Personal story: Bad knees suck!
OK so last night I got drunk. I do enjoy getting sloshed once in a while and I’m normally pretty smart about it. Well I also have a bad knee and an ankle that likes to roll. So I spend my night drinking, RPing a bit and listening to some nightcore (Big on nightcore when I’m drunk) and at one point in the night I go “Ya know, I still got rum in the bottle but I think I’ve hit the stopping point.” so I move the booze aside and decide to go heat up some food so I can eat and go to sleep. Reasonable enough I thought.
Well we have one of those refrigerators that has the freezer on the bottom which means I, as a 6′1″ individual, have to stoop down a bit to get things out of our freezer. So I stoop down, find what I want, go to close the freezer and stand up when my knee gives out. This happens sometimes, I’m kinda use to it and it’s normally pretty difficult to stand back up unassisted after my knee gives out but I normally manage. However, this time I’m drunk. I’m normally decently surefooted even when I’m drinking, at least compared to most others, but I still have a bit of balance trouble after almost a fifth of my rum. So I try to stand, that bit of trouble my boozed up state gives me balance wise seems to be juuuuust enough to make standing back up with that weak knee of mine a losing battle. So my fiance’ comes help me back up and helps me heat up the food since she knows my knee is always a bit weaker just after giving out on me.
So after she’s a sweetheart and heats up the food she goes back to bed. I sit down and eat and when I’m finished I realize I’m still hungry. Not a big problem, I know that my knee will support me alright, especially after a half hour sitting, so long as I don’t bend it. I’m no stranger to doing the stiff knee walk, I’ve been dealing with this knee trouble for a decade and a half after all. So I go to the fridge, am careful not to bend the knee so it doesn’t give again, I find what I want, some cheese curds and fried shrimp, get that onto a plate and heat it up. On the way back to my computer chair my ankle on the opposite leg rolls, I try to catch myself but because my knee gave out earlier and is still a bit weak it gives AGAIN and I end up on the floor, bare skin landing right on the sizzling hot food I was just carrying which spilled all over in the fall.
Needless to say between a rather harsh fall and sizzling food burning my flesh because I landed right on it while wearing shorts, I yelled. It hurt like hell so yes, I think a yell of pain was quite called for in that situation. My poor fiance’ hears me fall then a yell and rushes in, being woken up again due to me falling. Even though I have split a toenail right into the nail bed, burned myself on hot food, landed on my bad knee and rolled my ankle, all things that can easily happen to me sober or not due to my messed up joints, I’m sitting there more concerned about the fact that I just spilled 20 bucks worth of shrimp (one of my favorite foods) and cheese curds all over the floor. I am in pain, I had possibly damaged my joints farther, I had a burn from sizzling hot fried food, but am I worried about that when I calm down from the pain of the fall and realize what happened? Nope, I’m worried about the damned shrimp and cheese curds I just wasted.
Thankfully nothing seems seriously damaged today. My knee is a bit sore, my ankle and one of my wrists are a little swollen (I must have bent my wrist wrong when I tried to catch myself) and the burn is really, really sensitive (lower second degree burn, nothing home care can’t see to) but, overall, the effects of the fall were minor. Like I mentioned earlier, I have messed up joints, these things happen no matter if I’m drinking or not. Most my falls happen sober and I average a fall every other day. I just normally don’t have two joints give out on me within an hour of each other! Just, seriously, what are the chances of two joints going like that when I was being pretty careful! But yeah, that was my night last night (Thurs-Fri) and I’m a good bit sore now due to it. Guess Imma be resting my joints for the next few days so they can recover from the falls, just gotta be careful is all I guess.
Either way, talk about a buzzkill! I think Imma start keeping room temp snacks near my desk from now on as to not have that happen again. I also need to stop pushing off that MRI of my knee, if anything last night is proof that my habit of just pushing through the pain isn’t working with my knee this time.
