CBS News journo preps for wedding … in ‘RoboCop’ leg brace

• She’s traveled to Afghanistan with former Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and landed one of the first interviews with Secretary of State John Kerry after the Iran nuclear talks were extended, but for CBS News correspondent Margaret Brennan, the next tough task may be walking down the aisle.

“I don’t think physical therapy is part of most people’s wedding routines,” Brennan tells ITK.

{mosads}The journo, who covers the State Department for CBS, is due to tie the knot with Yado Yakub, a Marine Corps judge advocate currently stationed at the Pentagon (and one of The Hill’s 50 Most Beautiful in 2013), at Washington’s Decatur House in April. But a skiing snafu has turned her big day into the black diamond of challenges.

Brennan took her future hubby to the slopes in Vermont last month as part of his Christmas present: “I was trying to prove to him that you can ski on the East Coast. Since he was based in California for a long time, he’s kind of a West Coast ski snob.”

On their second day, Brennan, who describes herself as a “very cautious” skier, was hitting the slopes while Yakub was on a snowboard. 

“I was skiing advanced blues just fine. On the second run of the day, I was skiing faster than my fiancé, and I went to slow down real quick, and I don’t know what happened, I tumbled.” Among other injuries to her left knee, the bride-to-be “completely ruptured” her ACL.

Now, instead of focusing on table numbers and floral arrangements, Brennan is working on her recovery, though the Fulbright-Hays scholar is approaching it with a dose of humor.

After having surgery that included tissue from a cadaver donor, Brennan quips, “I have a zombie knee now.”

Doctors just removed a brace that went all the way from her ankle to her hips that Brennan described as “the ugliest thing.” With the medical accessory, Brennan says, “I look like RoboCop.”

She’s had to take medical leave from her job as a globe-trotting reporter because she’s not allowed to hop on a plane, though she’s aiming to be flight-ready again by next week.

A doctor recently told Brennan, a former Irish step dancer, she could wear high heels for her dress fitting, “but no final word yet on whether I can wear them for the wedding.”

Brennan’s immediate goals? “I just want to be able to get on a plane by March and be able to walk down the aisle without a limp.”

But, she says the entire pre-wedding fiasco might have actually helped her and her fiancé to gear up for married life: “Maybe the ‘in sickness and in health’ part is kicking in a little early, because he’s been a great little nurse taking care of me during this whole recovery.”