Your kneecap is a sesamoid bone. There are a couple more under your big toe joint, the joint that turns into a bunion if you aren’t lucky; sesamoids are kind of like the block to your tendon’s tackle, reinforcers that help modulate heavy or sustained loads. The ones I have mentioned come standard with the model but actually they can arise anywhere and if you punish your body enough here or there, you will get them. Massage therapists come to expect them, unless we are exclusively doing the kind of ethereal energy work that I am way too crude and ruthless to tune into.
They pop up in my extensor tendons now and then. Sometimes they resorb, possibly because I change my work habits. Today I noticed I had grown a beaut in the tendon of my left ring finger, big enough that it feels a tiny bit bizarre when I flex at the metacarpophalangeal joint, like a friendship bead is tunnelling under the skin of my hand.
I think I should name it. Suggestions?
Good lord! I had no idea they could develop in a spot like that! Thanks for the education.
One of my best mentors at massage school had a beaut in her thumb tendon. I could tell when I saw it that it was my fate.
El Topo.
???
The Mole.
That was the name of a rather comic villain on “The Man From UNCLE.” Hm.
Oh god, that looks creepy as hell!
I’ll try not to be too scary in future…
I remember I had a classmate who could do that as well.
She kept moving it on purpose!
Thank god she got it removed or something.
No point doing that. It’s there to strengthen the tendon. The body knows what it’s doing.
But not everyone has it, right?
Why do some have it, and some dont?
In my case, it’s from using my hands for deep-muscle massage four to five hours every day. I imagine you see this kind of thing on anyone who manages heavy loads for a long time.
Mount Back-and Forth?
The mountain coming to Mohammed, sort of?
MohammedA, come on, be bold.
Well if I was going to go all Islamo-feminist I would say Aisha.
And my best idea was Pearl…
I kind of like that too, short and sweet.