I hazily recall one drunken evening of my Undergrad. Several friends had come over to my apartment and we were involved in a game of “I’ve Never.” You say things that you’ve never done (or have done if you want to take a drink) and say things like “I’ve never high-fived Jackie Chan on a high-speed train in Berlin.” (For the record, I haven’t, and I am not entirely sure that Jackie Chan has ever been to Germany, that I would recognize him if I ever saw in person, or that Germany has a high-speed rail line. But you get the idea.) If you actually have done what the statement suggests, you must take a drink. More often than not, the statements get racier in direct correlation to how much alcohol has been consumed. Anyway, this one night in particular two of my friends and I decided to modify the game a little bit and focus the content in a specific direction. The game soon became a game of medical one up-man-ship in the style of “I see your XX and raise you XX.” And if the other two participants agreed that what you had just said matched or trumped what the previous person had said, then you stayed in the game.*
One thing that these particular friends of mine held in common with me was that they had had a rough medical ride as well. There were digestive problems, broken limbs, sprains, a premature diagnosis from one doctor that worried my friend would be developmentally handicapped because of the shape of her head at birth, in addition to kidney problems and chronic infections.** But, try as they might, they could not defeat me: I was medical-reject champion. And here’s the kicker: this game was played before I was ever diagnosed with Proctitis, Colitis, PSC or any of the other little diseases that have accompanied my happy trifecta. That’s right – my medical history has always been lame and fraught with disaster.
It began when I was three and I managed to elude my father’s careful eye. He was changing a light bulb on the porch, I was going badass on my tricycle and I somehow managed to reverse it down the stairs at the front of our house. In an Aristotelian turn of events that could only happen to me ***, I somehow managed to land underneath my trike and have the seat rim land precisely on my wee wrist. Now, here I should point out that I grew up in a home of tough love, where my parents wanted proof that there was something medically wrong with me prior to taking me to the hospital. And to their credit, I can see where they would have thought I was faking because even as a little kid I was kind of fragile and wimpy. So, they waited to see what happened with the wrist. And I, in my dedication to the cause of eating McDonald’s, somehow managed to climb out of my crib one-armed, jail-break style, and then go downstairs and tell my parents that it hurt. I am not sure if it did or not, but even as a kid I knew that a trip to the hospital meant taking us close to a McDonald’s where I could get some chicken mcnuggets (my obsession with fast food must somehow be written in my genes). Anyway, they apparently believed me because this was my very first (but nowhere near the last) trip to the ER that I took in my formative years.
Between this time and the time that I turned 13, I sprained my wrist twice more. The most sensational of which was when I was playing Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles with my sister near our backyard. A new subdivision was being constructed and, in a feat worthy of my love at the time (Leonardo: blue sash, fought with a sword, the leader of the group), I climbed on top of a pile of insulation and jumped off, attempting to land on some make believe foot soldiers that were sneaking away. Since they didn’t exist, they did nothing to break my fall, and I landed weirdly on my wrist. This time I was bribed with an episode of MacGyver and my parents waited to see if the swelling went down. It didn’t and we went to the ER early the next morning.
Perhaps the stupidest thing I have ever done involved getting into full snow gear and attempting to jump across semi-frozen creeks. I had on snow pants, a parka, a toque, mitts, a scarf, huge boots…you name it, I was insulated with it. And, discounting the extra thirty pounds that this clothing added to my frame, I attempted to jump across a creek that ran through a childhood friend’s backyard. Suffice it to say that I shorted in distance and didn’t quite make it to the other bank. However, in a panic, I threw out my arms to break my fall and they somehow ended up snapping over top of one another. (Again with the Aristotle). Anyway, I shuffled my way back to my friend’s place and got picked up by my slightly aggrieved mother (I think by this point she was wondering why I simply couldn’t sit still and keep healthy). I told her it hurt when I put my arms down, so she wisely stated: “don’t put them down, then.” Got it… three days on the couch, I think where my parents thought I would give up the charade and go back to school (I was a massive geek, I actually liked school), until my dad finally heaved a sigh and took me to the hospital. Turns out both of my wrists were broken. HA! I was vindicated! See mom and dad, I hadn’t been faking it! Joke was on them, again, when Children’s Aid came to talk to me about what “really happened” to me…At the time I recall being afraid because I thought that they would take me away from my family for being so retardedly clumsy. In retrospect, I find it hilarious that my father had to prove that I was loved and safe at home. I threatened to call them myself for years after that if I didn’t get my way; my mother encouraged me to do so (she had a great poker face).
Anyway, so I spent the next six weeks in various modes of embarrassment. With the two casts on, I couldn’t feed myself, couldn’t go to the bathroom or bathe myself, or brush my own teeth. The only upside was that my sister stopped bullying me for a short time because I threatened to squash her head between my two fiberglass casts. They made a very impressive noise when smacked against each other. The second the casts were off, however, all bet’s were off and it became open season on Ang again. I clearly remember the day, about an hour after my casts came off when I paused in my scratching of the worst itch I had ever felt (damn casts!), and I thought: okay, enough with the wrists. If I’m going to break anything else, let’s have it be a leg…crutches look kinda fun. Ahhh hubris. I suppose, in retrospect, I should have been more specific.
It was only four short years later that I found myself getting geared up for a fire drill at school (I told you: dork). It was set to commence shortly, so to pass the time I found myself (almost) playing basketball on the playground. All of a sudden, I felt like I had hit the funny bone of my knee. I reached down to rub out the sting and saw that my knee cap was no longer where I had left it. It had wrapped itself around my knee and was now pointing rather deliberately toward 3 o’clock. I admit to being a huge wimp at this point, and sitting down carefully on the asphalt and starting to scream for Maytag (I knew she would take care of me). Anyway, teachers rushed to my aid (I could always be counted to increase the drama at my little school), one of them called an ambulance and I was told to sit tight. Where precisely I was going to go with a dislocated knee, I wasn’t sure…but, whatever. Then, all of a sudden the fire alarms went off and kids start spilling out of every school exit. Apparently the drill had been cancelled, but something had gone wrong, so the alarm went off anyway. So, now I had 400 kids walking past me, where I was laid up in the middle of the parking lot. I also managed to make several children I babysat for cry because they thought there was something seriously wrong with me. I felt like a total tool. Then, the fire trucks showed up to put out the imaginary fire and they established a “safety perimeter” around me in case there was a real fire because I couldn’t be moved any farther away from the school.
So, my mom showed up just before the ambulance did to take me to the hospital. The paramedics were great – trying to distract me with music selections and a blown up latex glove while they stabilized my knee and gently tied it to the other leg for transit. That ambulance ride was much more fun than the Remicade one, partly because I could breathe, and partly because Paul and Morris (aka my paramedic saviors) were quick get me off the asphalt so that I could stop scaring little children. Anyway, again to the ER…where I was told that too much time had lapsed and we had to get the knee back in before it swelled any more. I rightly interpreted this to mean that there was no time to give me pain medication before they snapped it back in… lovely. Anyway, it was quickly put back into place and I was put in a removable leg cast known as a zimmer brace that was designed to stabilize the knee while it healed.
This event preceded several more embarrassing forays into knee-related medical drama. I remember going to Blue Mountain for a weekend with some girlfriends. We were going to enjoy our time on the slopes and I was even going to learn how to snowboard. After my first one-hour lesson where I became intimately familiar with ass bruising (I tried to land on my back when possible because I feared snapping my wrists again if I landed on my front), we all headed back to our rented chalet to grab some dinner and then head back for night boarding. I managed to find black ice, feel my right leg skate out from beneath me and instantly feel my knee pop out again. My momentum was already carrying me toward the ground and because I was wearing boarding boots and carrying my board, I couldn’t right myself. I fell in precisely the right way and managed to hit the inside of my bad knee, somehow snapping the knee back into place. However, unluckily for me, the force of the blow to the inside of the knee cracked the knee cap itself. So, this time instead of a zimmer brace, I was given a full fiberglass leg cast to wear while the crack healed itself. That seemed to be all my poor knee would take, so I ended up getting a knee surgery shortly afterward. It was supposed to more democratically distribute my muscles over and around the knee so that it would stay in place.
I was told that the surgery would fix my problems, specifically my high patellas, so I signed up for a “just-for-fun” softball league the summer before I left for undergrad. Charging the plate to field a bunt during practice, and I felt the knee go out again, over top of the knee brace I had had specifically designed to keep it in place. This turned out to be the straw that broke… whatever, because I had to arrange for a major knee surgery (the second time it had ever been done in Canada) that involved breaking my knee cap, moving the entire thing down and shortening my patellar tendon. It was scheduled for Christmas break my first year of University. For those of you who don’t know, Ottawa is an icy hell hole in the winter, so to avoid falling down all the time on crutches, I decided to rent a wheelchair and make all of my new friends and my roommate push me around campus. Let me tell you, they loved it. Especially when people I had met two months ago were forced to help me shower… they were so lucky to know me, really (even if they didn’t realize it). Or when they were forced to drag themselves out of bed, at the crack of dawn, to drag me out of bed and take me to physiotherapy at the bottom of a huge hill. I suppose the downhill part wasn’t such a big deal, except their heroic restraint with regard to simply pushing me into traffic to die a quick death on the 417 on-ramp. The hellish part for them was pushing the wheelchair (and me, incidentally) back up Ottawa Mountain to get back home.****
Anyway, that pretty much concludes my knee saga, except to say that I had to have a third surgery to clear up some of the scar tissue from the second surgery. I have been prohibited from enjoying many of the things I used to, including: baseball, soccer, jogging (okay, I never enjoyed doing that), skiing, snowboarding, skating, rollerblading… pretty much anything that requires a lot of knee torque. A great excuse to be lazy, of course, but not being able to get out and do anything gets old pretty quickly.
So, all of this was to detail why I won our drunken game that night. Three broken, and two sprained, wrists, one faulty Lupus diagnosis, four knee dislocations, three knee surgeries, a heart murmur (functional) and an eye problem that prohibits me from seeing out of both eyes at the same time OR (more painfully) from seeing the third dimension in 3-D movies. Not to mention small incidents involving stabbing myself with an exacto knife and the like… And this all happened before I got sick. I am sure that people have a variety of explanations or rationalizations for why all of this has happened to one person… but, I prefer to think that the universe enjoys smiting me. And, so far all I have to say: well-played sir. Kudos. You know I’ve been a pretty good sport these last twenty seven years…but, if we could lay off for a couple of years, I would really appreciate it.
Also, I believe that I have taken some pretty heavy medical blows. In so doing, I believe that I have protected those around me from harm: one of my bff’s has never even broken a bone! Anyway, since being hurt and injured is apparently my schtick, I have decided to capitalize on it.***** I am not sure how it will work, but I imagine I am much like a communal voodoo doll. Don’t want to get sick? Pay Ang and she’ll get sick for you… I’ll keep you posted as my theory develops.
* Oh, drunken entertainment. Whatever would I do without you? In addition to providing me with some of my very favourite stories about my very favourite people, it has also supplied me with ample blackmail material should any of my friends try to excise me from their lives.
** You’re welcome MNG. Xo
*** To borrow a phrase from Sam Seaborn and Aaron Sorkin regarding an Aristotelian confluence of events.
**** A special thank you goes to two of my heroes: EJC and MNG. Cheers, mes amies. But, we sure did have fun, didn’t we?
***** Scene that follows perhaps the greatest line in cinematic history: “Are you hurt or are you injured?!”
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