Orangutan

So there I am the other day, sitting on a stationary bike at “Rehab United” trying, slowly, with great pain and no success, to get my surgically repaired knee to go 360 degrees around on the bike pedal, all the while watching young athletes and trainers and the seriously in shape,  dip and bend and stretch and flex.  Yes, there are some old people there but like me, they are watching the young people too, all of us wondering what the fuck happened?  We got old.

Really, there is nothing like a sculpted-from-marble, twenty-something blond physical therapist in a banana colored sports bra and a grey leotard, doing effortless, jaw dropping lunges with 25 pound barbells, to make you feel like an orangutan at the zoo, sitting on a ragged blanket, with stomach folds like a dress and an itchy ass, chewing on a piece of limp grass, sticking your finger up your nose and occasionally scratching your pits for want of something better to do.

And there is nothing that makes you more wistful for your lost youth than watching a piece of steel in a UCD basketball shirt, bench press his own weight 28 times and then leap up and roar and slap palms and act as if he doesn’t notice the admiring glances of the ladies.  The pheromones are flying around here.   Unfortunately they wrinkle, crash and burn as soon as they get near me.

Perhaps this is because since 1980 I’ve gained about ten pounds a decade.   Hard to believe, I know (!), but true.   In 1980, I weighed about 175.  In 1990, I checked in at 185.  In 2000, yes, around 195.  In 2002, I went back to 180 but only because I started working out with a personal trainer two to three times a week.  It was boring, exhausting and painful and after two years of it, I decided I’d rather spend the money on good wine.  Now, in 2010, I hover close to 200.

It goes without saying the lovely wife hasn’t gained an oz. in the 25 years I’ve known her.   Call it a combination of good genetics, discipline and a vegetarian diet but if anything, she’s lost weight.   The lovely wife can still do lunges with the best of them and with a week’s notice, would be benching her own weight and more.   The lovely wife, of course, is German.  There is a reason they almost single handedly beat the world twice.  However, as I like to remind her, the English were on the winning side both times and I am of English heritage.   When I lived in London the idea of a sensible lunch was two pints of beer.   I felt very much at home.

But back to the orangutan.

Adult males have large cheek flaps which get larger as the ape ages. 

What a coincidence!  

The sagging cheeks show their dominance to other males and their readiness to mate.   My sagging cheeks show that I’m tired, hung over, constipated or all three.

Orangutans do not swim.   I don’t either.  I occasionally allow a wave to wash gently over me.

Orangutans eat dirt.   I only do when I’m drunk.

But back to my knee.  (Enough about my knee, let’s talk about my knee).

Dr. Stu tells me it looks pretty good.  He tells me I have good extension and only fair flexion.   I wonder if he’s talking about my knee.

Dr. Stu saw me on a tennis court the other day, standing in one place, feeding balls to my son.  He stopped his, car, waggled a finger at me and told me that in no uncertain terms I was being a “bad boy”.    I chewed on my limp blade of grass, stuck my finger in my nose and pretended I didn’t hear him.

Occasionally in the middle of the night, for no apparent reason, my knee locks and I howl – okay, bleat – in pain.   The lovely wife is sick of it.  It bothers her to no end that I immediately go back to sleep leaving her to worry about everything and nothing for the next hour or so.   And then, just as she begins to doze off, I do it again.  I don’t remember any of this in the morning but she does.  And to get even, she insists on cogent conversation before I’ve finished my coffee. 

Adult male orangutans are solitary and happiest alone.   They usually have three or four eligible females in the general area with which they get together only at breeding time.  The rest of the time the females take care of the young and leave the big guy to himself.

When the sculpted-from-marble, twenty-something blond physical therapist in a banana colored sports bra and a grey leotard, glances in my direction, I immediately go from doing lackadaisical, slow motion, uncompleted pedals to a first time, full out, 360 degree burst.  This is against Dr. Stu’s orders and after the first go-round, it feels as if I’ve ripped out every stitch, torn all the scar tissue and have pulled my new enhanced ACL from its boney socket.  But stifling my bleat, I pedal on like Greg Lemonds.

Who says human beings are smarter than apes?

I’ll be playing tennis by December.

The sculpted-from-marble, twenty-something blond physical therapist in a banana colored sports bra and a grey leotard will remember me.

Dr. Stu - part 3

I am a terrible patient.  The lovely wife tells me this so it must be so.  She says I would try and micro-manage from my death bed.  I find this unfair.  I just want things the way I want them when I want them.  Especially when it comes to my own physical well being which is pretty much all the time.

I bring this up because, yes, I survived knee surgery.  Amazing!   One moment I was in the operating theatre, the next I was in a comfy bed with an ankle to thigh ace bandage and a Darth Veder-like contraction of black straps and metal brace surrounding my belabored joint. 

Dr. Stu had come to visit and because I wasn’t awake to interrupt, had had a nice conversation with the lovely wife. The procedure had gone well and Dr. Stu had taken a “really good tendon” from my hamstring.

I’m known for my tendons.

I vaguely remember getting to the car.  I don’t remember the ride home.  I vaguely remember the whole family spotting me, gathered in a weaving circle, as I wended my way up the front walk towards the door.  I remember telling them I was a whizz on crutches having broken my leg when I was 9 and 12 respectively. 

And then teasing them, I tripped and fell.

I was carried to the couch.  Give me a few minutes, I said and I’ll go downstairs.  I have work to do, people to call, art to create!  There’s also tennis to watch.  Somewhere in the middle of this, I decided to fall asleep for five hours.

When I awoke, the lovely wife insisted I drink water.  The lovely wife is a big proponents of water.  She says it flushes the system.  I would rather flush my system with beer. 

I drank some water.  The lovely wife suggested a pain pill.  Hah!  I said.  I am tough, I am already on the mend.  I fear no pain.  Pain fears me.  Unlike water, on this I stand fast.

An hour later, half of it spent whimpering and quivering like a dog trying to pass a tennis ball, I begged her for a pain pill.  How about two, I suggested.  No, I would have to wait three hours for the second.  As with water, the lovely wife is a big proponent of labels. 

Gah!  What to do?  I am not tough.  I hate pain.  Pain makes me a wimp.  Outraged, I called Dr. Stu and got his answering service.  Tell him this wasn’t supposed to hurt, I said and I indignantly hung up.  In short order, I called my friends, George, Adam and Lucia.  They had all gone through knee surgery.  They would tell me what to do.

You’re confusing me with George, said Adam.
It didn’t hurt a bit, said George.
They gave me a nerve block that lasted a week, said Lucia.

Where was a nerve block when I needed one?

I quickly called my friend and neighbor and internist, Dr. Colin.  Dr. Colin, who is an oenophile and gourmet of note, would know what to do.  What wine accompanies percocet, I asked him, certain he would have the properly expensive bottle in his vast cellar and would bring it over post haste because that’s the kind of healer he is.

Percocet is a narcotic, said Dr. Colin sternly, you should be drinking nothing but water.

Gah!  Determined now, to wipe out the pain with even a greater pain, I read an Entertainment Tonight that the sweet daughter had quietly put on the reading table for me.  George Clooney was breaking up with someone while in Italy.  Amazing!  Jennifer Aniston had a chin implant!  Who knew!   Transformers was an A+. 

Knee temporarily forgotten, I buried my head in my hands and wept.  It was working.

It’s Dr. Stu, said the lovely wife, handing me the phone along with a large glass of water. 

How’s it going, Steve, said Dr. Stu, sounding as enthusiastic as usual.  Boy, do you have great tendons!

I’m... just a bit uncomfortable.
Loosen the straps and bandage, said Dr. Stu.
I can do that, I said?
Of course.  We want you to feel good.  Oh - and make sure you drink lots of water.

The lovely wife seemingly having an unending supply, I drank some water.   Still hurting, I decided to take refuge, yet again, in sweet slumber.

I loosened the straps and bandage.  I took a pain pill, caged a second as back-up and waited for a narcotic euphoria that never came but if it did, came in the form of bad dreams.  I slept, fitfully at best

Three hours later, writhing dramatically in pain, I woke with a bladder-busting need to take a leak.

Next:  The lovely wife gets her whimpering, naked blob of a husband out of bed, onto his crutches and to the bathroom as he curses water.