Knees

Today I felt excruciating pain and it makes me laugh out loud. It is the kind of pain nightmares are made from. The stinging burn of a wretched metal needle sliding into an already swollen knee is so shocking, laughter is an involuntary response.

Shaelin, my 2-year old, climbs into the chair next to the padded exam table and watches me. I stare at the fluorescent lights in the ceiling and once the menacing needle is out, I turn and smile at her. “Mama laughing”, she says. “Yes”, I lie. Smile through the pain. This will get a lot worse if she sees me crying.

The needle man in green scrubs and a gold chain says he will “numb it up” before he drains the knee. His spikey brown hair matches his glimmering eyes. “First you’ll feel a pinch, then a slow burn, then numbness,” he says. These things happen at the exact moment he says them.

Despite the alleged numbness, the draining needle is equally tortuous because the pain is sharp and dull and annoyingly uncomfortable all at the same time. Needle man explains there’s a fine line between therapy and torture and he will go only as far as he thinks one can stand it.
I cover my face as my chest involuntarily heaves with laughter, my body twitches as I inch closer to the space between the wall and the table. “We’re done”, Needle man finally says.

Shaelin kneels on top of the doctor’s desk and pulls out all the Kleenexes from the box, she does not see me convulsing from the pain.

“Arthritis! But I’m only 39”, I yell into the phone at my mother. She says “I have it in both knees and that replacement surgery I had made it worse.” This is her way of making me feel better. My grandpa always smelled like Ben Gay and my Grandma’s fingers were bent over at the tips, “Arthritis”, she explained.

Last week, my Valentine’s Day date was a huge, clanking machine made by G.E. Dr. Orthopedic orders an MRI of my knee “just to be sure”. It is agonizing for a fidgety person to remain still for 30 minutes while a machine pounds away, taking pictures of every angle. The technician offers a list of music to drown out the noisy machine and The Beatles is only tolerable option is. The sound system and headphones are worse than hearing loud piercing music through the overhead speakers in an airplane.
Help, I need somebody. Help, not just anybody. Heeelp!! screams in my ear and I shove the headphones off to check for dripping blood.

“Arthritis”, Dr. Orthopedic says staring at the oversized sheets of gray film. “Looks like the start of it” he says, crossing his knees.

A month ago, Shaelin stands up in the ant cave at the Children’s Museum and hits her head and cries until I crawl around inside it with her. My knee swells up the next day and never recovers.

Twenty some years ago, at a high school dance I shuffle across the floor to show off my Morris Day moves from his music video “Jungle Love”. I fall to the floor and hold my knee. No pain, just a circle of friends and teachers staring down at me. Dislocated knee caps require a cast (6 weeks for me), physical therapy (another 6 weeks) and crutches.

Shaelin likes to show off her jumping prowess. She lands flat feet without bending her knees. Doesn’t that hurt? Will it damage? I teach her to land and bend her knees at the same time, but she doesn’t understand. I can’t bend my knee to show her.