Who needs knees, anyway?

I certainly don’t. That’s why I put one of mine out of commission. It was on purpose, I assure you. I meant to do it.

Last Tuesday night, I fell down the stairs. I only fell three steps, and I was holding the handrail, but I still managed to tear my MCL (medial collateral ligament). It’s the ligament that connects the femur to the bones in the lower leg. It’s not a severe injury (like when someone tears their ACL – on the outside of the knee – and has to have surgery). It’s more of a nuisance, really, because it requires things I can’t handle, such as rest and crutches. I used the crutches for about 5 days and then gave them up. It’s impossible to carry a giant infant (see Baby Blog) and use crutches. Plus, as difficult as it is to believe, given that I am such a klutz, I have never before been on crutches, and they are a pain in the butt to use!

And resting? Ha! I have four little kids. I never rest. It looks like I will be in a hinged knee brace for a while, but then I should be okay. I was going to try to train for a mini-triathlon next July, so I hope that my knee heals soon.

And did I mention that it hurts like hell? They offered me “painkillers” at the emergency room, but I declined. After all, I gave birth without an epidural to a 9 pound, 5 ounce kid with a head circumference in the 95th percentile. I can handle a little knee pain. Plus, I’m nursing Johnny, and the last thing I want to do is dope him up with a couple of doses of Vicodin. Chardonnay is okay once in a while, but I draw the line at narcotics. Instead, I am taking Tylenol and Advil when the pain gets too bad. Most of the time, though, I can’t even think about the pain because I have 87 other things to do.

I’m sure that there are other fun things going on at Chez Tierney right now, but I can’t for the life of my put them down on paper (website). I just can’t think of anything that is interesting enough/funny enough (such as someone drinking someone else’s pee, for example) to write about. If I actually sat down and wrote more often, I’d have more to say.