Monday, July 11, 2011

My Stupid Leg


leg by Frits Ahlefeldt

I have a stupid leg; my right one.

It used to be my left one, but now, like I said, it’s my right.

Not that my other body parts are all that bright either, but this right leg has been giving me trouble for about three months now.

It just started one morning when I jumped out of bed with my usual enthusiasm, looking forward to another day of feeding the cows and milking the chickens. But there was something weird going on behind my right knee. 
I had something similar to this a couple of years ago in my aforementioned, once troublesome, left knee…and eventually it cleared up.  About a year’s worth of eventual-ies (I drive the spell check crazy on this thing sometimes. Right now it’s actually giving me dirty looks).

So, anyway, I wasn’t all that concerned, as long as I could still walk on it fairly well, and as long as I could still go on my long “creative” walk through the woods…or my version of woods, around here.

So off I went and four miles later…well...it was a little more difficult to walk. 

And then I recalled that from last time.

“Go to a doctor and see what’ going on!” was what I heard from anyone who saw me suddenly walking around like Ratso Rizzo in "Midnight Cowboy".

“I’m fine…” I would protest.  “I know this will clear up on its own. Doctors are for chumps.”

So about a thousand Aleve’s and several days later it was still bothering me, and I’m still Ratso-ing around (The spell check actually just spit at me). So I’m thinking maybe I should call the doc and get an MRI or something.  Maybe my anterior posterior crucified ligament thingies are tied in knots or something. 

But still I delay…because…well, because I’m me.
So Janey calls—you remember Janey—and is telling me something about her Golden Retriever, Masie— which is not her real name, because the dog doesn’t want the world wide attention this will bring to her crate—digging all sorts of holes in the backyard, but she can’t bear to stop her because she is so cute and adorable, and….

And as I’m walking down the stairs, suggesting that perhaps the solution would be to turn her backyard into a miniature golf course, since she already has the holes…something goes POP, in the back of my leg and I fall back on the stairs.
YOWSER” I cry, which actually sounded like something quite different when it came out of my mouth.

What happened?” Janey shouts thru the phone…being as she was not here to shout in person.

I think I just blew out my knee”, I replied. “I just heard a big POP and it felt like someone shot me in the back of my knee!”

You ass (again, I am an ass) call the “stinkin” doctor!” Janey shouts at me, although “stinkin” sounded like something very different when she said it.

So, not wanting to be an ass, I did
And then my leg immediately started feeling better.

Damn! This is one “stinkin” good doctor!” I said to no one in particular, since there was no one else in particular here.

So I called Z and told her what happened, and after she too got through calling me an ass, she also, told me to go to the doctor’s anyway and find out what’s going on.

So I did.

What you need to know is, I don’t go to the doctor’s unless I absolutely have to.

I don’t know why. Mostly because I don’t like to make appointments…for anything.

Haircuts, dentists, hookers…or even to get my oil changed. 

Okay…I’m just kidding about the hookers. I always make an appointment for the hookers...bada boom! But seriously folks…I’m here all week….

But I digress…
So after a short wait in the hi tech orthopedic waiting area, watching all the amazing things they can do with all kinds of hi tech joint replacements, I’m wondering if I should just have all my joints removed and replaced with this new hi tech titanium whatchamacallit stuff, which I believe, is also used to make the amazing Ginsu knives. 

In fact if you get two joints replaced at once, you’ll receive not one set of knives, but three.  PLUS if you sign up right now, you’ll also receive the amazing Ginsu cheese grater and hip replacement, a $24 million dollar value, all for the amazing low low price of $19.95!
So who could resist.

But then they called me into “wait” some more in the exam room, and ruined all my fun.


Sitting there I pick up the anatomically correct knee joint model and start to examine it; self-diagnosing as it were.

Yep, there it is… a knee badly in need of skin!” I decided.

Then the doc barges in, again ruining my fun, and proceeds to ask me a bunch of questions.

So I tell him the facts; nothing but the facts…but left out the part about Masie and the prospect of  building a miniature golf course in Janey’s backyard, since I don’t think it’s relevant, nor, I’m sure, do you.

The doc asks me what I do for exercise, and I tell him… I walk A LOT.  And then he asks me if walking is my only “sport”?  So I feel a little intimidated and tell him “no… I also play rugby, polo, and cliff dive in Acapulco during the winter”.
The doc says, “uhm hmmm”…as if he never heard a word I said, and proceeds to have me lay back on the table where he begins twisting and turning, bending and unbending, both my knees, this way and that, that way and this…until I start to feel bad because nothing seems to hurt.  

I feel as if I’m disappointing the doc. 

And it’s starting to look like I won’t have any chance at the knives.
I say to the doc, “Now I feel stupid. You think I’m crazy don’t you”?
And he says, “No, I think I know what it is, but let’s take an X-ray and run up the bill as much as much as we can.”
Well, he actually didn’t say that last part, but that’s what I heard.
So I get my X-ray and eventually the doc comes back and shows them to me and tells me I have the knee of an 18 year old and I better….
But I suppose you’ve heard that one before.
So, while all the working parts of my knee are fine and dandy, it turns out I have what’s called a Baker’s Cyst that just apears for no apparent reason, and can cause some discomfort while it’s there but eventually will go away on its own…but will probably come back whenever it feels like it. 
Sort of like my in-laws.
So, it did get better…for a while. And then it came back…for a while. And now it feels like it is in the front of my knee instead of the back of my knee…sometimes...for a while.

And sometimes I don’t feel anything at all. Until I twist the wrong way, and then it’s back to Midnight Cowboy…banging on the hoods of cars, shouting “I’m walking here, I’m walking here!” which annoys my next door neighbor to no end.
But still I walk…every day. Sometimes 4 miles, sometimes 8. 
Stupid leg or not….










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1 comment:

  1. How I miss Ratzo! What a movie that was too. remember them finally on the bus to Florida and here comes the strains of Everybody's Talkin at Me? Ah!
    Take care of that leg fool!

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