Before my eyes began failing, I had already become well-practiced in the process of degeneration, procedure, and recovery for a decade. It was another of my congenital disabilities, a pair of bipartite patellae, where the saga of my surgeries began. A dislocated knee during 7th-grade football tryouts tipped us off to the fact that the kneecap had never appropriately fused; instead, it remained two separate bones. Most importantly, as I would mythologize later, I beat the kid next to me on the track, which had just enough of a dip in it to pop my kneecap out.
Ten years ago, while moving a 7-foot couch into my upstairs apartment, something began to break down in my left knee. The process of removing a pair of posts on the screened-in porch was intensive. Before we got the massive piece of furniture through the kitchen, my knee began to swell to the size of a large grapefruit, and I remained on the couch for the next six weeks.
Most of the next year was spent nursing the knee before I finally sought an orthopedic surgeon nearby to check it out. When the first x-rays came back, I commented about how the smaller chunk looked like a ship leaving the harbor of the more substantial piece. The most significant concern about removing the wayward bone for the surgeon was the 7-inch incision required. I waived off any issues about scars, but he wasn’t sure the procedure was necessary, choosing instead to do a basic arthroscopic clean-up of the damage.
Almost immediately after the first surgery, it became apparent more work was required. The first procedure had cleaned up the wreckage but did nothing to hinder the patella’s further separation. When I returned with a nearly melon-sized knee, the surgeon showed me a series of rather intimate pictures as evidence of how nicely he had cleaned out the joint. Of course, these were images taken during the procedure and did nothing to explain my body’s extreme reaction. Throughout this frustratingly idle process, I was limited to reading and watching movies, which allowed my usual quote harvesting to intensify and acted as a welcome distraction from the pain.
After three frustrating meetings with my surgeon, I tracked down Dr. Barbara Bergin – the orthopedic surgeon who had diagnosed the malady twenty years earlier. Our visits became frequent because my insurance refused another surgery for nine months, my only recourse was Hydrocodone and regular draining of fluid build-up. During this period, I learned about her trading a cowboy riding lessons for hand surgery, which led to competitive cut riding, and, eventually, a novel she based around her experiences. I rarely left the house by this point, because I needed the assistance of a cane; therefore, my interpersonal skills deteriorated with each passing month.
Between the first and second surgeries, I had signed on to develop story ideas for an upstart production company. However, hovering somewhere between pain and painkillers left my mind lacking clarity, and I became increasingly challenging to be around. Emotionally frazzled, I left a trail of questionable choices and confused dealings as I lived in a perpetual state of limbo. Unsurprisingly, I was giddy as a schoolchild when Dr. Bergin finally asked, “Are you ready for me to pull that thing out yet?” A month later, I was in my gown, learning about my cocktail of anesthesia as they wheeled me into the OR.
I had asked the nurses if I could have the extracted chunk of my knee cap, and it was there when I awoke in a cup on the table. That first laugh was a very long time coming — almost like seeing a defeated adversary – the conclusion of the nightmare saw a return of a more friendly version of myself. Many of my friends asked to see the bone, which I kept in the freezer; I would always indulge them by pulling it from the fridge and saying, “You can touch it if you want.”
Those three years initiated a period of personal transformation driven by the breaking down of my body. In my early 30s, I expected to spread out and challenge myself, but instead, I was comparing notes with my mother about her knee replacements and researching pain management. A large percentage of my energy was spent doing mental health upkeep. At times, I could trick myself by focusing like a sommelier on ways to describe the various types of pain stimulating my central nervous system. At times, it was as though the pain’s intensity overwhelmed my visual field, where I would see blobs of color. Tracing the dynamism of the pain along the nerve could have jagged electrical bolts or feel heavy and sludgy like lava.
With each recovery came a renewed sense of vigor, I bought a stationary bike to help me get back in shape. With each new round of swelling – when gravity and mobility become far more adversarial – life moved towards an Olympic level of absurdity. I am the sort of person who refuses assistance as a way of life; many of my falls, tumbles, close calls, and near misses were due to an irrational pigheadedness. But I found it helped to laugh as often as possible upon unintentionally finding the floor.
Only one procedure was needed to care for the issues in the right knee. For all three of the knee surgeries, I lived upstairs in an old house, which meant I was regularly hopping up and down. My bedroom was in a loft in a converted stairwell, which led to a few tumbles. As a result, my lower back and neck had taking beatings as well. Hobbled for over two years, the limping had awakened a big toe pulverized years earlier, and soon after that same toe would become an ordeal all its own.
For more than three years, everything revolved around my problematic patellae, and it became clear I was missing out on a great deal of life. My friends were getting married, having children, and starting businesses while I was a moody shell of my former self. At times I found myself feeling despondent, but for all that was lost, I have gained the appreciation of simple glories. Like the moment you successfully regain a normal gait and return to walking without limitation after not knowing if such a thing were possible.
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