I fucked up my meniscus. No, not that - that's a kaslapis - the meniscus is a very taughtly wound set of muscle and cartilage that keeps your knee from flying off in two separate directions. Most people find out they have one of these by twisting the shit out of it. Which is what I did rather recently. I'd been overusing my left knee pretty badly, but a combination of motrin and rest was allowing me to keep to my exercise regimen and I just thought I would live with it. Right before Christmas, I was trekking through the snow to get some groceries to bring back to Mom's, and I must have slipped a bit, caught myself, and caught my meniscus and ripped it. Even then, a week's rest seemed to do it a lot of good.
Then last Saturday I go and have coffee with a friend of mine up at the Hungarian and on the long walk that followed I managed to cripple myself. (No, the picture isn't of US - I'm about as far from blonde and thin as you can get, and he's a big honkin' Irish dude) So the exercise regimen has given way to doctor's visits, orthopedist visits, and my very first MRI. All I can say about the MRI, if you've never had one, is that my mother was completely right to be nervous about getting into that thing. First of all, I only had to go in feet-first and up to my nose, and it was pretty restrictive - seeing as how she had to go in head-first, and for longer than I did, it's no wonder she needed the Valium. I went through it fine, but for the horrendous noise that makes you think you're inside a NYC garbage truck. Who would have thought that a machine that runs on magnets could be that ridiculously noisy? They even give you earplugs so that it doesn't bug the crap out of you. The only moment of panic I had was when that little voice in my head asked, around 15 minutes in, whispered "Wow - what if there's a fire?"
Hugh Laurie isn't the only actor that's been asked to limp through a role. E.R. star Laura Innes had to use a crutch for 10 years on the show and ended up damaging her lower spine as a result. I remember seeing the Lieutenant of Inishmore a couple of years ago, and there was an actor who, for eight shows a week, had to spend a good 15 minutes suspended upside down pretending to let another actor torture him. It makes me wonder why there isn't a special Tony award for the actor who went through the most physical annoyance during the course of a theatrical engagement. This is one of the reasons I really like actors - they're so often game for just about anything.
Writers are the last people you would see having a performance-related injury, but so I do. And the performance was walking down the street minding my own business. My next injury, I suppose, will be sustained sitting behind my desk, typing, and having my ass accidentally tie itself into a knot. I don't know why I'm surprised by any of this. I'm just fucking getting old. When I was 25 I could get both of my ankles behind my head. Now, at 47, I can cross my legs, sneeze, and throw my back out.
The doc said I can try walking along the river tomorrow as long as I don't walk to hard, or for too long. Will see how it goes.
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