So, I think everyone knows by now that my knee is... a bit of a problem. I don’t know if I’ve ever discussed it fully here. When I was 17, I had a dizzy spell on the stairs, swayed back and forth, caught myself with both hands by the railing on one side and the wall on the other, did not fall, and continued walking to the bottom of the stairs into the kitchen. Sat down, and had a what is by now familiar stabbing pain. Fast forward to several visits to my family doctor, which resulted in a referral to an orthopaedic surgeon. He gave me a shot of steroids after giving me a lie that it wouldn’t hurt, and instead of walking home I had to call for a drive, and when I was dropped off in front of my house, I was literally crawling on the ground, bawling, by the time I got to the back door. Some time after that, he performed a scope on the knee in order to cut some tension on the outside front of the thigh, as my problem was that my kneecap pulls to the side and my quadricep (the muscle on the inside front of the thigh) was not working hard enough to pull it back. So, scope, cut, crutches, physiotherapy for weeks and weeks.

Limp, limp, limp through life.

I have to admit my fault here. When I stopped going to physiotherapy, I stopped doing physiotherapy. I am a lazy sumbitch and this is one of many times in which I sabotaged my health. And I knew I was doing it. I hate watching myself make bad choices and yet I do it often.

I have had many near-panic attacks that I will never be able to run, jump, kneel, dance or even walk for the rest of my life. Eventually, over the past six or seven years, I’ve worked up to a walk without a limp to a certain point. I can even dance if I wear really good shoes and take frequent rests. The panic (mostly) subsided. I have had an inordinate number of accidents in which my knee slammed violently into something else - walls, beds, desks, the dash of my car - and they’re major setbacks for a day or so, but then it’s back to normal - or what passes for normal to me. As I’ve said before, I can apparently withstand much more pain than I believe myself able to. In the past year, I’ve walked quite a bit, including to work and back every day, shine, rain or blizzard, with only the slightest twinge if I’m in the mall too long.

My knee may never have been right, but this past Friday, something went horribly, horribly wrong. I hadn’t walked any further than usual. I was sitting and lounging at Shauna’s, and probably not paying attention to my knee. I walked into the kitchen, and my seat got stolen. I came back, stepped one foot over a pile of stuff and left the bad one on the other side, and leaned about a foot back onto the wall with the end of the couch in front of me. I was standing like that for about five minutes when I got a twinge in my bad knee, so I shoved myself up and out with the good one, twisting on the bad one to get clear of the couch, and then I very nearly fell over with the pain. Not an ache, which is what normally happens, but a sharp, new, pain.

I had to go home. I rested it and put a heat pack on it, which eased it a bit. Six days later, I’m still limping. I’ve been getting drives to work and walking slowly home so as not to baby the damn thing into atrophy and yet not overwork it. The first day, I was 3/4 of the way home when I got a pain. I stopped, stretched it a bit, and kept going. 4-5 steps later, same thing. 4-5 steps after that, it happened again. All the rest of the way home. I can’t get comfortable in my chair either at work or at home (and they’ve both been good chairs), the rest of my body is out of alignment, I can’t move around well enough to tidy up my apartment or even really cook supper.

Two days ago, I looked up the phone number of the surgeon who’d operated on my knee. Yesterday, I looked at it all day. Today, I called.

Me, speaking really quickly so as not to waste the secretary’s time: Hi, I was a patient of Dr.------’s about six or seven years ago. He operated on my knee, and it’s been mostly ok but this week something went really wrong. I was wondering if he could see me again, please?

Secretary, briskly but very patiently: You’ll need a referral if it’s been more than a year.

Me, determined to get in: My doctor just had a heart attack, she’s off sick indefinitely.

Secretary: You still need a referral.

Me: How do I get a referral, then?

Secretary: Either outpatients or a walk-in clinic.

Me, crestfallen: There’s a walk-in clinic in your building, isn’t there? [on the route between home and work]

Secretary: Yes, but I don’t know anything about that.

Me: Ok. Thank you very much.

Secretary: Click.

Fuck. Fuckety-fuck fuck fuck. Outpatients around here is notoriously awful. Hours and hours and HOURS of waiting. It’ll be an awful ordeal with this knee. The walk-in clinic is iffy, as well. Fuckfuckfuck.

And also: FUCK.

. . .

I’m going to phone my doctor’s office in a bit. The secretary is there after lunch every day, and she might be able to get the fill-in doctor to get me a referral. I hope I don’t have to go see him, but at least it’ll be better than fucking outpatients.

« I forget | Main | It's not my week, really. »