The injury

I've been reluctant to post on this blog, I think, 'cos I've not really wanted to accept the fact that I'm permanently injured.

On the last day of Paper Man (22nd), I somehow wrenched my knee hard and heard a 'pop'. Because of the Christmas holidays, I only went to see a doctor on the 29th Dec. He scheduled an MRI for me which is tomorrow but he suspects that I tore my ACL. He recommended surgery but if it's only the ACL and there's no meniscal tear, he says I can delay that surgery. If there is a meniscal tear, the surgery had to happen immediately. Either way, he thinks I have to take an ACL from a cadaver somewhere to reinstate my own.

I tried to work yesterday on Sherlock Holmes but they basically told me to take a week off. I wasn't in any pain, but I know with this new crew and them starting to shoot tomorrow, no one wants some girl hobbling around getting lights. It just looks bad. I am disappointed - this did seem like a dream job, but I have to rein my emotions in.

Mike's been picking up the slack around the house a lot. I still do all the cooking but he does pretty much everything else. I did clean the other day and it wasn't bad. My knee feels better every day and even after 10 hours of walking around and being on my feet yesterday, I didn't feel much pain at all. My mobility has suffered a lot but that's about it. I am a little sad that this crew couldn't see past that and appreciate that I have so many other skills. I mean, there were 8 of us total and 2 of them were so young and not very experienced. If I was the best boy or gaffer, I would prefer someone with more experience than someone with 2 good knees. But it's not for me to say, and I didn't really get an opportunity to prove myself it being day one.

I saw on our union website that an older guy I worked with had passed away. It didn't mention how but I felt really bad. Here I am, feeling sorry for myself for being hurt and not making good money and not working in January when somewhere in Long Island, a whole family has been torn apart. It made me re-think my situation and gave me some perspective.

The MRI is at 1:30p tomorrow not far from my house so we will know more. My appointment with the doctor is on Thursday so we will be able glean more and make a decision as to the next step. If he says I can continue to work on this knee I want to. Mike thinks we should just fix it as soon as possible. I am completely torn as to what to do.

It's funny, when we were picking doctors for the knee from the approved list sent by the insurance company, I randomly picked this guy and it turned out to be St. Vincent's Catholic Hospital and he's the head of the orthopaedic section and chief surgeon so I think I'm in good hands in more ways than one.

Obviously this injury couldn't have occurred at a worst time - Mike being laid off and all. But his company hired him back as a freelancer for 25% more money and a commitment of 3 months at least so they bought us some time. Once winter is over and the SAG strike looks dead in the water, things will be much better. As it is, it's still pretty busy here work-wise so I'm hoping and praying we can weather through this.