Today’s visit to the orthopedist was sort of a “good news/bad news” kind of affair. The “good news” is that he confirmed my family doctor’s opinion that it’s nothing serious (that is, nothing potentially crippling or requiring surgery). He gave a tentative diagnosis of Patellofemoral Pain Syndrome, or “Runner’s Knee.” He said he’s pretty sure that’s what it is, but he had to qualify his opinion a bit due to the fact that my pregnancy limits our diagnostic and treatment options for the time being. The “bad news” is that there’s no magic pill and it looks like I’ll be stuck with this for a while. I’m not too upset about that, because it was what I expected. He did, however, say that there’s a fairly extensive physical therapy treatment regimen for this kind of pain, and he gave me a paper to give to my physical therapist later this week to let her know where we should go from here. All in all, it was a good appointment (not least because we were met at the clinic door by an elderly, overweight Rottweiler — more doctor’s offices ought to have dogs-in-residence), and I do feel better having something more concrete to google than “knee pain.”

On our way to the clinic this morning, Olof and I (and Tage, of course) made a stop to look for some new cross-country skis for Lydia, and as luck would have it we found a good pair for a decent price at the first place we looked. Now she’ll be skiing in style at school for the next couple of weeks. Lately she’s been reaping an unanticipated benefit of being the oldest child — two weeks ago she got new ice skates, even though her “old” pair was barely used, and today it was new skis, while Tage and future kids will have to content themselves with her hand-me-downs. I’ve been telling Olof that we’re going to have to have a lot of kids to make sure that all this equipment pays for itself in the long run.

Before we came home from town, we stopped off at MAX to have lunch, and much to my dismay and Olof’s amusement and consternation, we discovered that the low-carb craze has at last made it to Sweden. MAX now serves a bunless hamburger patty–for the same price as a regular hamburger–under the name “Low-Carb Burger.” And I had so hoped that my adopted homeland would resist the insanity.