Writers live by the credo, "write what you know."

It's certainly easier to write about your own experiences than to try to fit yourself into someone else's shoes. It's not often a good fit..

And for the past two weeks, with four more to follow, I'm actually not fitting into my own shoes very well.

To be more specific, it's my left foot that's unshod. Right now, there's no point in putting on a left shoe, because I'm not allowed to put my left foot on the ground at all.

Instead, I have to rely on crutches and my right foot, which is getting pretty tired of the whole thing.

My left foot, or more correctly, my left knee, isn't so thrilled, either.

After spending several months limping through life on a damaged knee, I finally had the damage repaired and now I'm dealing with the aftermath.

It could be a lot worse.

I have to say that to myself quite a lot, so I don't forget that this is only a temporary situation. In four weeks, I'll be able to hand my crutches back to the doctor, with my thanks for doing a great job.

In the meantime, though, getting through life has become several degrees more difficult and I have had to depend on others far more than I'm used to doing.

One of the most aggravating things to deal with is the brace that's wrapped around my left leg from hip to ankle. The brace is intended to keep the repaired knee from further damage while it heals. It's a very sturdy piece of equipment, with metal struts that run down the sides of my leg, and two sets of four straps each to hold it in place.

I do appreciate its protective qualities, I really do.

It's already done a hero's job of protection -- I got my feet tangled up in my crutches at the end of the first week of recuperation and, to my great surprise, wound up on the floor, waving my arms and one leg like a beetle on its back (feel free to chuckle -- or laugh out loud -- I wasn't hurt). The brace did what it was supposed to do.

But even heroes have their flaws and this brace has four.

The Velcro straps are all but impossible to remove.

My doctor jokes that these straps could be used to hang a 300 pound man and I do not question that.

In the first few days after surgery, I broke every fingernail on my right hand and two on the left trying to get out of the miserable thing.

I'm allowed to remove the brace to shower and to sleep. I'm required to remove it three times a day, too, in order to climb into the passive motion knee exerciser for two hours of therapy at a time.

More than once, I've been driven to tears of frustration and exhaustion while I do battle with the Velcro. In the spirit of consumer activism, I've written a letter of complaint to the manufacturer of the brace. I'm sure they'll reply when they stop laughing.

On the plus side, I've experienced very little pain as a direct result of the surgery.

What I have experienced is mostly frustration in the limitations of being on crutches.

For one thing, it's impossible to carry anything from one place to another, because I need both hands for the crutches.

Well, to be honest, it's not really impossible, just complicated.

I've had to develop some creative strategies for moving things around the house when I'm here alone, which is most of the day.

Thanks to years of good dental care, I've got strong teeth. You might be surprised to know that toast can be carried from the kitchen to the family room by strategically folding a paper towel into a kind of sling and inserting it between your teeth.

Liquids are a little trickier. But I can carry anything that's contained in a bottle with a small opening and a cap. Make that a small bottle -- two liters is a little daunting, even for my strong choppers, but pillows are a piece of cake.

Crutches are useful for more than walking, as it turns out. I use them all the time as extensions of my arms, to grab what's otherwise out of reach.

Laminate wood floors are pretty helpful in moving some things. A small stool, of the type used at kitchen countertops, can glide across the smooth surface with gentle, careful prodding (and a lot of patience) while a plate or dish or anything else I want to move is balanced on the seat.

Oh, yes. About patience.

In my Before Crutches life, I was a very fast walker. Just ask my daughter. She had windburn on her cheeks when she was a baby, owing to the speed at which I pushed her stroller. My normal walking speed, I've been told, is not walking at all, but merely a slow jog.

Moving at my former speed is, for now, out of the question. The trip from my home base in the family room to anywhere else in the house is much longer than it used to be. Just standing up from the recliner and getting my crutches in the proper position takes longer than it used to take me to get from the couch to the kitchen for a glass of water and back to the couch.

And driving, another issue -- I can't. If I had known this was going to happen, my decision to stick with a manual transmission the last time I bought a car might have been different. Someone else has to do the driving until I'm back on two feet.

To tell you the truth someone else has do just about everything for me: laundry, cooking, cleaning -- anything that requires a lot of movement and at least one free hand. I'm able to take care of my personal needs, but not much beyond that.

I'm fortunate that the work I do can be done from home with a telephone, a laptop computer and email.

Even more fortunate, I am blessed with a more-than-wonderful husband, who has shouldered all of the extra responsibilities with grace and patience. That has made the situation much easier to bear.

But most fortunate of all, as I mentioned earlier, this is only a temporary inconvenience. At some point in the next month or so, I will be back on my feet again with only a few scars on my leg to remind me of it.

While I've been recovering, I've often found myself thinking of something that author Robert Fulghum said in his book "Uh-Oh: Some Observations from Both Sides of the Refrigerator Door."

"One of life's best coping mechanisms is to know the difference between an inconvenience and a problem. If you break your neck, if you having nothing to eat, if your house is on fire -- then you have a problem. Everything else is an inconvenience."

Can't say it any better than that.