A few weeks ago, as I was getting out of a taxi, a bike messenger whipped by me, and I was thrown to the ground. I hit the concrete pretty hard, but I landed on my posterior. As a century of cartoons has taught us, that is a funny way to fall and one that causes no real pain. That’s untrue, as I discovered. It hurt like hell, with shooting pains down my right leg. I had to hobble along for several blocks, finally limping into the subway, where I was lucky to find a seat.

Or maybe it wasn’t luck. It was raining hard that day, so when I fell, it was directly into one of those curbside puddles, leaving one pant leg entirely soaked and streaked with grime. And I’m only calling it “grime” because I don’t want to know exactly what it was. It turns out that when a disheveled gentleman in half-wet pants limps onto a subway car, muttering furiously about “those damn bike people,” other riders will move instinctively away. New Yorkers don’t look for trouble.

INVEST IN FEELING GOOD (FOR OTHERS FEELING BAD)

“You should have a doctor look at your leg,” a friend told me, unhelpfully. Doctors’ offices, as we all know, are not places where a lot of healing takes place. You talk to the doctor and lie about how many drinks you have a week, and he punishes you for lying by jabbing you with a needle and taking your blood. And then you punish him for that by leaving him with a jar of your urine to handle. That’s what a visit to the doctor seems like to me, anyway — a choreographed exchange of lies and aggressions followed by a $25 copay. So no doctor for me.

And besides, I’m of the walk-it-off generation, raised before scoreless soccer games and bicycle helmets. I imagined I’d be sore for a few days and that I’d have to have my trousers dry cleaned — or, probably, incinerated — but the worst of it was over.

“You’re still taking Aleve?” another friend asked me a few days later when I popped one into my mouth. “Have you been to a physical therapist?”

Again with the doctors and the therapists. “No,” I told her, I hadn’t. And wasn’t planning to. I went to a physical therapist once when I rolled my left ankle trying to prove that the distance from a dock to a small boat was jumpable, which it technically was, and landed with my right foot square and flat against the deck but my left foot twisted sideways. The physical therapist guy rubbed an ultrasound wand around my ankle for a few minutes and then hooked my foot up to some electrodes to electronically stimulate the healing process while he told me, unasked, about his most recent experience at Burning Man. The experience wasn’t worth whatever marginal healing it brought, and it also wasn’t covered by insurance. The total bill was nearly $1,500. So, no physical therapy for me.

But it’s now a few weeks after the meet-up with the delivery guy on the bike, and I am still limping stiffly. There are moments when I move my leg in some small way and feel shooting pain from my knee to my hip.

“Sounds like a classic hamstring injury,” an extremely fit and athletic friend suggested. “It’s sort of swollen around the back of the knee? Sometimes hard to extend your leg?” I nodded. “Yeah, I’m pretty sure that’s a bad hammy pull,” he said. “A lot of the guys in my triathlete club get them. The question is, how did you get one?”

I ignored his rudeness and told him my story. He shrugged. “Yeah, I figured it was something like that. It’s sort of an elite athlete kind of injury, not really the kind of thing that happens to a guy who sometimes has to lie down to button his pants.”

Which was something I told him in confidence years ago and did not appreciate having thrown back in my face. On the other hand, he is the only friend I have who has given me useful, actionable advice on what to do about my leg.

“Rest it,” he said. “Stay on your back with your leg on a pillow. Work from bed if you can. Try to minimize your movement. No exercise for a while.”

“That I can do,” I said. Sometimes, the best medical advice is the cheapest.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER

Rob Long is a television writer and producer, including as a screenwriter and executive producer on Cheers, and he is the co-founder of Ricochet.com.