Thursday 23 February 2012

The Second Weekend

Katie had to go away for work on the second weekend. Well that's what she said. It may be that she was sick of me talking about my knee, and tired of my middle of the night bedside urination. Either way, I was home alone, still on crutches, unable to drive and no one to help me if I fell over.

As she left she said, "Oh, sorry, I forgot to get the bread. Bye."

I sat and looked around me. Suddenly the house felt very big, I felt very small and my leg totally useless. I decided that the trip for bread should be done early while I still had energy. I had not left the house since the operation so it was all very exciting.

I wanted to get back for Football Focus at 12.30, so left at 11.15, thinking that would leave me plenty of time. Oh I could not have been more wrong.

Under normal circumstances, the Co-Op is about a ten minute walk. On crutches, in pain, with a rapidly swelling knee, it took over 40 minutes. I had taken my radio with me, and at one point Radio 4 switched to the Shipping Forecast. I can't remember which region they were talking about but I do remember them saying about a storm "moving slower, losing its identity". They were talking about me.

At one point I saw ahead of me a woman on crutches. I thought about high fiving her, but quickly realised we'd both fall over. Instead I thought I'd give her a friendly smile. She looked at me like I had farted on her breakfast. So much for crutch solidarity.

The journey there had been awful and long but it was a breeze compared to the one back. At one point I just stopped, hoisted my leg up and considered getting a cab. I realised that in cab terms I was only 2 minutes from home so abandoned the idea. All through the trip, I had been trying to do the walking properly, just using the crutches to take the weight, but I was in too much pain now and was bored of the whole adventure. I started just swinging away proper crutch style. Much quicker, less stable and very tiring on my arms.

That did get me home for Footy Focus but I was so tired I fell asleep as soon as I sat down. I woke up at about 5. So much for my afternoon of sport. I've never been to Everest but I doubt that more effort is required to get to the summit than I expended getting to the Co-op. And so the weekend went. When you are doing stuff on crutches everything takes ages, and is ridiculously tiring.

When Katie arrived home on the Monday evening I greeted her like she'd been away for 3 years, not 3 days. I think she was touched that I had missed her so much. I hoped she'd never go away again.

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