You kneed to hear this story
"Why does a chicken coop have two doors?"
Those were the first words coming out of my mouth back in June 2019 as I was coming out of anesthesia after having my knee replaced. It was my first operation where I was fully anesthesized since having my tonsils out in 1966. I don't know if I told a hilarious joke coming out of that anesthesia or not. Let's assume I did.
Anyway, back to the knee. My mother's side of the family is cursed with rotten knees. My mother has had both her's replaced, at least one of her brothers too. Lotsa cousins on that side have bad knees. And I do too.
My knees first started hurting in my 20s. In my 30s, I started training in Taekwondo pretty seriously when we lived in Tallahassee. Then we moved to Colorado and I couldn't find a TKD school I liked. I had a postdoc at the University of Colorado and they had a TKD club so I thought, what the hell, I can do that! I'm a black belt, after all.
At the first organizational meeting of the club in the Fall 2000 the organizer looked at me, among all the undergraduates and ask, "Wow, how old are you?" I took that with the magnaminity for which I am famed and replied, "I'm 38." Sure, I'm older than all this people in their 20s or, gulp, teens but what the hell. I'm a black belt!
You are ahead of me, I know. First workout, I heard a loud POP from my left knee and a lot of pain ensued. Naturally, I limped through the rest of the workout. After all, Perseverence! is one of the tenants of TKD. By the time I got home, the knee had swelled up like a grapefruit only with less vitamin C. Michele was not pleased with me for not coming home immediately. In retrospect, she might have had a point.
Went to the orthopedist the next day. Took an x-ray to make sure no bones were broken and when they came back and we had this conversation:
- Dr. Ortho: "Wow, you have a lot of arthritis in your knee for someone so young."
- Me: "I do?"
- Dr. Ortho: "Yes, do your knees hurt a lot and do they make crackling noises when you stand up?
- Me: "Yes." (while thinking, "Of course they do, ya dope, they are knees).
- Dr. Ortho: "That's arthritis. They aren't supposed to do that."
- Me: (Light slowly dawning), "Oh!" Dr. Ortho was convinced he knew what happened. He was sure I tore my meniscus. But, just to make sure he dotted the Ts and crossed the Is, and because I was lucky enough to have good insurance, he sent me for an MRI. And it wasn't the meniscus it all, but I had ruptured my popliteus tendon. Probably to Dr. Ortho's disappointment, there was no surgical solution to this injury and I was shunted off to physical therapy. And, then the knee just got worse and worse for twenty years until it got bad enough to be replaced.
In retrospect it was all worth it because I got to tell that hilarious joke when coming out of anesthesia.
Because if it had four doors, it would be a chicken sedan.
jpj stories by John Jackson is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0
