July 22, 2006
Boomers, we have to talk about knees.
I know you think about them.
Did we ever know we had knees when we were kids except when we skinned them?
Not likely.
We never considered them at all. They were not in our realm of consciousness; that is, until they were injured. By the next day, we were rejuvenated, healed, and on our way to another bike wreck. No worries at all about knees.
Actually, there was this really bad joke about knees I remember, one of those groaner kid jokes we used to bore folks.
The joke went something like this: “When the boy broke his knee, where did he go to get a new one? At the butcher shop, where they sell ‘kid’ knees."
Many of us are looking for new knees these days and it is not at the butcher shop.
Nowadays, my knees hurt a lot, so I think about them non-stop.
You, too, huh?
Knees are on our minds continually with only shoulders and hips vying for first in our growing list of aging maladies.
Knees are in our thoughts no matter what else we are doing.
Just listen to any group of folks over the age of 50, and you will hear talk of knees--painful, catching, grinding, giving-way knees.
“Before my knees went bad” or “gotta a bad knee, sorry can’t lift heavy things anymore” or “got a bad knee now so I have to sit behind a desk and do paperwork” or “can’t do stairs, have to look for an elevator.”
I do not care if you are at the opera, church, the symphony, a ballgame, a picnic, NASCAR, or the lake. We Boomers are talking and complaining a lot about our knees.
Even President George W. Bush has bad knees. He, of an impossibly low heart rate and preference for long mountain-bike rides that leave Secret Service agents behind and dropping like flies, has worn-out knees.
As a generation of very active people, when did our knees go this bad?
How did this collective health trend happen?
I played basketball in high school like many of you. Some of us played baseball, football, and volleyball and many of us roller-skated. Few of us came in contact with soccer in the 50’s and 60’s, but if we did it would have destroyed our knees, too.
Your knees may still be shot anyway even if you did not play sports.
Aging, wear and tear, too much weight, falls, car wrecks, and any number of other causes or calamities will finish off your knees.
Rare it is to hear about Baby Boomers who have perfectly healthy, wonderfully strong, and vital knees.
Makes me mad when I encounter one of them, too.
At least, that does not happen often.
Arthritis Today magazine says more than 21 million people have osteoarthritis (OA) and an overwhelming number of those have it in their knees. Judith Horstman writes in her article, “When knees go bad”, sore knees are the reason for almost 11 million doctor visits a year.” She adds that the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons says that 97 percent of joint replacement surgeries are due to OA.
“There’s an epidemic of knee OA out there, and it’s taking a tremendous toll,” says William J. Arnold, MD, a Chicago-based rheumatologist who specializes in new OA and cartilage replacement.
I, for one, have found a solution for aching knees after sitting too long in one position, i.e. at the computer.
When I was a young reporter I was fascinated with Ernest Hemingway. Once while on a tour of the Kansas City Star where Hemingway worked decades ago, I asked to see his desk. I had heard the rumor that he wrote standing up, never sitting down until his story was finished.
I know exactly why.
He wasn’t quirky and eccentric.
Hemingway simply must have had bad knees!
I am following his lead and write standing up just like he did. I do this, however, at the great risk of being laughed at by my nearly grown kids. They cannot understand why knees hurt after long bouts sitting at the computer.
These same kids had better be nice and not laugh at the infirmities of aging.
I will let them help me out of the car some, when after a long ride, my stiff joints will not move, but they had better not patronize me.
Their day will come. I may be 90 with my brand new knee replacements, but I will be bounding up and down the stairs and I will be laughing at them and their aging, painful, and stiffening knees.
We will see who is standing then?
