Aches and pains

Last week, I managed to screw up my knee. Brian blames my love of improper footwear for my ongoing orthopedic challenges.

I do, after all, favor flip flops for most of the year. And there have been occasions where they, combined with a couple of martinis, have done me a mischief in the back garden.

And I did spend most of the late 80s and early 90s tripping around in flippy Brutini loafers in a variety of Miami Vice-inspired hues.

Many was the time I had to collect my alcoholic co-worker at the local bar in Tampa, scraping him off the bar, getting him into the car and then from the car into his townhouse.

This is not always easily accomplished in slick Italian leather soles and he did end up in a few bushes and was once actually dropped through a window as my feet shot out from under me.

But I digress.

This is also the same knee I damaged skiing a few years ago in Vermont. I was skiing Smuggler's Notch in northern Vermont when I performed what is known among the ski community as "a yard sale." Essentially, that means "everything goes."

As I bounced and flipped and flopped head over heels down the slope in a YouTube worthy display of unintentional gymnastics for the mobility challenged - strewing hat, goggles, gloves, you name it - the people on the ski lift overhead were sufficiently horrified enough to yell down at me when I had finally landed against a kind and forgiving snowbank, "Oh my GOD - don't move! Don't move!!"

I was conscious but couldn't feel my right leg below the knee. A fellow skier who had witnessed the debacle stopped to make sure I was okay. He said he would send the ski patrol up for me.

So, I dragged myself over to the side far enough so as to not become a hazard to other skiers. And I began to ponder what life in a wheelchair would be like - how my brief but glorious skiing career had been - all while waiting for my young, Nordic ski patrol saviour to appear on his Arctic Cat to whisk me down the hill where caring hands and hot cocoa were doubtlessly waiting for me.

A few minutes later my saviour arrived in the form of a tall, lanky - and I suspect anorexic - old hippie on skis. Behind him he trailed a rustic looking travois of some sort - looking as if it were made of leather thongs and rancid beaver corpse tails.

My immediate and horrified response was "OH HELL NO."

I had images of being at the mercy of this man and his flimsy backwoods balsa wood contraption, lying on my back, my massive 6'2' frame trussed up like an Indian papoose as we race at breakneck speeds down the mountain. All my fantasies of waving,prom-queen like, at the other skiers as I clasped the thin, muscular waist of my rescuer with the other - waving, waving from the back of his roaring snowmobile were shattered.

I found the strength to stand - and was able to feel my leg again. It was sore, sure, but I could feel it.

I thanked the patrolman and assured him I would be able to ski the rest of the way down the mountain. I collected my things and suited up and, having waited sufficiently long enough that no one who had seen me on the ground was still in the area - I began my way down the hill.

This was when I discovered that standing and having feeling back in your leg does not equal "Sports-Leg!!! YAHHHHH!!!!"

My pattern the rest of the way down the mountain consisted of this:

side turn
fall
side turn
fall
mini-mogul
fall
ice
fall
side turn
fall
angry squirrel
fall
air
fall

You get the picture.

Anyway, I was laid up for a few weeks with a torn muscle and a multiple sprained tendon-y things.

But back to the present...

The Homeland Security puppies have been digging what I can only surmise are anti-Al-Quaeda shelters all over our back yard. And it was into one of these last week that I inadvertently flip-flopped my way into.

The resulting inelegant fall can best be described as a half turn face plant with minor English counterclockwise.

So, it's been a long and painful week - walking is okay but bending the knee for long periods is an exercise in torture. The 80-mile drive to my office on the one day I went in this week was only slightly less painful than the return trip.

But this morning, something magical happened. As I changed position in bed in the wee hours, I felt something SNAP - and it actually felt like something locking back into the correct place.

The bad news is that hurt like a mother_____. I shrieked out, causing three domesticated animals to back flip Charlie Brown-style off the bed. And then I laid there and whimpered for a bit, cursing various deities, family members and a few co-workers.

That was 7 hours ago and I'm still waiting for the inflammation to wear down a bit to figure out if it was a good thing or a bad thing that happened there. The fact that I can sit at my desk for a half hour at a stretch gives me hope.

Until then, it's Advil and tea. Until the work day is over, of course.

Then we move to vodka.

Without the flip flops, of course.