Nope, I wasn’t planning on proposing to anyone. Once upon a time, I did and still paying for it. But I do have something common with my knees, we are united in खँडहर बता रही हैं इमारत कभी बुलंद थी.
Let me begin at the beginning. It was a long day at work. In the beautiful city of New Port Beach. I was at this lovely, this really big beautiful resort and finished the evening with a long walk before hopping into the soft folds of the bed.
Woke sometime in the middle of the night and needed to pee. Hopped down from the bed and whoa, what happened to my right leg, doesn’t seem to take my weight, buckling knee, sigh maybe I overate or maybe tonight my age is catching up. Don’t overthink, cautioned myself. Went back to bed and tried to curl up on my left like I normally do, but my knee would not bend for some vague reason, It was darned painful too. Again ignored it and went back to sleep, whatever it is can wait till morning.
Morning I finally decided to look down and the knobbly fellow felt decidedly swollen. I am not that fat, I told myself, I know my knees from my niece and can still see it. But it looked kinda fat, for want of a better synonym.
I got up and promptly fell back on the bed with an impromptu painful aaah. I could not stand properly and the aforementioned joint was as stiff as could be, and refused to bend. And then I realised, even though I could not bend it like Beckham, without it, life was rum. It was like my life’s utter failures reminding me- I told you to take care of me when I was merely at the ouch level. अब भुगतो!
I was dreading another long morning of work before I was supposed to fly. Popped an anti inflammatory and hobbled my way to work, oohing and aahing and trying not to let anyone comprehend my knobbly challenge.
The day dragged along, literally. tried not to grimace every time I got up from the chair. Pls try Sitting on the pot with one leg stretched out to eternity, then try and get up and maybe you can begin to feel me.
The anti-inflammatory did not do a good job and the pain continued to grow and so did my knee. To cut the painful story short, managed to reach the airport, fly and land, have official dinner and reach my hotel room. Cried myself to sleep. Took more painkillers.
Next day was worse, my trousers refused to climb beyond my shins, so pajamas it was. I decided it was time to go and visit some doctor, a colleague dropped me off at a “urgent care” center. Good place, I needed to be urgently attended to. Well, the lady at the counter said I would need to wait for 3 hours. What part of urgent care don’t you understand, lady? My look blasted her so she came back with KBC options- do you have concussion? Are you bleeding? Are you unconscious? none of the above. you need to wait.
I was crushed with remorse, and I thought I needed the urgentmost care. Don’t be selfish, lady, your knee can wait, even if it cannot take weight. After 186 minutes of wait ( yeah, I was also counting the seconds) I was summoned to the examination room. There was this bespectacled nurse who started asking for details like which knee, when did I fall, was I on drugs, was I pregnant, and other weirder questions and diligently typed out my responses. Her look at when I said I wasn’t pregnant nor on drugs was like utter disbelief. If you say so, fatso. Most of my responses to her comprised of incredulous looks- are you able to see the swelling?- then you should know which knee I am talking about. If falling into bed could be considering falling, then maybe I had a great fall.
Post half an hr of interrogation, the actual doctor came in and repeated the same questions, looked at my knee disdainfully “It is already 5 pm and time for me to go home, why are you bothering me”
After an x ray, and another hour of examining the sore part of my anatomy from all angles ( I doubt if even my husband had ever looked at it so deeply) , she finally asked- did you ever have this problem before? NO!!. Ok, relax, I am prescribing some painkillers, take them and then once you reach India, show to your own doctor. Really, after waiting for almost half a day, that is your only solution!
I jumped from the end of my tether and left in a huff. The last straw came from the fact that I still needed to walk to a pharmacy with my id to collect my medicines. Normally I am a advocate of processes, they are there for a reason. But then not when you are in such pain and distress. The moral of the story is, don’t have a semi- emergency in the US of A, if you do, go to an emergency care. Urgent care is definitely not urgent.
Just to conclude, I did come back to India on “binnus” class, limping my way through the airport chaos, pulling the painful knee behind. Reached home, showed to a real doctor and the issue got resolved.
myhumerousbone 