Injuries

I was woken up this morning by an intense pain in my right knee, otherwise known as my good knee. I have no idea what I might have done to it, but I suspect I may have bruised it somehow by walking into something (I can be clumsy like that).

I call my right knee my good knee because a couple years ago I injured my left one playing Ultimate Frisbee and eventually had little pieces taken out.

Ultimate Frisbee is a great sport. There's a lot of running and it's supposed to be non-contact. I played for a few years on a great team called "Smackdown!" back when I lived in Toronto. I loved that team, everyone on the team was a great person and we were getting pretty good by the time I left.

I think it was during my second year playing when I injured myself. I had a couple of friends watching the game, so I was playing a little more recklessly than usual and trying to show off.

Someone threw a high pass and I jumped to try and grab it. So did two large gentlemen from the opposing team. We collided in mid-air. One of the gentlemen hit my left leg above the knee, the other below it. Consequently my knee bent sideways, far exceeding design specifications.

I fell down in a heap and swore at the top of my lungs.

On the upside two of my more attractive female teammates helped me to the sidelines (this was well before I'd met SouthernKitten).

I lay for a while on the sidelines, convinced that I'd be fine after a few minutes and could finish the game. The league rep happened to be spectating and, glancing at his clipboard, noticed that I hadn't signed the league release waiver yet that season. I signed one while lying on my side, applying ice to my knee. I stayed in that position for the rest of the game.

By the end of the game, my knee was feeling no better. I was beginning to think that maybe I'd better seek medical attention. I couldn't put any weight on my left leg and my knee was absolutely killing me. However, my team had decided to go out for drinks after the game, so that'd have to wait. One has to have priorities. At the bar, when the waitress came by and asked if she could get anyone a drink my answer was an emphatic "Good God, yes!!!"

After spending an hour or so at the bar, Devilboy (who'd been one of the spectators and had accompanied us to the bar) dropped me off at the front door of the local hospital. What neither of us realized at the time was that the emergency room was on the other side. I hobbled in. It was after hours at this point, many doors were locked and very few people were around. I asked a janitor how to get to the ER. His directions involved going outside and going around the block. What must have been a powerful look of dismay crossed my face. I still couldn't put any weight on my left leg and that was a long way to hop. Noticing the dismay, and my lack of mobility, the janitor took pity on me. He fetched me a wheelchair and unlocked a couple doors, allowing me to wheel into the ER.

Once I got there I filled out at small forest worth of paperwork and sat down to wait.

Among the problems with an injured knee is that it doesn't bleed, it's not life threatening and if you're not moving it won't get any worse. At a glance all of these seem like good things, but in ER working on the triage system, it put me at the very bottom of the list.

So I waited.

And waited.

Then waited some more.

And just when I thought it couldn't possibly take any longer.... It did.

After spending seven or eight hours in pain and bored out of my skull in the emergency room, my name was finally called.

A doctor examined my knee, tested the range of motion and declared that I should stay off it for a couple of weeks, but that I should be fine. He even said I could go back to playing sports in three weeks or so, as long as I used a knee brace. Then he gave me crutches and an aspirin and sent me on my way. Aspirin. Well, that was eight hours well spent.

Spending a week on crutches makes you realize just how badly some things are designed for people whose mobility is limited, even temporarily. Because I still couldn't put any weight on my leg, little things suddenly became a lot more challenging. The two inch barrier I had to step over to get into my shower now seemed about four feet high. The security door at work seemed just plain fiendish. The procedure was to slide your passcard in and out of the slot, type in your four digit code on the keypad, then pull open the door. This was not at all hard most of the time, but took on a whole new level of complication with a crutch in each hand. But there were one or two benefits, too. I always got a seat on transit and people seemed very eager to fetch things for me.

After about a week I didn't need the crutches anymore and happily limped around without them.

A couple of weeks after that, I bought a neoprene knee brace and wandered onto the Ultimate Frisbee field again...

Tomorrow - Episode II in the saga of my knee: Bad Idea.