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I feel about 1,000 years old.  On Friday morning I waited to get some X-rays done.  Pretty soon they're going to know me by name since I'm there so often.  I've been having pain on the medial side of my knee again when I walk.  I was worried because that's what happened after my first surgery-when it had failed.  I just can't help but think about what will happen if this surgery (my cartilage transplant) fails as well.  I guess I shouldn't think like that but I won't know if it was successful until the 3-6 month mark.  It's been about two months since my surgery.  I keep thinking to myself I'm going to school no matter what in the fall (my surgeon has ruled out taking classes at Stanford for the summer).  He had been so hopeful that this would work too.  I glanced across at my mother who's worry line has etched even deeper into the space between her brows.

It's hard to keep my worry to myself but I don't want to worry my family more either.  I'm hoping it will be okay.  I'm getting an MRI in the next couple of weeks.  I feel a little bratty for saying this but I see my whole young adulthood shooting by as I try unsuccessfully to walk and then this problem follows me throughout life.  Taylor Swift's somewhat annoying but catchy song "22" seems out of reach as 20, 21, 22, and perhaps even 23 passes me by.

I was able to step down after not putting any weight on my right leg for 6 weeks.  That is harder than it looks.  I feel like I'm in a little secret society of people who have dealt with injuries or mobility issues.  We give each other a sort of silent nod as we pass one another by.

I'm not walking normally because it's been so long (almost 3 years for the onset and 2 years since my first surgery-microfracture, just as painful as it sounds).  Basically I'm hobbling or gimping around with one crutch.  I feel like Tiny Tim (or Tiny Tina as my mom joked).  You could hear yells of "Walk slower!" and "Heel-toe!" in the house at all hours of the day.  The neighbors are probably like, "Shut it."  Eh, not so much worse than what they usually hear, my dad blasting CNN and me singing "I Dreamed a Dream" or "On My Own" to Pilgrim depending on how I'm feeling.  Pilgrim looks at me as if to say, "Enough with all this theatrical nonsense!  Learn a new song woman!"  I reserve "I Dreamed a Dream" for when I am feeling really low and like life sucks (basically giving myself a pity-party, party of 1).  "On My Own" is saved for when I'm feeling especially alone.

So hopefully I'll learn that everything is okay, okay as it can be, with my knee.  It's funny I think people forget that a knee sounds inconsequential unless you remember that you need it to walk.  And you need to be able to walk to get around and do everything else in order to function in normal, everyday life.  And you need to get around by yourself in order to be independent.  I used to dread and hate that part the most the last year I was at school before I took a medical leave of absence.  The explaining to people and asking for help for everything.  I used to go to bed thinking about it and wake up worrying about it.  That dependence is hard to understand for people who have never been through it and the worst kind of helplessness.  There are two types of reactions, I've found, to personal stories of bad life experiences (be it illness or injury).  There are those who try to empathize and (much more than you would think) those who don't want to hear about it.  It's as if they believe you are just making it up for some kind of sick, twisted game of putting attention on yourself or that you are being overly dramatic.  (I had a roommate that last year who would roll her eyes every time someone asked me about it and I tried to explain what was going on.)  Those people are so foreign to me, it's as if they come from another planet.  I can't wrap my mind around it and am still put off by it (though not nearly as much anymore-I'm not sure if that is a good or bad thing).

I'm still on pain relievers (the strong prescription kind) and have a significant amount of pain.  There was a glimmer, I could see independence through the smallest crack in the sky.  I don't want that to disappear.  All I want is to be able to walk (without too much pain).  I remember what my ID tag/wrist band said this last time at the hospital and wondered how far away that day would be.  "Articular cartilage disorder of the knee/patella/tibia/fibula," it wrote.