ZAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH

These are the Creepy Back Stairs in my dorm. I hate using them. They are creepy.
Mostly because of the cage. It's to keep people from throwing themselves/falling down the middle of the stairwell and dying. I know this, because it is talked about a lot in The Time Traveler's Wife (novel).

I went to see Dr. Grove today, who I really like. He's one of the orthopedic physicians for Marquette's Teams (I've taken notes for him lots of times during evaluations in the training room - so I know him fairly well) and he looked at my knee. It was very nice to be able to talk to someone using terms like lateral patella, tibial tuberosity, vastus medialus oblique, iliotibial band, condromalacia, and joint line and have him completely understand what I am talking about. The diagnosis was my patella (kneecap) is indeed not tracking properly, but not as bad as I originally thought, and not because of weakness in my quad muscle. It is actually due to complete weakness in the Gluteus Minimus, which is a muscle on the outside of your HIP (pelvis). Oh kinetic chain, how I love thee.
But! This is good news. Muscle weakness is easy to fix. I was worried that there would be something wrong with me structurally, which you can't fix without surgery. So Dr. Grove gave me some exercises to do, for my hips as well as my core, because everyone needs a stronger core. I'm not to run for three weeks. THREE WEEKS! (I will surely go mad by then). But the way he put it: "I don't say 'don't run' lightly, especially when I know how much you enjoy it," somehow calmed me down a little bit. And he's confident that even with the break the Provo Half Marathon shouldn't be a problem come August.

However. If the pain doesn't go away, or at least start to get better, after three weeks of strengthening and not running, the next step is an MRI.
I very much do not want to get an MRI. Especially here where my parents are not around to deal with insurance/billing. I certainly cannot afford a $1500 MRI if insurance decides not to pay for some reason and I would have no idea how to handle that. I guess I should know, for future reference, but as How I Met Your Mother has taught me: Let future Michelle deal with it.