My knee injury
Photo by Jason Bardales on Unsplash
my daily haiku from 2.10.26:
i injured my knee
now i can’t seem to write
a haiku. it’s okay?
I’ve never hurt my knee before. But — come to think of it — I have injured my knees before and here’s a short list.
The most memorable of the many skinned knees during my childhood happened during PE class in autumn of 5th grade. We’d just moved to Woodbridge, Virginia — a suburb of Washington DC and a very different place than where I’d gone to school in grades 1 to 4. (That had been in Grundy, Virginia. A coal-mining town with a grade school with standards that matched its relative poverty and lack of progress. What’s germane here is that — before moving to Woodbridge — I’d never played kickball before and so had no clue as to the rules.) I was (unknowingly) trying to steal home from third base when a mean boy threw the ball at my running feet. I tripped and went sprawling. I was wearing white tights and ended up going home with two brown-bloody knees. The scabs were epic and I remember picking at them and letting them regrow again and again for the rest of the semester, into the holidays and even into the spring.
I gave myself varicose veins inside my knees by wearing rubber bands in 8th and 9th grades to hold my knee socks up. I was so skinny and the socks so unelasticized that they would fall down around my ankles by second period of the day. The beauty standard was set by several of my peers who were cheerleaders. They all had shapely legs and calves — unlike my toothpicks — that made their kneesocks look stunning. (Ergo the rubber bands.)
I decided to take up jogging during my junior year at Virginia Commonwealth University. It was a summer-like autumn and one bright morning I suited up in my running shoes and running shorts and bounced down the six steps of my apartment building on The Boulevard. I took an immediate right, started running along the sidewalk and within 10 seconds had tripped and fallen to the pavement, scraping one knee raw. To add insult to injury, a fully occupied school bus just happened to be stopped at a stoplight and all the kids on my side of the bus had seen me go down. Laughter poured from the open windows as I attempted to reclaim my dignity. That was pretty much the end of my running career.
Just a few months ago I slammed my knee against a low table edge and watched as the vein that crosses my kneecap filled blue with blood. It hasn’t gone down since.
On January 26th I was skiing in Sun Valley and had become unnerved by terrain that was a lot more challenging than I remembered from my days of skiing there in the early 80s. The easiest route down — from where we’d gotten oursleves on Baldy — required that I “drop” down a steep face for maybe 50 feet before the slope became less daunting. There was no reason I couldn’t manage it, with a bit of care. (As a perpetual advanced beginner, I know how to stay “in control.”) But my care turned to paralyzing over-caution and I was doing everything wrong that you can do — backseating, weighting onto the inside ski, leaning uphill, not noticing where my arms were. Next thing I knew I was having what they call a “yard sale” fall. The right, downhill ski stayed on (how and why I’m not sure). The left ski twisted off but its tip jammed under my left arm. Both poles went flying. I slid downhill head first on my back, eyes toward the sky, for what felt like forever. (I had a vague notion that there was plenty of width to the run, without trees or a cliff in my way; though I wasn’t totally sure.) K came to my rescue, along with a few concerned (amused?) onlookers. I regained my composure (if not my dignity — THAT was irretrievable) and kept on skiing. I HAD to keep on skiing because it was a lonnnnnng way down to the bottom. Only when I’d gotten to the base and taken off my skis did I notice how bad my left knee felt. Turns out I have a sprained MCL. I can’t even tell you what MCL stands for; that’s how unfamiliar with knee trouble I am. But I’m now learning all about it. Learning about how to strengthen and repair. Learning how not to move so it doesn’t hurt. Learning that one little boo boo can send ripples throughout one’s body (left quad, both hamstrings, left foot, right hip, etc.) Learning not to take for granted the strength and well being of my body and, in particular, my left knee. Learning to be grateful that it wasn’t worse. Yes, it’s a long road ahead to get back to some semblance of normal, but I trust there’s some silver lining in this. Maybe it’s that I don’t “have” to ski the rest of the season?
