Wrong Place, Wrong Time

Karma Sucks. Let me preface today's post with this: I have officially called off the press conference where I was going to forego my last two years of dental school and declare myself eligible for the NBA draft. SO, last Monday night I should have been at home enjoying a Family Home Evening Lesson with my trophy wife and the manchild, but instead I was playing intramural basketball down at the school. With three minutes left in the half, I pulled down a rebound and fired an outlet pass to a teammate and then started running up the court. What I didn't see (as I blazed down the court) was that the guy who was running at full speed to defend me had tripped when he tried to stop after I gave up the ball. He hit the inside surface of my knee and sent me sprawling. As I was floating through the air, I had one of those surreal moments when 3 seconds seems to take 3 minutes to play out. My initial thought was... hmm, something feels wrong. A slow-mo glance at my left leg confirmed the 'wrong' diagnosis--the blow had dislocated my patella (kneecap) and instead of being in the middle of my knee it was displaced all the way over on the outside. Suddenly, a series of random thoughts flashed through my mind, from 'crap, I forgot my phone to call Jenny' to 'insurance... do I have that?' to 'I don't have a legal will!' to 'does anyone have a camera here to get this on some 'Best Sports Injuries' video or 'Scarred' or something?' The surreal moment ended when I hit the ground and the impact knocked the kneecap most of the way back to its original place. Then I yelped like a little girl. Because the kneecap wasn't all the way back and nobody seemed to have a clue what to do I reached down, wiggled (yes, wiggled) my leg and >pop< it resumed its appropriate anatomical position.

Apparently, the gym has a policy where an injury like mine requires a call to the paramedics and a trip to the ER. For those of you not familiar with UCSF, as a health sciences exclusive university, the gym is right across the street from the hospital. As you can imagine, I wasn't very impressed as the two paramedics wheeled me out of the gym on a gurney, loaded me into the ambulance that was waiting on the curb, flipped a U-turn and turned into the ER entrance. Not long after I was dumped in the ER hallway, Jenny walked in with the usual fanfare (when Jenny walks in a room everyone stops what they are doing, wags their tongues, ogles and then resumes their work with a 'man I wish she were mine' look on their face. Serious. Look for it next time you are out with her) and gave me the 'aren't you pathethic- but cute' smile. We waited for quite a while, long enough to designate best and worst candidates to be UCSF's McDreamy and McSteamy, took some X-rays and finally got someone to see me. It was determined that all my ligaments were sound and that it was only a dislocation of the patella with some muscle and connective tissue tearing. I was sent home with crutches and a knee immobilization brace. Now I am immobilized for 3-5 weeks and a week behind 24 right before the season finale. Stupid. Monday nights are special, I should have stayed home.

The first couple days the knee swelled up pretty big- It was starting to look like Ryder's knees where there is no discernable kneecap. Then it started changing colors like New England in the Fall. Today the bruise extends from my groin to just beyond the kneecap but I thought that I would spare you that picture.

(this just in: San Francisco was not laid out with people on crutches in mind)