On Sunday I went for my first bike ride this season.

I tried to track my excursion on my phone but it only tracked the way back – I’m still getting used to my new phone and for some reason the location thingy the GPS needed wasn’t turned on when I cycled down to the lake.

But no matter. I got it on the way back so all I had to do was double the distance to find out the total I cycled, and it was about 10 km.

HA!

I felt great, truth be told. The weather was cool and sunny (but not cold), and I figured it’s better to have more layers on than not enough, so I pulled my fleece out just in case. I was actually a little bit warm by the time I got down to the hoity toity park where all the fancy schmancy boats moor in the Marina (except not yet, the Marina was empty).

I sat on a bench for a bit and watched some people, then mounted my bike and pedaled homeward.

Homeward had a very slight incline… nothing too strenuous (I don’t do strenuous), but I did have to put a little bit of extra oompf into my cycling.

I don’t care about calories or heart rates or all those statistics. I do it because I enjoy it and I have a lot of versatility in the suburban town where my mom and I live. I did have a few memories pop into my head though: this exact trip is the same one my mom did with my babies when they were 6 and 8 or so! We used to drive an Odyssey back in the day, which is like owning a bus, and whenever grandma offered to give us a break from the kids she would say “don’t forget to pack their bikes”.

Imagine this: both kids under the age of 10 cycling 5 km down to the lake where they were treated to a double-scoop of gelato, followed by a lounging around watching the multi-million dollar yachts come and go, interacting with the geese and ducks and whatever else kids do when they’re that age, then cycle the same 5 km back home. At that point, grandpa would take over and play ping pong with them, or board games, or lego and grandma would cook dinner and then a couple of very tired children would have a sleepover.

Anyway, I’m not a maniac, I take my time when I bike around the region. And sadly, I don’t indulge in gelato, either, but perhaps this summer I might should.

When I got back, my mom and my sister, who is in town on business, were out so I sat myself onto a lawn chair in the backyard, sipped some sparkling water and scrolled my phone.

Next morning was Monday. I got up with a list of items I wanted to accomplish (and did, check out my newest listings in my Etsy shop). I sat down in my jewelry design shop in the basement and listened to a podcast when suddenly I needed to get something from across the room. I got up and immediately sat down again. A piercing pain shot through my right knee, right below the kneecap, that had me wincing in pain.

Huh.

This whole incident confused me. It was well after 10 am, I’d already been up and walking around the house for hours, why did this pain suddenly appear like that?

I thought back if I had done something weird recently, but other than the bike ride, nothing else was out of the ordinary.

Somehow I managed to get upstairs to get the Kalaya pain relief lotion my mom had in the medicine cabinet in the back hall. I wrapped my knee and figured it’ll fade and go away within an hour or two.

Nope.

Rivergirl popped into my head. She blogged a bit about knee pain at one time. I thought, so that’s what if feels like… sigh. It’s not fun. And it completely incapacited me. I could barely walk up and down the stairs, which was annoying since my room with a door is on the top floor (5 steps from the main floor) and my jewelry studio is in the basement (10 steps).

Ugh.

By evening, I was worse, not better. Mom suggested I might consider a doctor if it doesn’t go away soon. I’m not one to run to the doctor, and since I couldn’t see any swelling, I wasn’t sure if they would see anything either.

I knew an X-Ray would be in my immediate future which did not please me. I don’t have time to sit around in emergency rooms.

Meh.

I suddenly remembered the Castor oil bottle I saw earlier when I looked for the Kalaya cream. I took it into the TV room at the back of the house, which is currently converted into my sister’s guest room, and planted myself into a Poang chair. Mom came and helped me pour the icky oil on my knee and wrapped it. I sat like that, with a heating pad over it, for an hour while we both watched a bit of NHL playoff hockey (Bruins vs Panthers) and some MLB baseball (Blue Jays in Houston).

When I went to bed I could still barely walk. It was awful. I began to worry I did some damage.

I immediately and repeatedly affirmed to myself that I did not feel pain, it was just some “sensations”.

Did you know that if you focus on pain and keep saying it over and over again, you put a lot of attention on the pain you don’t want to feel?

I stopped. I kept saying “I have some sensations in my knee” when I tripped or stumbled around in the bathroom and changed my thoughts immediately.

Sleeping was awkward. The only way I could be pain free is if my leg was stretched out completely, or if it was bent all the way up to my chest. Nothing in between was comfortable (so anything near 90 degrees).

Eventually I took an Advil and hoped for the best.

Fast forward to this morning. I woke up and turned to check the time, then did my breath work and a short meditation. Then I needed to pee and make coffee so I sat up and…

…stopped short.

How come I was able to sit with my legs on the floor?

The bed is a futon with a new mattress on it, but it’s closer to the ground than a regular bed, and here I was, sitting on the bed with my knees bent at a 90 degree angle.

There was no pain.

I got up and same the same thing happened again. No pain in the bathroom, no pain on the stairs (which I could not navigate yesterday without wincing), and no pain going back up the stairs with coffee in hand.

The pain was gone. Went away. Disappeared into thin air.

Huh.

I wonder if it was just one of those things, where my leg reacted to the sudden different exercise (cycling) 12ish hours later, or whether the Castor oil did some magic.

It’s perplexing, really. There is no residue or peripheral memory of pain at all.

Still, I took it easy today and did not do my usual Asana Rebel yoga or go for a bike ride. I climbed the stairs multiple times today, and nothing happened.

I had a completely normal day.

Has something like this ever happened to you?

I do recommend you try the Castor oil. It’s something you can get at a health food store and mom said to use heat with it, so if you have swelling, you might want to finish icing before applying the oil. Icing a swollen area will help reduce swelling, but the Castor oil works best under warm conditions. Make sure you use old towels as the stuff stains pretty badly, and keep the oily towels in a ziploc bag after (open, not closed) so it doesn’t stain anything else.

But there you have it. Something to try next time you feel an ache somewhere.

Let me know what you think!

See you in the comments.