After my stint in the hotel and my first month of physical therapy (“Round 2”) I was a little better. I could walk for longer periods (e.g. from two blocks to five blocks), but I still took a cab or bus to work, kept my legs propped up on a stool at the lab bench, and crutched up the stairs of my apartment building. Friends and family helped me with certain things, like carrying my laundry, but I was sick of being helpless. So, on October 5th, I carried (okay, heaved) my laundry down my five-floor walk-up. Which was genius.

October 5: Launder Me Softly (One Time)

As I gingerly topple my laundry bag down the third flight of stairs, an elderly woman appears in the stairwell below. I try to recoil the bag, but it evades my grasp and accelerates, awkwardly, behaving like an industrial-size slinky. In this instant I notice the woman’s eyes; they emote, “Today is not a good day. Please leave me alone. God. Please.”

Her pupils dilate as ironic t-shirts hurtle toward her. In the moment before impact, the woman’s expression shifts to one of sublime resignation, perhaps acceptance, as if she knows her fate will be met in the form of fabric softener. Embarrassed and concerned, I stammer, “Shhhii—[BAG-TO-SHIN-IMPACT!]—sorry! I’m so sorry! You see, um, I don’t have a free hand, and…”
We make eye-contact. She grimaces, shakes her head, picks herself up, and continues to walk up the stairs, past me, to her apartment, the one above mine.

I just inadvertently assaulted a senior citizen with t-shirts that read “Head-On: Apply Directly to the Forehead” and “More Cowbell!” (The slogans, in this context, really bother me for some reason.)

“Is this,” I ask myself, “rock bottom?”

October 17: Are you there, Pubmed? It’s me, Rich.

My knees have been barking considerably lately, prompting me to redouble my research efforts. After several straining hours at the computer I notice that the evolution of my search inquiries (or questions to the cosmos) nicely mirrors the Küebler-Ross cycle of grief:

Denial: “knees structurally sound mildly painful”
Anger/Sarcasm: “were human knees designed for bipedal movement?”
Bargaining: “conservative treatment knee pain” and “spontaneous cures”
Depression: “amateur patellectomy”
Acceptance: “[a] fulfilling life without kneecaps”

October 25-26: John McEnroe Would’ve Been Proud

After getting home from physical therapy I walk to the base of my stairwell expecting to see my crutch, but it’s not there. Garbage room? Nothing. The alcove near the mailboxes? Nope. Pizza place next door? No, sir.

Before realizing the crutch was gone, I was already angry in general. “Why me?” is my personal, and sometimes audible, refrain. I am sure my friends love to hear me talk about the “radical injustice of patellofemoral pain” during the World Series. I bitch, bitch, and bitch. But this crutch-thievery really gets under my skin.

I look up the stairwell and yell at the existential chair umpire, “You cannot be serious!” I throw down my non-existent racket and put my hands on my hips, gazing at the ceiling with disgust. I pace-hobble back and forth muttering, “C’mon guys! You’re better than this,” as if to implore my neighbors to improve what I can only assume is their childish behavior. I kick the bottom stair. My big toe hurts and my right knee is even more pissed-off.

Eventually, I stop bitching. I stop bitching partly because I am fatigued and partly because I realize that having arguments with imaginary line judges (“How do you call a foot-fault there?!”) is not constructive. I accept that perhaps I deserve some divine retribution after the laundry incident, not to mention my crappy attitude.

My right hand clutching the railing, I plod up the stairs, expecting fireworks to go off in my knees. Fortunately I was spared the Fourth-of-July-finale. On the bright side, I think, I still have my other crutch.

The next morning, I use my remaining crutch to go down the stairs. I leave a note: “Please leave alone, need for stairs. And if you could bring back the other crutch, that’d be great! :)”

Two crutches await my entrance that evening. A post-it reads: “Sorry! I thought this was going to the garbage and figured my grandmother could use it. Be well!”

I clutch the Post-It and grin, thankful that I can see.

November 1: God I love Meatloaf

A serious running group—four or five people, about 6:00/mile clip—glides by me as I amble to the bus stop. While I sit on the bus, I reminisce about my own runs in late June, my favorite time of year: school is out and the possibility and wonder of summer wait to be tapped. I remember coming home at 9 p.m. from my summer job as a physical therapy aide—injuries started at an early age—and running my beloved five-mile loop: train station, Eastchester Blockbuster, Pondfield Road, and back again.

On my runs, I listened to “New York’s Only Classic Rock Station, Q104.3” on my clunky, oversized Casio radio, the one I wore through college when iPods were already commonplace. Yes, the “Q” plays the same stuff over and over again (Led Zeppelin, Rolling Stones, Billy Joel, repeat…). But I am a creature of habit. I love deliberate, predictable bass riffs and self-indulgent drum solos, and the megalomania that is Meatloaf. (Of course, I do enjoy other types of music, particularly for karaoke: I have personally cornered the market on the “Scorned- Women-From-The-Mid-90’s” genre: Alanis Morrissette, Lisa Loeb, Natalie Imbruglia, etc.) The ominous opening of The Animals’ “House of the Rising Sun,” the operatic guitar-solo that ends Lynard Skynard’s “Freebird,” and the all-too-literal lyrics of Foreigner’s “Jukebox Hero” get me pumped up every time, especially when all I want to do is just stop…and…breathe.

I admit that I even change the Rockefeller gym’s radio station from 97.1–which plays hip-hop, a more reasonable and universally accepted workout genre–to 104.3. Occasionally I hear grumbles about Stevie Nicks’s schmaltzy and over-dramatic voice, or the endless tributes to Styx. These are, I admit, fair and legitimate criticisms. But I cannot help but leave the “Q” on as it conjures memories of a once kinetic existence, a place I hope to reclaim as my own.