Wednesday, February 23, 2011

A knee

Greetings Bloggies.

As you know I am at a job in the Yukon.  I took it because I was short on money and did not do the best job of opening new options.  I have a roommate who is not nearly as fun as my last camp roommate.  This recent grad is too ernest, with a overly divergent sense of humor from mine to make great company.  That is a detour from what I came here to write.

I have said before that I must leave this line of work to get what I want out of life.  That still  stands, I want a home I am sleeping most nights and the stability to have pets.  I also want my body in its best shape.  The life style I have here does not promote that.  I spend most of my day standing, I manage to fit stretches into the work flow.  Standing is what I do.  I stand then lean over a box full of rock enter that into  a database and move along.  The peak activity is moving the boxes in and out of the shop.  That works out to walking 10 to 20m at the most often carrying something so awkward that there is no ergonomically sensible way to get it off the ground, the carrying requires odd twists of the hip and lower back.  My shoulders are feeling strained but what is feeling things tonight is my right knee.

Now this knee has a history, several years ago I will say winter of 07, and the worst case of it in december of 08,  I twisted it.  07 was the first time, not the worst time.  Now what I established after the fact and confirmed through a physician was that my leg had gotten weak and the tendons and other connective tissue lost some of the support of the muscles and they had to take more load.  

In Vancouver I would walk 3 to 4 km on an average day, 6 to 8 on others and ride a bike with some frequency, thats all I needed.  Under those conditions my knee seldom hurt and was resistant to torque loads.  Now I am two and half weeks with out a good walk a little more since I had a bike ride.  Add on lots of standing, lifting, from squats, and over the last few days my knee has been giving me a little pain.

Today, I made a quick movement that made me think, oh shit not again, I heard an unpleasant noise and briefly felt my knee cap feel as if it was in the wrong place.

I suppose that I could go to the gym, there is some gear in house, but most days, I work form 7am to 6 pm and add in at least half an hour of evening quick log and a general state of dehydration and tiredness, I usually say fuck it to the gym and veg out over the internet for the remainder of the evening.

2 comments:

Ien in the Kootenays said...

Damn! Another reason to look for something else. Is there demand for your GIS ability in Alberta?
Tim was talking about an 'overheated' labour market.

MrHobbit said...

The jobs market in this field is good right now. I will look when back in town.