Knee #1, by the numbers:
1 uncomplicated knee replacement, healing beautifully, December 2013. Until January 2014, when I developed a life-threatening infection then I had a
5-hour emergency washout surgery
4 more surgeries in 3 years. (At some point, I queried about a zipper. My amazing orthopedic surgeon, Dr. Candid McSuperstar, who doesn't speak sarcasm, said, "Unfortunately, we haven't perfected the technology yet." )
7 hospitalizations,
13 months of self-administered IV antibiotics through a central line,
4 months of non-weight bearing because my knee replacement was removed and then temporarily replaced with an antibiotic-impregnated cement spacer (sounds like science fiction, right? Badly written science fiction)
18 months on a wound vac because the soft tissue was so compromised by an infection that it couldn't heal (NOTE: if you'd like to see a PDF of this process—I named it Story Of A Wound— email me, and I'll send it to you)
21 inches of incision reaching all the way to the bone.
When I referred to this knee replacement as "having a few complications," Dr. McSuperstar who, again, does not speak sarcasm) said, "Are you communicating irony through the intentional use of an understatement?"). His resident piped up, "Yes, I believe that would be the understatement of the frickin’ year"
Except he didn't say frickin’
On the other hand, the numbers for knee #2 are
Replaced in December 2022 because it had deteriorated (partly–I believe it would grumpily say, if it could speak– from having to do the work of 2 knees for 6 years) so badly I couldn't stand for more than 20 minutes.
Healed in 6 weeks.
With a mere 5.75 inch incision
0 infections
While this is certainly not my daily average, last month, I walked more than 35,558 steps—on purpose, in one day.
To say that this second knee was UNcomplicated would be the frickin’ understatement of the year.
During the most intense days of Kneepocalypse (#1knee saga) I was, quite frankly, a mess.
I was irritable. I cried. I cried so much. I was cranky with my friends all the time, even –or perhaps especially–when they were trying their hardest to be helpful.
We argued about what COMPLETELY NON WEIGHT BEARING actually looks like (apparently NOT touching your foot to the ground all the time), whether I should eat kale (because, lesbians), or whether or not it was a good idea for me to take the Amtrak by myself to DC to perform at a nursing union conference.
And my friends and romantic partners, despite me doing my best "you kids get off my lawn" impression, just kept showing up. They made a Google sheet to organize meals, which only occasionally involved kale. They helped me get back and forth from appointments; they awkwardly waited with me when the new homecare nurses were so late with antibiotics that the company sent their suited CEO on his way home. They carted off my laundry (including my dinosaur briefs, an errant delivery from an Old Navy website mix-up, which I insisted on wearing anyway so as not to be wasteful) and returned it with a smile, washed, dried, and folded, much neater and more compact than I would have ever done it, even when I was a nun.
An ex and her current romantic partner arrived from the West Coast to re-arrange my entire closet, bedroom, and bathroom to make it easier to hop around on one floppy leg that was missing a knee. They also cleaned up so much cat hair and cat puke. Because, cats.
What was the difference between the healing process of my left and right knee? We made some adjustments, for sure. My friend Alice concocted an elaborate scheme so that I could be seen at the best orthopedic hospital in the area. I saw another specialist and addressed a pre-existing infectious process that might have contributed its germiness to the situation. I might have decreased my Diet Mountain Dew consumption this time around.
I might have. But I didn't.
But as Dr Candid McSuperstar observed about the quick-healing right knee, "We did our best. And really, we just got lucky this time."
But. Both knees healed. The scars look very different but both knees healed.
This is all just a very long and wound-focused way to say, I suppose that if you (or, just as likely, someone you love) is in the middle of a healing process that you would like to be at the end of, the lack of healing probably isn't a comment on what you're doing right or wrong.
I'm very aware of how lucky and privileged I was through this whole experience—for my friends, for my access, for my insurance. The fact that even their tender loving care couldn't make my knee heal any faster, that they couldn't cure it, didn't make their support any less valuable or real.
Often, as decent, good-hearted, and justice-oriented people in a cruel world, we feel terrible when we can't help, not because we're not doing really really really really trying hard. Instead, our hearts are crushed with the knowledge that we are indeed doing our best but that our best isn't good enough to heal the people we love or the world we love.
Just because we can't magically cure our loved ones (even if we are in fact, extremely magical) doesn't make our support less important. And just because a healing outcome might look very different than we might have expected doesn't make showing up in our own specific and caring way any less essential.
Grief and healing don't come with timelines.
Sometimes, our love works like a therapeutic elixir. And sometimes, the miracle is that we continue to show up, cleaning up the cat hair and cooking the kale even when no miracle is on the horizon.
PS Do you have your tickets for Second Helping: Two Dead Lovers Dead Funny in NYC Monday April 22nd or Saturday May 18th? Use code DOE for five bucks off for substack subscribers. Also, in Philly, May 3rd, 7 pm at William Way 7 pm. No advance tickets are needed; we’ll pass the hat.
PPS Wanna see some top-secret clips from the 3.25 NYC show?
Kelli and Cheryl B play “NYC when…”
Kelli was a nun with angry shoulders…
When my partner Heather was dying, she decided she was the comic in the family…
PPPS: Bonus content. I’ve been asking other performers how they get up the courage to ask for help with their work. Here’s what Jude Trefer-Wolff told me:
More people are rooting for a creative offering that I am putting out there than I often realize. Social media reconnects us to people from the past, from different experiences in our lives that might not otherwise intersect and is an opportunity to expand community by engaging folks who have never seen the performing side of me. I find that sharing from the heart, with authenticity, about the project reaches others most effectively.
Isn’t that true, and also beautiful? You can see Jude’s amazing show Faster on April 12th and 13th as part of Frigid New York !