on the bench due to injury...

i used to have a reputation (of sorts) for being accident-prone. this was mostly when i was a kid and i got overly exuberant and my reach overstretched my grasp. no, strike that. my reach has ALWAY overstretched my grasp. it's just that when i was a kid it tended to lead to bloodletting. usually mine. it's led me to a fairly blase attitude towards injuring myself. a lot of the time i just don't care. "it's only pain," has become my common response, "it doesn't really hurt that much." every once in a while i'll get called on it - "You just went dead-white. Go sit down!" was what I got yesterday, at which point my walking stick and i were sent packing back to the couch.

yeah, it's true. in my late twenties i've become the proud owner of a walking stick. it's been a long time coming, and i should have gotten one the last time i did myself an injury which prevented me from walking unaided. i had alternatives available to me at time (previous involvement in martial arts means I have an impressive collection of long sticks i can lean on when necessary) and i healed up before it got too bad.

it's my own damn fault, although in my defence: i DID land on what was, 2 seconds previously, my GOOD leg. unfortunately my right knee decided it was sick of being the Good Knee and grabbed the title of Bad Knee quite conclusively. the point i'm refusing to, in any rush, get to is that since lunch time on friday my world has been a symphony of pain and agony, with occasional sets played by Karnivool and Bloc Party. i landed on it poorly, and it bent to the right rather than back. this sucked, and instead of hitting the floor and staying there i rolled, came back up onto feet which would no longer support me and landed back on my face. oh well...

still, due to the wonders of the 21st century i have a neoprene knee brace which keeps everything where it should be, and a stick which assists me with... well, walking, but also with retrieving small objects from up to 2 metres away. it's hurt like buggery, and attempts to drive have been... comical. yesterday i had to reach down and move my right leg left and right so that i could shift from accelerator to brake. it made driving cumbersome, but also entertaining... just not in the good way. it's a lot better today... or at least this afternoon. i've been able to move around and shift position without receiving jolts of stabbing pain, and because i've not had to hobble quite so much my back and other leg muscles aren't suffering so much. i have a far better range of movement and this gives me hope for the morrow... or at least, improves my chances of getting to work.

i must admit that i've not been the best patient while out of play. i copped a bit of flak from one of my housemates over the last couple of days for having the audacity to get up and make the tea, or to get myself some water. i have this philosophy that if i can get up and to to the toilet on my own then i can get my own water. it's one of the few areas where i allow hypocricy into my life - if someone else's sick/injured i'll kick them (metaphorically usually) if they don't lie there and get looked after. i, on the other hand, can't sit still and want to keep getting up to help or make the tea or whatever. i'm ok with this. i'm fiercely independent unless i have absolutely no other choice. if i'm so completely fucked that i can't move then i'll accept that i need to be nursed. if i can actually stand then i will do so. this is who i am - i'll accept it if i need it. if i don't need it then i'll get by, and thanks anyway. yes, my arm's quivering and my grip's so tight my knuckles have gone as white as my face and i look like i'm about to collapse but until i do i'm going doing SOMETHING so that i don't feel so fucking useless. i refuse to wallow in my own fucking misery when i could be doing something to take my mind off it for another 5 minutes. if i'm going to put up with excruciating pain either way i might as well be busy rather than sitting around like a lump.

either way, i'm just going to have to be careful for the next little while, and if people piss me off at least i can hit them with my walking stick. it's important to remember that pain is fleeting, just like joy. it might hurt like hell, but it won't kill you in and of itself. i've lived with worse than this, and for longer, and soon enough it'll all be a bad memory. fuck it - it's only pain. deal with it and move on. give me a couple of days or a week or so and i'll be limping, but otherwise right as rain and if that's the case then it can't possibly be all that bad now, can it?