My dad has the highest pain threshold of anyone I’ve ever met.

The man seems completely incapable of feeling anything, ever. He can spoon boiling hot soup into his mouth and not bat an eye.

“DIDN’T YOU JUST BURN YOUR TONGUE?”

“Nope. Tastes good. Sluuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuurp.”

Up until this week, my family always had an extremely good example of this LACK OF FEELING phenomenon. We like to call it “The time dad broke his finger and didn’t know it for five months” (c).

I am not kidding.

My dad apparently broke his finger. There was a bit of pain. But not much. He figured he just hurt it somehow, sprained it perhaps. But then his finger swelled up and wouldn’t go down. FINALLY, he went to get it checked out but only because his swollen finger was kind of ugly and my mom was nagging him, not because it was bothering him at all. The doctor discovered that he shattered the bone MONTHS AGO and there were all these bits of bone HANGING AROUND IN HIS FINGER FOR MONTHS. They were sort of mending themselves back together but in a freaky kind of way. WHAT. HOW GROSS IS THAT?

My dad was all, “Huh.  ISN’T DAT SOMETHIN’.”

I mean, come ON. You didn’t know YOU BROKE YOUR FINGER? As in, YOUR FINGER? It was BROKEN?

I didn’t think it could get better this. Honestly. I didn’t think there would come a time when we could top the broken finger story. BUT! Ladies and gentlemen, because my dad constantly gives me lots to blog about, I am proud to report that now? We can. WE CAN TOP THAT STORY.

Last week, my mom dragged my dad to the beach and apparently, she took him on “A CRAZY WINDIN’ PATH” down to the water. He missed a step on a staircase or he twisted something, I still don’t know what happened exactly (he’s been telling everyone my mom pushed him down the stairs) but the point is: he fell. On his knee. All of his strong Polack body weight crashed down on one joint. Needless to say: IT HURT. A BIT.

But as my dad says, “Not really. I could still walk and stuff.”

After a few days of it not feeling better, my uncle the chiropractor suggested he go see a sports doctor to make sure he didn’t tear anything.

My dad was all, “SERIOUSLY? IT DOESN’T EVEN HURT DAT BAD. I’LL PUT ICE ON IT.”

But the sane people around him were all, “GET THEE TO A DOCTOR. NOW.”

So he went.

And the sports dude took an x-ray.

And then sent him to get an MRI.

And guess what?

Mr. “It’s Not So Bad!” tore two (both?) meniscus (menisci? meniscuses?) in his knee AND fractured his tibia.

Wikipedia tells me the tibia is your shin bone.

THE MORE YOU KNOWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW.

Apparently, they can perform surgery or they can let it heal on its own over the course of a few months. The latter is what the doctor recommended and what dad has opted to do because “I CAN WALK ON IT JUST FINE, NO PROBLEM. DON’T REALLY WANT TO GET CUT OPEN RIGHT NOW. I GOT CLASSES TO TEACH.”

The best part of this whole story is not that my dad tore up his knee and fractured his shin bone (POOR DAD!!!!!) but what the doctor discovered after looking at his X-ray.

“Hmmm…well. This is certainly interesting…”

“Wow…this is…this is very strange…”

GUESS WHAT?

The doctor was talking about the fact that on the x-ray, he was viewing a part of my father’s kneecap on the WRONG SIDE OF HIS KNEE.

Do you want to know why?

I’ll tell you.

Because approximately 15-20 years ago, my father BROKE HIS KNEECAP.

As in, his kneecap, it was BROKEN.

And so, a piece of his kneecap splintered off and over the past two decades or so, has traveled across his knee to the other side where it is hanging out, chillin’, not doing much of anything, just being a broken piece of knee bone in the wrong place.

WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT?

How do you break your kneecap and NOT KNOW IT!?

My dad is trying to think about when this might’ve happened, back in the day, back in his youth. He told me it was either that one time he fell down at a block party (WHAT THE ???? WHEN WAS THAT? WHERE WAS I?) or the time we took him ice skating for his 45th birthday and he slipped and BOOM, crashed down on the ice.

My vote is going to go for ice skating because it sounds somewhat plausible compared to telling people you shattered your kneecap when you fell down at a block party. Then again, that sounds like ONE AMAZING STORY I desperately need the details to.

The point is, my poor dad has injured himself badly. And the best part is that now, I can go around telling everyone that not only can he slurp boiling soup into his mouth, not only did he walk around with a broken finger for five months but DUDE? My dad’s KNEECAP came apart and he didn’t know it for TWENTY YEARS.

Dear dad,

Please give me your pain tolerance when I am in labor with your grandchild.

Much love,

Laura