Puppies, injuries and miserable pain

“Emily?” I called, having shoved my feet into flip flops and quickly emerging into the chilly morning in sleepy pants and t-shirt. “What’s happened?”

A tiny, tear-stained and tortured face turned up to meet my eyes and she explained between sobs that the puppy had escaped and she had to catch the bus.

“OK,” I said, reaching to smooth her hair. “Go get your bag and wait for the bus. I’ll find Petey.” When she looked both relieved and uncertain, I promised I’d return her young, black lab and set off to do so while she went back to the house that neighbors my own.

I wandered the neighborhood, rubbing my palms briskly up and down my arms in an attempt to warm them against the nearly numbing cold. I called for the growing canine, squinting down streets and letting my gaze drift over wide, unmowed fields, looking for signs of the creature.

“Hey,” I finally said, filled with pleasure and anticipation of heading back to my warm house when I saw him. I opened my mouth to tell the erstwhile pup it was time to go home but instead emitted a short gasp of alarm when my inappropriate shoes failed to find purchase on the slick grass and I began to fall. It happened quickly enough that I didn’t have time to think about catching myself and once I landed on the ground, I was busily reminding myself not to pass out or throw up.

My knee – the left one – has an unfortunate tendency to slip out of its home. I gritted my teeth and waited for the black spots to leave my vision, swallowing hard against nausea, and gave myself a moment before assessing the damage. Tentatively, I pressed my fingertips against my thigh, then calf, then skimmed them gently over my kneecap.

“It’s back in,” I told Petey since he had wandered over, motivated by curiosity more than sympathy, I’d guess. “I think I’m OK. I just need to get us both home.”

Regaining my feet gingerly, I hissed with pain when I tried to support weight on my injured leg. Looking around for some sort of salvation, I cursed the stay-at-home moms who weren’t looking out their windows to help me. Taking another breath, I picked Petey up and wondered how I was going to carry him all the way home, calculated the distance to our destination and began to limp.

I was making tiny sounds of pure misery by the time I reached my house, earning myself puppy kisses on the neck and ear that helped not at all. Using the counter as support, I bent to place Petey on the tile floor of my kitchen and left my forehead pressed against the countertop for a moment, reaching to feel the coolness of the skin on my leg, belied by the heat of injured muscles underneath. I released a sob of intense self-pity and moved through the house, wondering how I could climb the stairs to my bandages and painkillers.

I found my bandages and placed them aside as I searched for narcotics, having made my way to the second floor. I had two Vicodin saved from my last injury and I debated only briefly before leaving one in the bottle and gulping down water to ingest the other. I remained on the bathroom floor, slumped against the side of the bathtub and with my eyes closed as I impatiently awaited the cessation of pain. Some time later, I blinked to view my surroundings again and awkwardly came to my feet, carefully wrapping my knee so everything would stay put.

Hearing the scramble of paws on the main floor, I sat down on the top step and descended, much like Little One sometimes does, on my bottom. I limped toward the phone in the kitchen, calling a neighbor on my list and asking if she’d come put Petey back in his house. She agreed, though her expression changed from cheerful to concerned when she saw me open the door and hand her the dog, Chienne’s leash clipped to his collar. I assured her I was fine, repeating the statement when she returned the leash, and told people at work I was staying home to nurse my aching knee.

“I have,” I told Chienne as she settled by my chair to take a nap, “become injured.” When she didn’t seem to care overly much, I frowned, wanting sympathy. “Stupid dog,” I muttered, unsure if I was speaking to my unfeeling canine or the fuzzy cause of this whole episode next door.

Dogs and kneecaps should stay in their homes.