So, my knee.. It's pretty much healed now, but I've been meaning to do a blog with the whole thing for a while now. The less I'm in ye accursed brace, the less I'm interested, and have come to the realization that (as with most blog posts around the world) most people don't care about the details much either.
So here they are. :)
In the line of duty for my (new? Not so new now, I guess) job, I run (wheel) to the bank to get cash to refill the office petty cash box. The amount in total for a month is often... petty. But I, and Johnnicakes, a higher up I've never seen or spoken directly to* likes if the numbers all return to standard at the end of a month. This is not always easy. My 8 hrs a week, plus the boss out of the office a lot on appointments can make it hard to get signatures for things sometimes. Also, I'm marginally incompetent. :P
On my 2nd month making this trip, I tripped. If by 'trip' you mean that something on my wheelchair decided that the little cutout from a pedestrian triangle-o-crossing to the road was too bumpy. My chair decided to stop. My body did not. Out I go.
I landed on all fours. My hands were quite happy to be in my wheeling gloves. Kevlar n everything. No problem there. My knees landed in a very organized way, and no damage was immediately apparent. I knew there'd be bruising though.
For my dignity, I righted myself to be seated on my knees. It was a very purposeful looking pose, one that a person might do if they didn't want to sit right on a floor. Huh. Okay, now what? I never got the hang of getting myself into the chair from the floor. Not with the resources available to me here. A couple teenage girls across the street were looking at me. Oh look, resources!
"Uhm, girls? Help, I guess!" They made their way across, and one held out her hand as if I could just take it and be helped to my feet. "Heh, thanks, but I think it's going to take a little more than that." They were a little at a loss. I mean.. I'm not BIG BIG, but I'm not a lightweight either. And let's face it- your typical teenage girl is no powerhouse.
That's when from out of nowhere, two grown-ups showed up. One said she was a nurse, the other was just a big guy with a sufficient level of burliness.
I was soon (if not gracefully) back in the chair. The nurse kind of wanted to call me an ambulance, but I felt okay. More or less. Still shaken all the heck from the fall, shaken enough to last most of the day. But I had work to do. On I went to the bank. On the way back to the office, the skies opened up on me. It wasn't long before I was drenched. I was taking my time to find the best, smoothest way around any little obstacle.When I was about a block and a half from the office, a happy homeless looking guy saw me and ducked around the corner. He was hiding, but VERY badly.WTF. Well, that's not a "I'm gonna mug you in broad daylight" kind of face. I made eye contact from under my hood, dripping wet.
He pops out and says "Oh! Sorry! I though you were uncle Pete! I was gonna surprise you!"
PETE?! For those of you unfamiliar with Maple Ridge's favorite homeless man, ole' Pete, is a quiet fellow who's been spotted shambling miles around. He's been in and out of the system, and most of the time when he's spotted, he's filthy as you could imagine, and often smelling as bad. A few years back, he lost his lower legs (as rumour tells us, frostbite) and is now in a wheelchair. But to the point-
I WAS MISTAKEN FOR PETE?!
Insult to injury anyone? I got back to the office, dripping down the hall, and I made my way to my wife's office, where she and a co-worker share space. They saw me and both burst out laughing. "YOU'RE DRENCHED!!!" Thanks ladies. I didn't care too much about being drenched, I was still trembling from my fall.
Fast forward to the next morning. Getting dressed, I noticed.. yeah, my knee was swollen really bad. No shock. I went on with my day. Next morning it was less swollen, so I figured everything was okay.
Fast forward to six days after the fall. I'm at GF strong for an unrelated meeting, when I tell the tale of the fall. The physio gal I was there to see wanted a peek at my knees.
"Oh. Oh wow, that's really swollen! And the colour's no good at all!"
"Colour?" I hadn't noticed much, it's pretty dark when I get dressed, I guess.
"I'm just going to see if there's a doctor handy. Yeah, Doctor K is just across the hall."
Um. Doctor K? Did he try to kill James bond once?
Doctor K and his deep, awesome russian accent come along. He takes one look at my knee. "Ack! When did this happen?""About a week ago."
"ACK! No, no, no, no, no."
Soon enough, he'd called 911 on me. Sure, I'd been feeling bad for that week, and I threw up in the driveway once, but the whole house was combating the flu!... yeah, so maybe masses of misdirected pain might have been causing some problems too. Before the ambulance came, DR. K had lined me up with various unrelated medical tests that he figured It had been too many years since I'd been checked out.
I spent that night in the ER, had 3 various scans done of me and my knee, and was given WCB forms and a knee brace. (They try not to give casts to people who can't feel the affected area to avoid undetected pressure sores) This brace was only meant to prevent my knee from straitening out completely. Yeah, it wasn't my knee exactly that was broken, it was the knee-end of my femur that had a fracture. And I had to wear that thing all the time, except for showers.
While I was being carted around for scans in a bed, I got to see many old familiar ceilings that I'd seen in 2001, when I was hit. I got to appreciate the tiling more, as I was not on a morphine IV this time.
Now I'm down to only having to use the brace 'when my knee is at higher risk'... which.. Yeah, I'll be sure to tell my football coach. So, I wear it to work. Meh.
That's not my knee brace, but it's close. It's definitely not my leg.----
*Johnnycakes. Johnny is the head beancounter of the organization. I fax things to him. I get emails form him asking for more. I was told his verbal english isn't so hot, and that I'm better off communicating via email. I'm pretty good with accents, but I find email better for businessy stuff anyway. The end result is that Johnny has become some sort of financial boogeyman.
Fill that form in right! Get that signature! Calculate the deductible correctly, or the wrath of Johnny shall descend upon us all! So where does the name 'Johnnicakes' come from? It's not his fault, he didn't EARN it for any reason. In the LBP levels based on Lifehack, I have a few silly spin-off levels focusing on tormenting the character "Jonathan Coll". His tormentor enjoys referring to him as Johnnicakes. As a result, whenever I utter the name "Johnny", "Cakes" slips out now and then. Thankfully, as I mentioned, I never see Johnny face to face.
Lest the wrath of Johnnicakes descend up us all.
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