A couple weeks ago I was traveling, helping Emily’s sister Kelsey move to Florida where she is interning at an equine rehabilitation center. The plan was to spend a day playing near the Gulf coast before moving her into the new place (inland), and so we spent Friday together hiking, looking at wildlife, etc. Friday evening we had dinner together in Cedar Key and then went walking along the public beach, where we discovered a playground with a swing-set.
I’m sure that, as kids at least, every person who is able has tried jumping from a swing. We called it Swing Jumping as kids, and had contests to see how far each person could leap. Sadly, though, time has moved faster than I realized and my body is no longer in the same shape it was 10-20 years ago, for when I tried jumping from this particular swing I landed poorly. If I recall correctly, my landing was entirely on my left leg, which was held too stiff. I was also wearing boots that held my ankles firm, so that all of the energy of the impact was pushed up into my left tibial plateau. The result was not pretty.
I spent most of that night in a nearby hospital, which then transferred me to a larger hospital in Gainesville called UF Shands. I had some negative experiences throughout, which I will write about in the future, but for now I’d like to focus on my leg. As you can see in the X-ray image above, part of my knee is broken, cracked and pushed away from the joint. If you can’t identify the break in this image, try to realize that the two bones should be more flush with each other and look closely at the right-hand side (as viewed) of the joint.
The surgeons performed on my knee a few days later, installing a long support plate. These X-ray images show the hardware fairly well.
For now I’m resting and healing, having been mostly doped-up on pain killers for the past couple weeks. Yesterday I finally changed my pain medication to something more tolerable and my brain is working slightly better. But one thought that has remained throughout this entire affair is my desire for a robot body (e.g. *) to replace this fragile thing that nature has provided. This is a small step in that direction, but perhaps someday… 
