All Rest and No Work...

New York City is not a friendly place for people with ambulatory injuries.

I live in a fourth-floor walk-up, so needless to say, getting in and out of my apartment is *challenging*. I can manage the going-down now, but I literally have to be dragged/carried up to my apartment. That means I don't make many trips into the outside world. I'm fortunate to have a good support network around me to help out, but I'm still starting to feel a leetle bit like Jack Nicholson in The Shining.

This totally has me thinking about whether New York is worth the pain-in-the-assness of living here. Stairs aside, it's virtually impossible for me to go to work while I'm on crutches. I can either spend $90 a day on roundtrip cars to the Upper East Side from my apartment in Brooklyn (which, sadly, is probably about what I earn after taxes) or attempt to navigate the treacherous, stair-filled, over-crowded subway system with my bum knee.

My commute entails the following: a 2 block walk to the train down a steep hill; taking the local train 3 stops to the nearest big station; transferring to an express train (up one flight of stairs, down one flight of stairs, and up another, plus a walk of about one city block); 35 minutes on an insanely overcrowded train full of the worst, most selfish people you could ever imagine who would rather stab their own mothers than get up for a handicapped/pregnant/elderly person (I may be exaggerating slightly, but only slightly); then a 9 block walk (including 3 avenue blocks!) to work from the train. About an hour and 15 minutes on a normal day. Sucks, right? At least it keeps me in good shape... The point of this is not to complain about how terrible my commute is, but rather to illustrate the sheer impossibility of attempting it on crutches. So, that leaves me at home until I can put weight on my knee. I walked home from a physical therapy appointment last night, and it took me about an hour to traverse 3 avenue blocks and 3 regular blocks.

I'm really glad I'm able to go home for my surgery. It will be soooooooo much easier to get around in Eugene, where my mom and family will be around to drive me to appointments as needed and to generally coddle me. My roommates and friends are sweethearts and have been incredibly generous about everything, but you can only ask so much of someone who is not actually a blood relative or otherwise legally bound to care for you in sickness.