My Agincourt Reno Pages

I was halfway through ordering my usual at Tim Hortons, staring down at my coffee cup, when I noticed my left knee felt wrong. Not "I bumped it" wrong. It had that weird, blind-siding fullness, like the joint had been overstuffed with cotton. I shifted my weight from one leg to the other, trying to pretend nothing was off, and almost dropped my change when the guy in front of me asked if I was okay. The limp was subtle from his angle, but I could feel it in my stride all th

I was standing at the Tim Hortons counter, knees aching in a way that made me wince with every step, ordering a double-double because caffeine felt like a necessary form of pain management. My hand slipped into my pocket and hit the edge of my phone where a photo from two weeks earlier lived, the one my wife took outside Costco when I hobbled to the car looking like I had done ten rounds with a cement mixer. The knee was puffy then. It was worse now. I tried to ignore it fo

I was standing at the Tim Hortons counter, holding a too-hot double-double, and I noticed the ring of my pants was tight at the knee in a way it had not been that morning. My left leg felt like it belonged to someone else. The joint was puffier than the right, tender when I shifted my weight, and every time the line at the counter moved forward my brain remembered the hospital bed and the surgeon's calm voice and then argued with itself whether that amount of swelling was n

I was halfway through the Costco parking lot, coffee in one hand, stroller folded into the trunk with the other, when I first noticed how funny my knee felt. It was a dull, heavy sort of ache that made me shift my weight, then a sharp sting when I tried to climb back into the car. I remember thinking, not for the first time, that I should have listened to my dad when he said you do not ignore weird pains after turning fifty. Except I am not fifty. I am 38, my dad was right

I was standing at the Tim Hortons counter, knees aching in a way that made me wince with every step, ordering a double-double because caffeine felt like a necessary form of pain management. My hand slipped into my pocket and hit the edge of my phone where a photo from two weeks earlier lived, the one my wife took outside Costco when I hobbled to the car looking like I had done ten rounds with a cement mixer. The knee was puffy then. It was worse now. I tried to ignore it fo

I was halfway through dragging a drywall sheet into the garage when my knee gave that little mechanical crunch that feels like a tiny betrayal. I remember standing there, sweating, thinking "just one more weekend and then I'll rest it," because that is my default setting: postpone, ignore, convince myself it will sort itself out. Three months later I was in a hospital bed in the morning light of a Toronto surgical ward, trying to figure out how my life had narrowed to a sin

I was standing in the Costco Vaughan parking lot, grocery cart half-full, and the knee blew up like a balloon. One minute I was reaching for a pack of granola bars, the next my right knee felt hot and tight, like someone had tied a belt around it. I did what men in their late thirties do when they are inconveniently injured, I tried to ignore it for two days. Then I limped to the car, drove home on the 410 with one hand on the wheel and the other massaging that spot where e

I was standing in the Costco Vaughan parking lot, grocery cart half-full, and the knee blew up like a balloon. One minute I was reaching for a pack of granola bars, the next my right knee felt hot and tight, like someone had tied a belt around it. I did what men in their late thirties do when they are inconveniently injured, I tried to ignore it for two days. Then I limped to the car, drove home on the 410 with one hand on the wheel and the other massaging that spot where e