Knee Replacement 16: Noises

I make noises now. Grunts, moans, yelps.

The noises are involuntary responses to quick, sharp pains in my knees, calves, and ankles. These little electric shocks are surely due to my nervous system getting back on track after having the bones in both legs sawed off, nerves and tendons and ligaments pushed aside, and then wriggled back into place, new titanium parts installed. The pain is entirely unpredictable. I don’t even have to move. Zing, it just happens. Ping, my brain notes the discomfort as my voice box responds.

Ow, or Eeee, or sometimes Ehhhh. I could be driving my truck, sitting at dinner, watching TV, or in the middle of a sentence. Wherever I am, this cringing soundtrack is embarrassing. Fodder for ridicule. Even from myself. Where’s the late middle-aged mute button?

I ask my physical therapist, and she says the quick pains are typical for the period of recovery I’m in (seventeen weeks out from replacement number one and eleven weeks from number two). She doesn’t offer an opinion on the noises, which, I fear, is an opinion in itself. And not a good one. I take her omission as a determination that I’m something less than stalwart—a weakling, a sissy, a wimp.

I try to will myself to stop making these noises. Stiff upper lip. Shift into stoic, channel my inner Ryan Holiday, or at least limit my whining to conversations with other Geezahs. In the course of complaining to a great and generous friend of mine who revels in buying people books that he thinks his buddies will enjoy, I trigger an Amazon fulfillment cycle. The following day, I’m the proud owner of Meditations by Marcus Aurelius, The Daily Stoic, and The Daily Stoic Journal.

I read, I ponder, and I journal. I still whimper, but now I’m more present with it.

Add to the small squeaks, some big forceful exhales—think of a power lifter engaged in a clean and jerk—that I emit with every step up the front stairs. You’d think I was propelling a Rogue squat bar with steel plates the size of large pizzas, but all I’m carrying is a Trader Joes satchel of mandarin orange chicken, tiki marsala, and Peppermint Joe Joes. It’s the holidays, after all, and who doesn’t love a minty treat?

The caveman sounds coming from my lips are new enough that my family still checks on me—you all right, Dad?—but, as I venture deeper into boy-who-cried-wolf territory, they respond less and less. Soon, they will have developed and permanently installed the that’s-just-Dad-grunting-again filter, at which point I will be fully and summarily ignored.

If a Geezah groans on the stairs and no one’s around to hear it, did he really make a sound?

Probably, but the stoic Geezah does not mention it because complaints are wasted breath and, at this age, every breath is precious.