Ugly on the inside

At my physical therapist’s insistence, I finally went to Jacksonville to see my orthopedic surgeon for my exit x-ray. I am officially healed. He said that the only way I can really hurt it at this point would be if I were to do something calamitous—again. Here’s the thing: it’s ugly.

He pointed to the bone fragment that chipped off and my whole tibia and said, “Here is what was broken, and see, new bone has knitted in there.”

I asked, “Is it chunky monkey?”

He looked at me like I was nuts, “No, it’s fine. The piece is a little out of alignment, but it’s not over the joint so it should never give you any problem.”

“But it’s chunky monkey,” I said, pointing to the projecting bone. “It didn’t go back into place exactly. It’s kind of sticking out.”

He looked at me weird again. “Yes, it is kind of sticking out.”

“You can call that chunky monkey.”

He finally caved, “Your bone is chunky monkey.”

That settled, I was totally bummed that my leg healed ugly. It’s healed alright, but the x-ray does not reveal a pristine tibia restored to its former wholesomeness.

“My leg is ugly,” I told Matthew.

“But it’s healed,” he pointed out, trying to get me to shut up about it already.

“It’s chunky monkey. It doesn’t look good.”

Look from Matthew.

“When I’m a mummy, and they x-ray me, they can look and say, ‘Here’s where the specimen broke her leg ante-mortem and it healed ugly.’”

“Yeah, that’s what they’ll say.”