I arrived at the office of Dr. Zambetti that morning and didn’t have to wait too long. This Phillipina woman came hobbling into the office and sat down for a moment and began crying. She needed to get back up and go to the window where the receptionist was so I leaned over from the other side of the small waiting room and gave her my cane. I told her that everything was going to be fine and that Dr. Z was fantastic. Something I said changed her disposition completely and she stopped crying pretty quickly and said thank you. She needed encouragement while we waited and I told her to keep it together and asked her what was wrong. She said that over the weekend she just began to feel terrible arthritic type pain in her knee and it was just overbearing.

She took care of what she had to do while I went in to see the good doctor. He examined my knee and said that it looked stable which was a good sign. That said it didn’t mean that I didn’t tear my ACL, which is frequently the case. He also asked me if I heard my knee “pop” and I told him all was quiet—so far so good. But the only way he could tell for sure was by getting an MRI. I was incredibly upbeat about being able to put weight on my leg without a problem and he said that it is a good sign that nothing else was damaged… but that still didn’t mean there wasn’t damage to the ACL.

First I had to grab an X-Ray next door as a precaution. It actually was a mistake but it was good to know that everything was fine although I may have suffered some bone bruising. I was told that I could get the MRI done on the same day but downtown and you bet I took them up on the opportunity! On my way out I got my cane back from Maribel, the Fillipna woman, who seemed to be in much better spirits. I was also told that she was going to the same place as I was so we went together.

On the way there I found out her hard story. I felt a little bit like a jerk, considering that I haven’t really had to worry too much about money, family and lodging my whole life. She was 51 and lived in a women’s dormitory in the city. She worked as a customer relations clerk at a privately owned jewelry manufacturer in New Jersey and worked long hours at a relatively modest pay. She was terribly worried about having to miss work… I don’t blame her. I began to feel a little fortunate. When it came time to pay for the cab I did and gave her the receipt which was going to be paid by our doctor’s office. She was protesting but eventually convinced her that reimbursement was more than a hassle than it was worth.

I took my MRI downtown in the West Village at University Place MRI. I was surprised since it wasn’t one of those tremendous machines that I had been in while at the hospital. This one was one third the size and they had headphones for me to listen to music while the machine whizzed and chirped. For those of you who have never taken an MRI it’s pretty simple and you might even fall asleep on the table that goes back and forth every couple of minutes inside this big, round, circular donut that takes pictures of the soft tissue in your body.

I got out about 20 minutes later and the receptionist at University MRI, Tamika, who is a total doll, said that Margaret left and thanked me profusely. She called me her “guardian angel” and that she never could have made it through the morning without me. I’m not so sure but it did feel good to at least make her life that much more bright and hope that she was fine. Tamika invited me to the office lunch pizza party where they order from around the corner (can’t remember the name but will post it) where they have the best Italian pizza around… I must get the name!!! Well, I stuck around for just a short period of time and said my good byes to go off to work. I was told that it takes a day or two to get the results of the MRI back but Dr. Z told me that I’d probably receive a call from him on the following day… I was incredibly nervous but upbeat that everything was fine since I could put a lot of weight on the knee just 2 days later.