunately, so Coach probably hates me…). It was really fun and all.
So the field we were playing on, one of our endzones was actually sloped a little. You can sort of see where this is going. Well, towards the end of our scrimmage, I was on offense cherry picking the end zone. Kris… Kristen (?) threw me the frisbee, and I turned to try and catch it. When I missed, I turned back around and rolled my ankle REALLY bad. I felt a small pop, and it hurt like a BITCH for a while. I walked back over to our end (because we eventually scored), rubbed it a few times, and then shrugged it off and continued playing. While it didn’t hurt all that much (or maybe it did and I was too focused on the game to actually notice) during the game, when I finished eating and went back to my room, it was killing me. Later that night, it was swollen. With the advice of my good friend Steve (yes folks, he’s still very much alive), I propped it up on my desk and the swelling did go down.
I’m checking my ankle right now and… it looks like… there’s no swelling. But occasionally, when I walk, there’s a shooting pain that goes down my talus, and sometimes on the underside of my foot too. It’s not a crippling pain, but it’s noticeable enough to be annoying and slightly painful.
There you have it. Okay, leave comments with theories and questions if you have any. I’ll reply and answer what I can.
That’s what I’m feeling right about now, though Mom told me over AIM about 10 minutes ago to “not panic”. I’m not panicking right now; I’m just feeling doubtful that I won’t be able to do what I want to do.
‘Well, what is it that you want to do?’ you might ask. Maybe too much.
I want to graduate with a B.S. in Athletic Training (maybe I might try to get a M.S. too, if I have the money), and use that background in sports medicine when (if) I go to med school and specialize in Orthopedic medicine. I want to be an orthopedist who can competently and specifically help athletes with injuries.
Of course, at this point, I’m behind in the AT program; I started out here at IC a HPPE (Health Promotion and Physical Education) major, and a ton of the things I took for that program don’t carry over in the requirements for this one. In the AT program, you immediately start out in your freshman year with the specific curriculum. And for the pre-med program, I still need to take a year of biology, a year of physics, and two years of chemistry, both general and organic.
It’s already certain that I won’t have the time for these pre-med courses, since I’m barely going to have the time for the AT requirements; in order to graduate on time I need to take two required courses this winter, and since the cost of doing just that is near $4,500, it looks like I’m going to graduate a semester late (and that’s if we can afford it… if I recall, they stop financially aiding you once your 4 years are up).
Not just that, but in order for me to become an ATC (Athletic Trainer Certified), I need to take the national exam to get my license… and will a B.S. be enough? Or will I need to go to graduate school and get my M.S. too?
In between doing that, getting a job, and then preparing for the MCAT, I need to get those pre-med required courses, which I’ll have to take either during the summers between now and when I graduate or after I graduate and get a job. Will I get a good enough job to afford those credits? Not to mention paying for practically everything when taking the MCAT, applying under the AMCAS and then twice more under the individual med schools, along with going to interviews should I get accepted…
And this isn’t half of what I’m a little worried about. Specifically, grades. What if I don’t do good enough and then get rejected from med school?
All of this is probably unnecessary stress and all, but, looking at what appears to be the odds (academic performance, money, and time, specifically) that are stacked against me and my goal, it kind of looks like it won’t happen in the end.
I was just reading through the syllabus and looking over the computer terms. A lot, well actually, most of it I know. All of it I’ve seen before, but I don’t exactly know what it is. There are other things too that I haven’t seen before (amazingly enough, considering who my dad is).
So, to sum it all up; Yo, Dad, you’ll eventually get to help me with my homework.
Maybe this’ll encourage him to use AIM more. Who knows?
By the way, I don’t need to define the terms right now, but soon, and I’ll get in touch with you (Dad) when I need you. Feel happy; it’s something you enjoy doing, and you might actually learn a thing or do (But knowing just how geeky he is, I doubt it).
I still encourage readers to check out my previous post because I’m still looking for opinions. The score is still vertical 2 – horizontal 0 (because Dad’s opinion is more neutral than anything…), and I still want to hear from the rest of you! So please, you’re more than welcome to leave a comment.
(Something tells me that I don’t really have any readers at all… Maybe I should start working on making the world more aware of my website…)
And I want EVERYONE’S opinion on this. You can be reading this blog and hate my guts for all I care, but I want EVERYONE’S opinion, no questions asked, because this is one of those things where once I’ve made up my mind, I can’t go back to change it.
So, backstory: I definitely want my name (not my full name, Regina, but my more commonly used nickname, Gina) as a tattoo. I’m getting it in Japanese katakana writing. So, here’s my question;
Vertical? Or…
Horizontal?
I want anyone who reads this to leave a comment, giving me their opinion on which way I should get it. So far, the score is Vertical – 2; Horizontal – 0. Maybe I’ll go with majority rules in the end or maybe I won’t, but I wanted to see what you all think. I’m leaning towards vertical, because it is the traditional writing style in Japan, after all.
Oh, before I forget; this tattoo (my name in katakana) will be on my lower back, the right side. So keep that in mind when making your choice.
If you all want, I can post up the image of the other tattoo I want to get. It’s the kanji for strength (methinks it’s known as ‘ryoku’ in Japan, but I’m not sure, because there are several different ways to write strength, not mention several different meanings, in Japan). [EDIT] the length of it will be approximately the length of my point finger, and it’s width will be approximately the length of my thumb’s proximal phalanx.
Thanks!
FINALLY I DON’T HAVE TO SIT IN THE LAB ANYMORE!
This actually happened, like, the other day, but I was so lame I didn’t update and tell you all about it until now.
So what’s my excuse, you ask? Well, I’ve been running around all over the place, mainly job hunting, because… well… I need a job, obviously. So far, Target’s turned me down because I won’t be in Ithaca over the holidays… stupid Target, and I have other people I need to get in touch with, which I will do tonight and tomorrow. I just need a steady source of income and I’ll feel much better.
That’s about it for now. I’m going to go mess with my Twitter and eat ice cream. Byes~!
Okay, at 8am, some asshole called my cell phone and woke me up.
In reality, it was the guy who will be coming to my room tomorrow at 2pm to fix my cable jack.
So hopefully, if this all works out, I won’t have to spend my college year in the computer lab, yay
I honestly don’t think the problem is anything else; I mean, my cable itself along with my network was working perfectly fine before, and my cable’s in good condition. So, if the jack can’t get fixed, i don’t know what to tell you all.
Anyway, I have to stop now, because Computer Info and Tech is over (it’s going to be a very easy A), and I have to run to my next class, Psychology. I’ll try to be on AIM tonight, so whoever wants to chat can chat with me then!
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