For those of you reading His Robot Wife: Patience is a Virtue (and for those who haven’t yet) a part of the plot is Mike injuring his knee and the associated doctor’s visits.  Most of that comes right from real life.  Mike is in fact, the most like me of any of my characters– we’re both schoolteachers, about the same age (he was older than me when we started, but I’m catching up), overweight (though Mike has lost his extra pounds), and generally obnoxious.  So, many little elements in all three books come from my own life.

About a year and a half ago, I injured my knee in a very similar way to how Mike injures his.  I went through the whole process of seeing doctor after doctor, and like Mike, was almost walking again by the time the bone guy saw me.  Unlike Mike, I had the surgery to “fix” my leg.  I came out of that almost completely unable to walk.  After physical therapy, I was better and I did continue to improve, but I had continual problems with my knee swelling and locking up.  I had injections of steroids, draining of fluids, etc, and through it all my doctor seemed to think I should just get up and dance my way out the door.

Finally I went to another doctor.  He said my knee was totally shot– bone on bone– no cartilage left.  I would probably need a knee replacement in the near future.  He gave me a series of injections that were supposed to lubricate the spaces between the bones and act like a buffer.  It took several weeks to get the injections and then there was a wait of six weeks for them to take full effect.  But they worked.  My knee wasn’t great, but it felt a whole lot better.  That lasted for six weeks.  Now it’s back to where it was before those injections.  This has been really depressing.

Well, I’m done with doctors.  I’ll be royally damned if I ever let one open up my knee again.  I’ve decided the best thing I can do is to build up my leg muscles.  Plus I really need to exercise.  I was several months into a good exercise program when I hurt my knee and haven’t done much of anything since.  So today, I ordered an exercise bike.  The bike is about the only thing I can do in which my knee doesn’t lock up.  I got one small enough to fit in my den, so I can hop on it anytime I want.  Of course I still have the main problem that I had in the first place.  Unlike Mike, I don’t have a robot to take care of me.