Knees.

Unfortunately, my knees have never liked me. They are currently giving me grief just when I actually became determined to run regularly. However instead for the last week I've been walking around like an elderly person. It could be worse though, like back when I was in high school... (cue tinkling-harp-type music to imply that we are going back in time).

*WARNING: If you're squeamish, maybe don't continue reading. 

Gray351

As mentioned previously, 'sporty' is not commonly a word that people use to describe me. However I tried out for, and somehow got into, my school's field hockey team. I was actually pretty excited and it turned out I really liked hockey.

After a few weeks of practice, our first actual game started. It was quite fun, but if you've ever played or watched girls school sport, you'll know that girls can turn out to be quite aggressive and nasty. Not long into this game, a girl barged me over. I was very annoyed and went to stand up to yell at her, however I became aware of a very off feeling in my leg, and then intense pain. My knee had dislocated. I don't think the girl caused it, but more that I stood up awkwardly. I fell back to the ground and could not move, and people started to crowd around me. I don't think the teachers really knew what to do, but my whole knee-cap not being where it should part was disturbing people (it did look pretty awful*), so they just put a blanket (or jacket?) over it and called an ambulance.  More than anything, I was embarrassed. As the sports field was across the street from school, a lot of people came over to see what was going on. Finally, an ambulance pulled onto the field. The paramedics tried to put my knee back into place but that wasn't happening so off to hospital I went. 

Somehow, my sister arrived just in time to accompany me to the hospital. From what I was told later, two girls came running up to her as she was walking home from school screaming "Maree's hurt! Maree's hurt!". My sister was not overly concerned as she doesn't know anybody called Maree. Neither do I, for that matter. "Who's Maree?" she asked. "Your sister!". Somehow they managed to convince her to go with them anyway, and found me lying on the field. I was given a special green tube to breathe into and put on a stretcher and into the ambulance. It turns out in this green tube was some sort of dissociative anaesthetic, which while not really stopping me from feeling pain, did distract me considerably. My sister, sitting in the ambulance was obviously quite concerned about me, but I was too busy laughing hysterically and annoying the paramedic sitting with me:

Me: "What's the button there that looks like a light switch do?"

Him: "It's a light switch."

Me: "Coooool. HEY!?!?! You've got Homer Simpson socks on!!! - Oooh what's this thing do!?"

[via]

Finally in the hospital with my sister and mum, I had to wait a while for doctors to work out the best way to put my knee cap back in. But this green tube meant I still was not so concerned. I could hear a kid watching Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory on TV, and the oompa-loompa song came on. I decided apparently that it would be a great idea for me to sing along with it - VERY LOUDLY. My mum and sister still laugh about this sometimes. Anyway, suddenly I was given a face mask with some other anaesthetic, and they shoved my knee back in to place. I unfortunately felt the whole thing, and the crunch noise was pretty awful. Not long after that, I was dosed up with morphine, and told to try walking on crutches. According to my mum, I was out of it, and I couldn't really walk, but they still made me go home anyway, saying to have some panadol if I needed it. As if that would help! Just to spite them we never gave back their crutches even though we were supposed to - that will learn them!**

It took me quite a while to recover, and I was stuck at home for a few weeks very miserable and bored. Finally back at school, it took me ages to walk up all the stairs. One time, an older boy walked with me, copying my limp to tease me and asked lots of annoying questions. I did not care for it. I was very satisfied some years down the track to see he turned out to be ugly. I also got to be known as "that girl who hurt her knee and made an ambulance come". So that was cool I guess.

The End.

* I was planning to describe what it looked like, and go into much more detail, but decided not to. You're welcome.
** Not really, we just forgot. And we paid a deposit for them anyway, which we didn't get back obviously.