Thursday May 30th, 2013

The exercise:

Write about: the injury.

All of the tomato plants we set aside for ourselves are now planted out in the garden, and we shall attempt to sell those that remain in the greenhouse at the next couple of markets.

After a little break due to lack of interest (and lack of time on our part), we've restarted Max on solid foods. It seems to be going much better this time - here he is enjoying a piece of chicken while smushing some avocado to death:


He must have sucked on that thing for twenty minutes yesterday. Oh well, at least he kept himself entertained while the rest of us had our dinner.

Mine:

We've been receiving some much needed extra help from a friend's brother in recent weeks. He's been weeding and mulching and planting and generally being an awesome worker. We've really felt fortunate to have him around.

We asked him to come every day this week, hoping to get on top of things before strawberries devour all of our garden time, and he said he could make it except for Wednesday. Apparently he needed to get some physio done on his knee that day.

I asked him about it on Tuesday and he said that while he was playing hockey in college this spring he took a knee-on-knee hit, which is just one of the nastiest things the sport has to offer. The only thing worse that I can think of at the moment is a hit to the head, as concussions are never fun.

That was about twelve weeks ago and he still wasn't really trusting the stability of the knee. So he got referred to a physiotherapist in order to get some more work done. His first appointment was yesterday and... he found out he needs surgery to repair his ACL.

The injury itself is terrible enough (he's going to miss at least two months of his next college season because of it). But the fact that it took seeing four different doctors before getting the proper diagnosis must be utterly infuriating.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Great photograph! Twenty minutes for a piece of chicken sounds about right at his age; all food is kind of exciting and wonderful then!
ACL injuries do seem to need surgery most of the time unfortunately; there's a few guys here at work who've had that, with their injuries mostly obtained from football (soccer). It does surprise me slightly that it's taken four people to spot the need for surgery though, and I feel sorry for him. Waiting all that time for it to heal only to be told it won't by itself – that's no fun at all.

The injury
The coffee-shop was busy but not crowded. Most of the tables were occupied, but there were still two empty ones, one near the back with banquette seating, and a small circular one by the window. Jocelyn immediately ran over to it and put her bags on the three chairs there; Gustav sighed so faintly she wouldn't hear and stood in the queue. Her order never varied: caramel macchiato, so he spent the time looking at the information boards behind the counter deciding what he'd have this time. He was mentally rehearsing his order and checking his pockets for the right change when he became aware that noise level had gone up. A lot. He looked up, then round.
Jocelyn was red-faced and arguing loudly with another woman. Behind them a man was just starting to stand up from his table, his hands patting the air at waist height and a placatory look on his face.
"What can get for you today, Sir?" said the black-clad barista. Gustav looked at him, confused for a moment, and then reeled off his order. Exactly as he finished a scream punctuated his words. Everyone turned.
Jocelyn's head struck the plate glass window, propelled by the other woman's arms. The window shivered, making a dull booming sound, and the man who'd been trying to calm them down staggered backwards against it. He was drenched in coffee, and the reddening of his skin suggested that it had been near boiling hot. The glass sang, a shockingly high pitched note, and then exploded in a middle brilliant, jewelled, shrapnel fragments.

Marc said...

Greg - no sir, not one bit of fun at all. I'd hate to be in his spot.

Love all the descriptions in your scene today. They really paint a vivid picture for me.