need support for your medical emergency? don't call me.

see the 30 mark? doc pulled two of these suckers full from jade's knee. oof.
at least i didn't include the needle. image poached from google.

on saturday, my jade came limping home covered in dirt moaning, "i'm hurrrrt." in short, a typical post-football saturday afternoon entrance. of course without the benefit of doctors diagnosis, we've been through the jammed fingers the broken toes, the broken collarbone (uh-huh), and the bruised (no--broken!) rib.

so forgive me that it took me a little time to recognize that this one was 'serious'. there was whining and cursing, much swelling and no weight bearing. everyone online shook their heads and mouthed the S-word. the s-word for the freelance artists. the s-word for the uninsured. the s-word for those of us who just scraped up money for rent but must now buy groceries is SURGERY.

and then angel of friendship came and set up a FREE appointment with a sports medicine doctor. wow.

and other angels came and dropped off arm crutches. not the padded 'i-broke-a-bone' under the armpit kind, but the serious 'i-will-never-have-use-of my-legs' scary kind. so slowly we toiled (well, jade toiled--i just walked really slowly waiting for him to fall down the stairs on me) through a maze of subways to the doctor. sometimes, living in new york is really hard.

jade lay on the examination table, his right knee easily three times the size of his left. the doctor guessed that he had ripped not just his meniscus, but his mcl and acl. but too much swelling to diagnose for certain now.

i rubbed his left shin comfortingly (i hoped) and the doctor exclaimed how lucky he was to have such loving support. and not two minutes of looking at the inside of his knee via ultrasound passed before i was removing my jacket. then my sweater. then pretending to read the framed article on the wall about healthy sleeping positions for couples (fascinating really-no, i mean it!). but ultimately i couldn't tune out the talk of internal tears and swelling due to blood etc. i closed my eyes. i tried yoga breathing. but i couldn't stop that familiar feeling of my body screaming with the force of a spun-out two year old "GET ME HORIZONTAL. I DON'T CARE WHERE. NOW!'

i excused myself to the ladies room, walking dizzily through the carpeted corridors, hoping no one would come into the bathroom as i lay green faced, as close to the mercifully cold and i-don't-care-how-dirty tile floor. i know that i've mentioned this little 'problem' of mine before with the whole blood and rust finger slicing incident. it is a lifelong weakness that just seems to be getting worse with age. i mean, come on--an ultrasound?! feeling ashamed, but blood finally back in my extremities and face, i returned to the treatment room as though i really just had gone to the bathroom to pee.

but when i walked in, the doctor was exclaiming that she couldn't believe she'd need to remove a SECOND fat syringe full of blood from jade's ailing knee. 'you might not want to look at this' she said under her breath to me. oops. too late. i sat down, closed my eyes and tried the yoga breath again. but nothing works except horizontality. (sorry spellcheck--that made up word is totally necessary in this case). and so, i was soon back at the front desk, grateful that the office was bustling with people distracting the receptionist from my drunken walked grabbing of the restroom key for the second time in five minutes. this time i really almost went down in the hall. my head was like an old movie that had been spliced in with too many black frames.

i decided i wasn't really bringing any support to jade by creating this spectacle, so once i returned the second time from my friend the tile floor i just stayed out in the lobby pretending to read about sandra bullock's husbands double life. much less disturbing.

what a friend, what a partner i am.