Making Waves: Nobody Puts Baby In A Corner!

I sat patiently as the Ultrasound technician slid the wand purposefully around my swollen knee.

I glanced at the monitor, seeing only black and white wisps across the screen.

"So, can you tell if it's a boy or a girl?" I inquired straight faced.

The Tech dropped the wand on the table, looked at me wide-eyed, and burst out laughing.

We both belly laughed for a solid minute and then she picked up the wand, moved it through the slippery gel over my knee cap and exclaimed, "It's definitely a boy!"

A boy! Well this a turn of events. This changes everything now, doesn't it?

About 8 weeks ago I had a little "incident" at work. I was walking one of my students back to class. This particular student has autism spectrum disorder and often acts impulsively. I held his hand and sang our transition song, "The ants go marching two by two, hurrah, hurrah" as we trudged slowly back to class. Suddenly as we neared the car park, my little friend turned abruptly to run towards the cars. Holding his hand, I was jerked sideways, felt a searing pain down my knee and fell on the ground. Ouch. Luckily the student was fine. I, however, was not.

After a check-up with my surgeon and various tests (including that very "telling" ultrasound. Ha!), the surgeon diagnosed me with a bone contusion.

A bone contusion occurs when a bone sustains trauma and becomes bruised. My bone, apparently was bleeding and inflamed.

Who knew?

Unlike a regular bruise, bone bruises can take months to heal. Yippee for me.

Ugh.

It's been quite painful, and I took a week on non-weight bearing measures. Oh the PTSD! I forgot how frustrating it is to transport my tea from the kitchen to the couch on 2 crutches, without putting weight on my leg. Every little thing becomes a major task. I have not idea how I managed non-weight bearing for 6 week stints! Brutal.

Anyway, here I am with a bruised bone, attempting to rest and heal this damn knee, (as much as one can while working and adulting full time), and realizing that I've misgendered my knee now for almost 9 months!

Obviously Britknee is angry because Britknee, in fact, is male.

I screwed up.

So, based on this turn of events, I will be officially renaming the right knee.

Can I present to you....drumroll please. drumroll (If you're a Christmas Vacation fan, that will mean something to you).....

Johnknee!

I specifically selected Johnknee, based on one of my favorite movie characters, Johnny Castle from Dirty Dancing.

Johnny Castle was charming and suave...yet cynical. Johnny was an underdog who proved himself through hard work. I prefer that personality to my former namesake Britney. Did you read her memoir? My knee doesn't stand a chance as Britknee.

Johnny Castle was loyal. He didn't turn his back on Baby when things got tough (well, he kinda kid for like 24 hours) But...he came back, pulled her out of that corner and time of her life'd her!

Johnny Castle obviously had amazing knees. That lift required serious quad strength and knee extension, not to mention confidence - three things that I'm currently lacking.

Finally, at the end of the movie, with the help of Baby, Johnny realized that the world could, indeed, be a good place

I kneed this knee to realize that this world is fine. Everything is fine. We need to stop wallowing, do our effing job and move forward (literally and figuratively!)

So now that we've cleared that up, I'm assuming Johnknee will rise to the occasion and provide me with the support and endurance that I so desperately kneed.

I'll be registering at "The BABY Shoppe" in George Town (hehe, now I can regularly throw down Dirty Dancing puns!)

Cheers!