One of my knees is 56 years old, and the other is 11 days old.

The last week has been devoted to my nifty new body part, basically giving it an introduction to life at La Casa by punishing it into submission. Its first days of life have been spent being strapped into an apparatus that automatically bends it 6 hours a day, taking it for walks — whether it likes them or not, forcing it to bend more and more in routine sessions, and taking it to visit to people who specialize in making it do things it doesn’t presently feel all that cheerful about doing.

I want my new knee to know this isn’t typical life around these parts. There’s about a week and a half more to go of the bendy thing and the ankle stranglers will be cleaned and relegated to a box early next week, waiting for the next time. After that, we’ll settle into a normal lifetime of exercising, walking, occasionally visiting Those Who Bend and Straighten, as well as letting my brain do other things than calculate how much time I’ve got left to be strapped into the bendy thing before I can chill out with the ice packs. (CPM machines are marvels of therapy, but they aren’t much fun.)

Not my knees, but I don’t take any bologna.

I’ve come to have a nearly zen relationship with ice packs. There is nothing more comforting on my baby knee than to be wrapped in something cold after being subjected to exercise bikes, leg lifts, calve raises, hamstring stretches. It’s the equivalent of a cold beer on a really hot day.

In the opposite direction, my baby knee has introduced me to the wonderful world of People Giving Us Food, which is awesome, but somewhat unkind to the scale. It’s been hard to wrap my mind around that my body currently needs more nourishment than it usually requires, thanks to baby knee; hubby lost weight after his second surgery. I have not done the same. Far from it. But next Monday comes a marking point: as my baby knee and I make the transition in the third week of recovery, I’ll be returning to my normal way of eating.

I have absolutely adored and appreciated the kindness of others, but my hips have been enjoying it far too much, so the shift back to sane eating is now in countdown mode. Goodbye, cruel carbs!

After that? Perhaps a normal life for a bit, working at losing the weight that’s come to revisit in recent weeks, all in prep for introducing another baby knee to the world. But that one ought to be a bit easier.