The knee that couldn’t and the surgeon who could

“I don’t know what you are worried about,” says my friend, Greg, there on the beach in his sluggos, pointing to his various body parts. “The knees aren’t mine,” he says, indicating both in turn, “neither are the hips. Both ankles are artificial, and so is my right wrist.”

He pauses, thinking things through. “Actually, this left wrist is still an original, but – I had word from my surgeon last week - it’s on its way out.”

Greg seems perfectly happy about all this, and maybe I should be too.

Richard Glover’s knee-jerk reactions.

All the same, it’s a confronting idea: In a few days’ time, a surgeon – he’s an associate professor, I checked his certificate – is going to make an incision into my left leg and then remove my kneecap.

Apparently, he will replace it with something better.

The day after I talk to Greg, I’m in my ute driving my son, once known as the Space Cadet, to the tip. He likes inviting me to the tip as 1) I have a ute, and 2) he knows I will pay the tipping fees.

The Space Cadet demolishes whole rooms and then rebuilds them on a whim, so has a deep admiration for his father, a human being whose attributes comprise 1) a ute and 2) a credit card.

“Are they going to put you under, with a general anaesthetic?” he asks as we tootle through the M4 tunnel.

“Of course they are going to put me under,” I say rather tersely. “I don’t think you understand. They are basically chopping off my leg, having a fiddle, and then sticking it back on. You don’t chop someone’s leg off having given them a couple of Panadol, you idiot.”

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 knockout 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.

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.”

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.