Kneecapped!

It began with a cat, of course. No, it didn’t. It started with an Arabian horse. Either way, it was the beginning of the end for my body.

(Technically, it started with a bucket of wood. At one time, I annoyed my back by carrying the wood up two flights of stairs, the other option being freezing to death. But what I didn’t realize at the time is that an annoyed back will never allow you to forget. But I digress.)

Anyway, there I was at the vet with a sick cat. I bent forward maybe 15 degrees to put the cat on the examining table. And my back did more than complain. It stabbed. (“How big was the cat?” asked everyone who heard the story. It was a normal, eight-pound cat. But I digress some more.)

That led to my first experience with back surgery. After trying unsuccessfully to ignore the pain and treat it with drugs, I had what was called a micro-laminectomy. Basically, they delved into the small of my back and scooped out little bits of bone from between the discs, or maybe bits of disc from between the bones. It helped.

Enter the Arabian horse. A friend owned it and offered to let me ride it. Bareback. I knew it was a dicey proposition with my back’s former lack of cooperation, but it was an Arabian horse, so I took a chance. Shortly thereafter came another round of stabbing and another micro-laminectomy. I was pronounced good to go, until, the surgeon said, I wanted a metal rod up my spine. I didn’t. (Favorite quote: “Bone on bone.”) So I gave up on horses, however Arabian they might be.

(Dan and I were talking the other night. He said, “There comes a time when you try to do something and realize, no, I can’t do that anymore.” I replied that I hadn’t had to try turning a cartwheel to realize I could no longer do it. “Not since the Arabian horse,” I said. He admitted that I had a point. But I digress again.)

But all that’s in the past. What I have to deal with now owes nothing to carrying wood, escorting cats to the vet, horseback riding, or back surgery. Now I’ve found that I’ve been kneecapped. And not by a Mafioso. By my own knees, which apparently I’ve had for far too many years.

A few years back, I told my doctor that my knees made crackling sounds when I climbed stairs. “Come back when they hurt,” he said. They did, and I did. After a little while fooling around with Tylenol and ointments, he decided I should have steroid shots in my knees. With a huge syringe and a long needle. (It actually didn’t hurt that much. There was just a weird sense of pressure inside my knees.)

I got a referral to another doctor who gave the steroid shots more frequently. (Favorite quote: “Bone on bone.”) “When they don’t work anymore, we’ll talk knee replacement,” he said. I think he meant the shots not working. Maybe he meant my knees.

I don’t particularly want to get bionic knees, but I also don’t want to keep limping and stumbling. Never mind a “Good Hair Day.” I’m satisfied when I have a “Good Knee Day.”