The knee that couldn’t, and the surgeon who could

Frankly, I don’t like his tone. I think he’s trying to minimise the drama of my situation.

He’s unconvinced. “Do they really cut your leg off?” he asks. “Is there actually a point during the operation where your leg will be separated from your body? Like someone could walk off with it, make a couple of phone calls, and then return to the operating theatre?”

Frankly, I don’t like his tone. I think he’s trying to minimise the drama of my situation. More of this, and I’ll make him pay his own tip fees. (Sidebar: the tip fees, once we get there, are horrendous. Never, not ever, should you agree to pay any other person’s tip fees.)

Anyway, the next day I go in for the surgery. At no point do I ask if they will entirely remove my leg. I decide to leave it to them. “Whatever the chef desires,” that’s my attitude. “Take it entirely off, or leave it connected by a sliver; it’s up to you.” They all seem very pleasant.

I’m given a knock-out drug, and then I wake up, seemingly a minute later, but without the knee with which I was born. My mother put such a lot of effort into that knee. Although clearly not enough. Sorry, Mum.

The next day I see the surgeon: “Was it bad? The knee you removed? I assume it was pretty bad.”

“Oh, it definitely needed to go,” he says before rapidly moving on to questions about my rehabilitation and the work I must do, and how I must treat the physios like they are gods and follow their every commandment.

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This, to be honest, is not good enough. Come on, Prof! I want the speech!

The speech I want goes like this: “Richard, never have I seen a knee in such a terrible condition. The nurses and the anaesthetist couldn’t stop talking about it. There was hardly anything left to throw away. How you managed to keep going, taking your son to the tip, writing your Herald column, which, by the way, is excellent, when you must have been suffering such agony, such pain, such distress that I’d like to send that knee to some sort of museum overseas so that everyone can see how extraordinarily brave you’ve been.”

Would that speech be too much trouble? Instead, it’s just “It had to go. Do your physio.”

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All the same, in terms of my ego, there was good news to come. During the next few days, I was lying in my hospital bed, the nurses and physios ticking off my achievements on a large chart at the foot of my bed.

Richard’s done a poo! Tick! Richard’s washed himself! Tick! Richard’s sat up in bed and had his dinner! Tick! I haven’t enjoyed this sort of praise since I was a two-year-old. I glow with pride.

Now released from hospital, I am starting to walk somewhat normally. I’ll be like a gazelle, well, maybe not the gazelle out the front of the pack, but a gazelle somewhere in the middle: no longer the gazelle limping behind the herd, waiting to be picked off by lions.

The pain is disappearing, and I realise Greg was right. Who cares if some of “you” is not “you”?

My only care is that my knees will become good enough that I can help The Space Cadet at the tip next time he destroys a room. If the knees are good enough for that, then I’m happy.