Paying The Stupid Tax

​                          Books by Patti Liszkay available on Amazon:   
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​Paying The Stupid Tax

The Stupid Tax: What you have to pay when you do something stupid

         Last week, Sunday, June 29, I paid the Stupid Tax.
       I was washing the kitchen and bathroom floors as I do early every Sunday morning while my mate is out attending Sunday service. My modus operandi is to cram all the furniture, chairs, trashcans, magazine rack, stepping stool, toilet paper holder,

...etc., everything except the kitchen table, into the family room so that my mop can swish over the entire territory of the floors.
      Now, when one becomes a person of a certain age, one is constantly being reminded - by doctors, health advice columns, AARP magazine - of the danger of tripping and falling, and of the importance of being mindful when walking.
​        I am always mindful when walking. Except for that one time last Sunday morning when, while weaving my way through the furniture I'd sardined into the family room, I lost focus of the task at hand, which was to make it to back from the family room to the kitchen without tripping and falling. 
       I'm not sure which out of place item I caught my foot on. All I remember is going down, twisting one knee, landing on the other, and thinking, Oh, $%&#, $%&#, $%&#, that was SO STUPID!!
       I iced my hurting knee - my left knee - for about five minutes whilst bemoaning my stupidity before deciding to cut to the chase and go to the ER. The nice medical staff there x-rayed my knee, informed me that nothing was broken, but, just in case I'd torn something that wasn't visible on the x-ray, like a ligament, a meniscus,  or some other of the various tissues that surround the kneecap,

...they  trussed me up in this ankle-to-thigh knee immobilizer, which eased the pain and which I was to wear 23 ½ /7. (Permission was granted to take it off while I showered, but not while I slept). 

     However, I was not to lie around too much, but should continue to be up and hobbling around in my knee immobilizer. 
        The nice ER doctor also informed me that if my knee still hurt after eight or so days  I should seek treatment. Today was the eighth day, so I sought treatment. 
        Now, I digress here, but a few days after my ER visit I had an already-scheduled wellness check up, not with my doctor, who'd retired, but with another doctor who was just temporarily filling in for my retired doctor. He called himself a "floater."
         Dr. Floater was very nice, and quite thorough with the wellness end of the visit and he was patient with all my questions. However, he advised me not to keep that immobilizer on my knee, but rather to try walking around without it, bending the knee, doing some stretching, and not wearing the immobilizer to bed.
         So I took off my knee immobilizer, tried walking around, stretching, bending, and not wearing the immobilizer to bed.  I was in so much pain. 
        And  so I mostly disregarded the floating doctor's instructions and mostly followed the ER doctor's instructions, only because my knee felt so much better in the immobilizer than out of it. 
             And yet I was afraid not to follow the floater doctor's  instructions because, I thought, what if he was right and I shouldn't be wearing the immobilizer all the time? Or what if the ER doctor was right and I should be wearing it all the time? I didn't know what else to do but split the difference and wear the immobilizer some of the time and not wear it some of the time. I figured, whichever advice was wrong, I'd at least only do 50% of the damage. 
​             Anyway, today being my eighth day of knee pain, I was free to seek treatment, which I did at a local orthopedic walk-in clinic. The very nice nurse practitioner who saw me decided to do another, more comprehensive set of x-rays of both my knees. The x-rays suggested that MRI's were in order not only of the hurting knee (the one I twisted), but of the non-hurting knee (the one of fell on), which exhibited some "boney changes," which made me think of  skeletons.

     It might end up taking a week or so before my MRI can be scheduled. And then I'll see a joint specialist at the end of the month. And in the meantime, per the nurse practitioner's instructions, I'll be wearing my knee immobilizer all the time.  And paying the tax...well, I guess until further notice.