Knee Envy

It is 7:50 a.m. I wait for Hubby-dear in the foyer of a medical professional building. I sit in a wheel chair that magically appeared when we drove up.

I watch the people approach the automatic doors and walk in. So cavalier. Talking on the cell phone. Trusting their legs and feet.  Looking one way and walking in another direction. Texting. Eating their breakfast taquitos. Loaded down with their Vera Bradley lunch bags and other bags that I don't recognize.  Walking unaware. Skinny jeans with strappy summer sandals. Slip-on clogs. Neon color running shoes. Sensible shoes out of my reach.

I see the faces. They think about their agenda for the day. They think about the problems they left at home. They think about the bad news they heard on CNN.

None think about their knee.

None are awestruck with the engineering of three leg bones connecting behind a small saucer-shaped bone called the patella. None marvel at the design of movement and balance. None wonder over the strength of the joints to sustain the 175 pounds of human flesh. The bending of the leg is a wonder.

I have knee envy.

I Love My Shoe

Last night I left my shoe by the recliner in the den. I just woke up and  I must go from my bed to the bathroom barefoot. I am thinking about objects on the floor and focusing on not stubbing my toe. A tennis shoe on my one "good" foot adds stability.  Not that my other foot is "bad", it simply is no good for walking at the moment.

I have new admiration for my shoe. A closed shoe protects me from running into things. My entire weight is on one foot. If I stub my toe I don't have the other foot to compensate. A shoe has increased in value and importance in my life. The rubber sole helps me grip the floor and not slip. A shoe with  good arch support helps my foot hold all the extra weight it is now required to hold.  My crutches and my one shoe are my friends.

A shoe is no longer an accessory. I now view shoes  like my husband views his shoes, on the merits of functionality.

A New Dance

Over the last fourteen days I took a fall. Rode in an ambulance twice. Spent two different days in two different ER's and one day in an out-patient OR. Lots of pain and lots of pain meds. My life took a turn. Here's my story.

Pain is a strange experience. Medical people ask you "On a scale of 1-10 with 10 being the worst pain you've ever felt, what level of pain would you say you are at right now?"

I fell on my knee onto a concrete surface. My entire weight fell onto my left patella. After rescuing the iPad from the water, I grabbed my knee and could feel the pieces. When the EMT guy asked me about my pain level I thought about different pains in life and determined that this was a mere 6. My face said otherwise. They have a little 1-10 chart with a smiley face progressing to a grimacing face.  My face said 10.

I was out-of-state when I fell. Far from home, I received wonderful care. The EMT guys, the ER staff and the radiologist were all kind and took good care of me. I am thankful.

We decided to drive on home. I was drugged up and my knee was stabilized in a brace. Nauseous and loopy and exhausted my husband and I began to learn the first steps to a new dance. This dance routine is called Get-in-the-car. Being in pain with one none-working leg takes getting-in-the-car  to a whole new level.

Hubby-dear and I have learned many things on this new dance routine. One thing we learned is that when the Nurse Practitioner at the ER in Tennessee writes a prescription for pain medication, the Walgreen's in Arkansas cannot honor it. We  crossed back over the Mississippi and found a Walgreen's in Tennessee.

Heroic hubby-dear drove the many miles back to our Texas home. At 2:30 a.m., we practiced more steps to our dance routine called Get-out-of-the car. Hugging and cheering me on, hubby-dear managed to get wobbly me and my crutches into bed.