My friends, body parts should never be crunchy. Crunchy is bad in reference to human anatomy -- no one caresses their sweetheart and whispers, "Oh, baby, you're so ... crunchy." And yet, what do I have at this very moment? You guessed it: crunchy anatomy. My left knee, to be exact.
Now, don't be fooled. In all honesty this knee has bothered me for years. When I was fourteen, a Certain Someone I know took the liberty of grinding it into the concrete for me. It crunched then, too. And by the time this Certain Someone took me to the doctor -- weeks later -- arthritis had begun to set in, and the poor knee had to be braced for a period of time. Now I have my own personal barometer: when precipitation shall occur, my knee shall ache. My knee shall also ache if it is bound to be very humid, which pretty much covers every feasible weather pattern Lock Haven is likely to experience. In short, my knee nags me constantly and I have learned to ignore it. I have to: it's on what is otherwise known as my 'good' leg -- good as in strongest, able to bear more weight more often, etc., etc., all of which is quite important to someone such as myself. But now the knee has gotten crunchy. Now I lead with my otherwise-known-as-good leg and wince when my foot touches the ground. I am rapidly losing mobility.
My doctor expressed concern that I was too young to have arthritic joints. I didn't know what to tell her. It's one thing to type the truth on a screen and know people will read it, and quite another to say it out loud. I envision communicating with her through notes:
Dr. P. -- It's a crush injury. My mother did it. This message will self-destruct.
I always considered myself lucky, you know? By which I mean she never broke a bone or burned me horribly or anything like that. I don't know how I escaped those things, but that's why they call it luck. She pulled my arm out of socket once, but that was relatively minor in the lifetime scheme of things. It was in a sling for a few days and then it was fine, and it hasn't bothered me since. But to tell you the truth, I'll never know if my mother's abuse and frequent head injuries caused any long-lasting damage: I'll never know because I already have a neurological disability, and whether or not it has been compounded by brutality is impossible to prove. Is my loss of function more severe than it normally would be because of repeated head trauma? I can't tell you. I don't want to tell you. This knee is enough to deal with.
I don't really know how to handle my ever-so-crunchy reminder of the past. Prior to these last few weeks I could ignore it, push it to the back of my mind, but now it has taken center stage: after sitting for 50 minutes in class, I stand up and topple over. I can barely make it around my tiny living room. Rising in the mornings is proving increasingly difficult. I've tried to get by on Advil, because stronger pain pills often make me sick to my stomach --sometimes for days--but Advil isn't cutting it anymore. Dr. P. prescribed a pain relief gel, but Medicaid is throwing a screaming fit about approving it, so until they can be convinced to do so I am alternating heat and ice and staying off it as much as I can. I have a feeling it'll end up braced again, maybe for good this time. And that pisses me off. It pisses me off so much I don't even want to try to explain how much it pisses me off, because who knows what other emotions are hiding behind there? It could get ugly.
So I make it funny. Laugh it off. Crunchy anatomy, ha ha ha. I think I'll start calling myself Captain Crunch. Might even make a cape and hobble around making whooshing noises. Or maybe I'll pay some secret surgeon to skillfully dis-articulate the knee and replace it with a new one I'll buy for $50 on the black market. Or convince the gods to grant me a body transplant. They could even do it one limb at a time: every year for Yule, the one they call Santa can drop an arm or a leg off at my parents' house for me to open on Christmas a few days later. My options are open. I'm prepared to negotiate. If they want a human sacrifice before performing the deed, I know a small town in Indiana where they can find one ...
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