"All I want for Christmas is a new Meniscus!" Part Unus.........(That's Latin for Part One)

Aging.
Can be challenging.
And difficult.
Sure beats the alternative which is, of course, being dead.
But sadly, the hardest thing about getting older is that your brain refuses to acknowledge the fact that you are not 19 anymore.
I always envision this teenage mentality peering out of my 58 year old eyes like a prisoner held captive muttering, "yeah, you can trim that 50 foot hedge by yourself!"
"Just do it!"
"You're amazing!"
Or.......

"Of course you can play soccer with this rowdy band of teenagers one third your age!"
"Excellent idea!"
"Brandish the wheelchair, Hopkins!"
This was apparently my driving force last year when I decided that my new puppies had piddled enough on the aging carpet in my office and that I would "pull it up."
All by myself.
Thus began a four day fiasco of cutting, tearing and gnashing of teeth.
This culminated with me hunkered over, one leg tucked under the other, methodically pulling carpet staples, cleaning and painting the entire floor by hand.
Long process.
Very unwise.
When it was all finished, after I unfolded my creaky frame, I noticed a small, unusual pain in my knee. 
Thus it began.
It started small at first.
Some mornings the inability to bend my knee enough to slip my foot inside my chonies.
Then you have to do that long-arm-toe-snag-aided-by-your-monkey-toes-on -the-good-leg-thing.
All very complicated.
Then noticing that walking around the block would make my knee throb like a big toe being smacked by a giant hammer in a cartoon.

Or getting into the car and having to lift my bad leg over the door jam like a dead weight spiral Honey baked ham.
Eventually I decided that I should probably investigate the problem and went to the doctor.
Now if you have an HMO and you need approval for surgery this process takes approximately four score and seven years to complete.
It starts with a visit to your primary care physician.
This is the person whose name is on your insurance card but who you have never laid eyes on.
Ever....
You could run over his body in the street and never recognize him.
Generally you are assigned to a Nurse Practitioner or an "NP"
This is Latin for, the person who does all of the doctors hard work but gets "No Pay"
Everyone of these people that I have ever met have been delightful, efficient and kind. 
Plus you get to see their actual face every time you go to the office.
First step is a referral for an x-ray of the offending body part.
These are great if you have a fracture the size of a Grand Canyon or something big and clunky rattling around inside your knee.
Like a marble.
For the more subtle junk these usually come back as "negative"
Next comes a referral for Physical Therapy.
This is Latin for "making you do stuff with your body that you couldn't do even before you were injured."
"Just take this giant rubber band and put it around your foot"
"Now pull it until it pops off, flies across the room and pokes that elderly gentleman’s eye out sitting over there in the wheelchair."
"Ma'am, you aren't doing it right!"
"No, you can't eat cookies while you are on the exercise bike!
I don't think they were sorry to see me finish my stint there.
It didn't help that I had to wear shorts.

With the whiteness of my milky flesh they all had to don sunglasses to prevent retinal damage.
All in all these folks do a great, albeit painful job.
My friend calls them "physical terrorists."
When they decided they couldn’t humiliate me any further they ordered an MRI.
After another phone call to the NP, I obtained permission for one of these.
MRI is Latin for "Mighty Roaring Tube They Put You Inside Of."
Not for the faint of heart.
Big, white, cylindrical contraption that resembles a morgue drawer, only much noisier.

Not that I have never been in a morgue drawer but I’m assuming.
For my test they asked me to lie down on this sliding platform and asked me what kind of music I liked.
How sweet, a personal touch!
I soon discovered that this question determined the type of music they will pipe into the headset they place over your head. 
A headset you say?
Why is this?
That's because an MRI involves rolling your supine carcass into a claustrophobic tube which immediately produces sounds that would send a pack of coyotes into a frenzy.
Think of a cross between a jack hammer and a pneumatic lug nut drill.
And it seems to take FOREVER!!
During this seemingly endless process you keep getting headset encouragement from the MRI technicians who are back behind you in a sound proof booth playing checkers and eating pizza. 
"How are you feeling?"
"You are doing fantastic!"
This is Latin for, "the lady before you freaked out, yanked off her headset, tried to scratch our eyes out and ran away screaming, so you are doing way better than she did"
"Would you like a slice of pepperoni?"
Eventually the jack-hammering stopped and they freed me from the morgue drawer.
All in all a fun filled afternoon.
After the NP gets your MRI result they finally refer you to an orthopedic surgeon.
Its like miraculously getting into see The Wizard of Oz, or an audience with the Pope.
It's a big deal.
My ortho guy was a jokester which of course suited me just fine, and started out with, "Can you stand on one foot and hop up and down on your good leg?"
Piece of cake.
Doc, "Now can you do it on the other side?"
Me, "What?" "Are you a sadist?"
"That would be no, Marquis De Sade!"
Doc, "Oh, I was just kiddin', I use that as a diagnostic tool."
"The people who are not really in pain will follow the instructions perfectly!"
"The ones who are look at me like I'm nuts!
"I once had an elderly lady try to kick me with her good leg when I asked her that question."
I told you I loved this guy....

But that didn't keep me from yanking his tiny rubber mallet from his pocket and thwacking him between his bushy eyebrows.

“How does that feel, Jay Leno?”

“Just kiddin!”
Then he ambles to the cupboard and whips out his creepy plastic knee models to show me in living color how jacked up my knee really is.
Doc, "See this part of a normal knee?" 
"You don't have any of that." 
"And this part right here?"
"That’s called a Meniscus."

“That’s Latin for “weird little thing in your knee that hurts like heck if you tear carpet up by yourself for four days in your puppies favorite tinkle room.”
"Yours has tears in it!"
"Plus you have "Bakers Cysts"
These have nothing to do with making biscuits.
After all of his diagnostic fal-da-ra he looks at me and says, "So what do you want to do?"
Me..."Get a Subway sandwich and rent a movie?"
"Oh, about my knee!"
"I don't know, I'm not making the big bucks!"
Doc..."Well, we can do nothing and splint your knee up with Popsicle sticks and hope for the best." 
Ummm, no.
"Or we can do arthroscopic surgery on your Meniscus and repair it!"
"Yes!"
"It will probably be pretty painful and you will have to walk around with a Frankenstein leg for awhile and never shower." 
"Still yes!"
Hence the realization of just what lengths I will go to get time off from work.
Its sad to know that I would apparently saw off my big toe with a butter knife for the chance at a three day weekend.

"Okay doc, I've decided!"

"Let's do it!"

"Cuz all I want for Christmas is a new Meniscus!”

I'm just sayin.....