MissMovealot is definitely not moving A LOT!
Instead, I’m sitting here alone, with my leg up and a bag of McCain’s frozen baby peas (seriously, how tasty are they) perched atop a fugly, swollen excuse of a knee and feeling down right sorry for myself. On a decidedly dreary morning in normally sunny Brisvegas (Queensland…beautiful one day, perfect the next), what’s a better way to push me out of this funk than to bash out a quick egotistical blog!
I am aware that this comical situation of mine is not a third world problem. BUT, my fellow friends and followers, it IS the first (and indeed uninspiring) blog of the year! Unfortunately though, it doesn’t involve me vacationing in an exotic country and lying around eating copious amounts of local delicacies under a palm tree, swimming in clear turquoise waters or slugging back carafes of blushing rosé with Monsieur Bleu (MB).
Or does it? Carry on intrepid readers, you’re in for a treat!
It all began in the dark days of the Brisbane Cyclone of ’25. Well, it actually began 2 months prior to this, but I won’t bore you all with the intricate details of that. Let’s just say that 2am on a dark A330 aircraft + discarded plastic blanket bags strewn about in the aisle doesn’t equal a positive environment for a 53yr old knee!
Skip ahead to Cyclone Alfred andMB (who was in Brisbane for the week) and I are both excitedly packing for my 6 day, 96hr rostered ‘Trip of the Year’ to San Francisco…my very first time … (I was taking MB along for the ride so he could escape the imminent Cyclone) and everything goes downhill bloody Lombard Street from there.
I can hear the gasps now. Ooooh, a trip to SanFran AND you get paid! You’re so lucky girlfriend. I know, that was my sentiment as well until I literally bent over to open my suitcase and pouf…my left (already dodgy knee) gives way and I lurch forward to grab onto the air and the rest, as they say, is history!
Bent at a 45 degree angle like the Hunchback of Notre Dame on a good day, left knee shooting electric spasms through the cap and thigh and me (semi naked, now there’s a pretty picture for you that can’t be unseen) wailing like banshee and you have the crux of just how this ‘dream trip’ ended up going. Or in our case, not going. Let’s just say that I never ended up wearing any effing flowers in my hair or meeting any gentle people there!
Boohoo Oonagh, but for those of us who fly for a living, this is NOT the position that you want to be in at 7am the day before a big trip! (I can think of many other ones that are much more, how do you say, ‘interesting’ if you get my drift, but that’s a blog for another time slot!) So after about 20 minutes of horizontal hunching, my darling MB helped me hobble to the couch and there I remained, in my safe place, perched awkwardly against a cushion with a puffed up knee and a concrete block for a back. And yes folks, that’s how my 96 romantic and fun filled hours in sexy San Fran didn’t happen.
Some will say, (and trust me I’m clinging onto this spiderweb like thread myself), that it wasn’t ‘meant to be’! Life, for some unforeseen reason, didn’t want me to go on this wonderful trip. Maybe it was fate having a good laugh and bestowing her evil eyes upon me because she was bored teasing Brisbane with Cyclone A. Who knows. Perhaps we would have had a pile up on the Golden Gate Bridge (could deal) or I could have been run over by a cable car (MB probably would have welcomed that at this stage) or even been flung from the walls of Alcatraz into the shark infested waters below! All of which I would have happily risked and experienced, thank you very much, if I’d just been able to go on the trip and damn well WALK! But I will never know…
As life would have it, I was actually booked in to have my knee surgery the day after we arrived home, hence it all working out perfectly! But when God makes plans, life laughs.
Due to the trip cancellation, the back issue and now the impending CA, the surgery was postponed for another week and MB had to return overseas for work, so it sort of all worked out ok in the end.
Oh and just to make matters worse and for more of a laugh, a week prior to all this, I fell down the stairs and hurt my elbow (another long and tragically humiliating story and I think it actually has a hairline fracture), tripped over a concrete pylon in a carpark and ripped off my skin and a quarter of big toenail AND dropped a large pumice stone rock on my foot! Now…how’s THAT for Divine cosmic intervention!
Skip ahead to ACA (After Cyclone Alfred) as opposed to BCA (Before Cyclone Alfred) where everything shutdown and even attempting to buy a ply of home brand unbleached toilet paper was like seeking out the Holy Grail, and I awaken to sunny days and my back healing so I can finally go out and about and then BANG, my surgery date is here and, hahaha, guess what, I can’t walk AGAIN! Is something or someone trying to tell me something?
Contrary to popular belief and also having spoken to two others which have undergone this particular procedure, it’s not fun. I am NOT leaping around like a gazelle after two days and high five-ing myself for my miraculously speedy recovery, but instead, I am walking slower than a 98 year old with a zimmer frame and lying down doing weird leg lifting manoeuvres (that do nothing but give me a cramp in my hip) whilst trying to bend my stiff and swollen joyless joint! I think you can see my point.
For those of you who don’t know me, I’m a tad hyperactive! I can’t sit still for more than five minutes at a time, so coming from being a two hour a day gym junkie slash fast moving exercise freak, these past weeks have literally grounded me in more ways than ever before. I live in a tiny one bedroom unit with THIRTY – SIX stairs to go down to the bin and then back up again, so going on that exhilarating journey every few days is my excitement of the week! Bah, who needs the steep streets of San Francisco when you’ve got your very own vertical challenge at home! Throw into this murky mix of madness the fact that I possess the personality of a demented meerkat on speed with the patience of a stressed-out Wall Street trader and there’s an interesting pilot for a low budget homicidal documentary right there. Let’s give Paramount a call now! Thank God I don’t own a gun.
All laughs aside (are there any yet), and here I am staring down at my swollen and bloody holed knee and wondering if and indeed when I’ll be back on a plane again. Soon I hope. Two weeks off has now turned into four and maybe more and I thank my endlessly kind, loving and understanding sister for her tireless help over this trying time. I bet she’s just REVELLING in this new drama in her life too…NOT!
To put everything in perspective, this time 5 yrs ago I was hoarding lumps of hard parmesan cheese whilst being held captive in a mining camp in Madagascar (all thanks to Covid) and then I spent two weeks in solitary confinement upon return to Australia, so I suppose I have been strangely prepared for this ‘experience’ in a roundabout and obscure fashion! I have also become an expert in Arthroscopy surgery and knees in general all thanks to Captain Google, so now I might finally reach my dream of becoming an Orthopaedic surgeon that I’ve been harbouring for years! LOL.
So, as a break from numbing my already addled brain watching bizarre nordic midday movies on SBS, ripping my hair out attempting to conjugate French verbs on Duolingo and reading my pile of eclectic novels whilst downing endless cups of oolong tea, I wrote this gripping blog. I hope you had a bit of a lighthearted laugh at my expense. I’m sure as hell know I did!
Oh and just for fun, my back is seizing up again from all the lying around, leg lifting and sitting, and my neck is starting to crick! Yay me. Maybe I should just top myself now and be done with it! Only joking, my other (still working) body parts are in the wings, demonically rubbing their spindly little ethereal hands together, just waiting for THEIR moment to shine in the latest stage production of The Perpetual Physical Drama’s of an International Flight Attendant.
PS: I know that my knee will heal beautifully and I will bounce back with a vengeance! In the very near future, I will once again be strapped into my jump seat or doing a step class and for this I am eternally grateful. I know that I am one lucky little lady in a world full of woe and I appreciate my fantastic life Every. Damn. Day (but I’m still pissed at missing out on our lovely trip). Enjoy! xx
THE END
…”patience is bitter, but its fruit is sweet”… Jean-Jaques Rousseau
Please visit:
Our Sponsor