Today's PT Report

My flexion (angle you can bend your knee), which was hoped to be 90°at 3 weeks, was 91° today at two. Go me!!!! Also, I can dispense with the walker, even outside, and switch back to my normal collapsible aluminium cane for general use, and then I can use the steel quad cane only for stairs, where I need to put a little weight on it. Yay!!!— feeling happy.

Hope I can do this

Just 26 more pounds and I can have my knee surgery. If I can lose that in three months (by my next appointment) I might be able to do it at the end of the year. I'm at what I think is called Stage 4 (the worst) end-stage osteoarthritis of the knee, meaning it's bone-on-bone without much of any cartilage. The gel shots helped for a while but haven't held the last year or so and we've needed to do cortisone at the three-month mark to supplement it (insurance only pays for the gel every 6 months and 2 days). I have been in so much pain that even with ibuprofen, I've been at my desk with pain throbbing enough that I can't hardly think. If I could have the first surgery late in the year, I wouldn't pay anything out-of-pocket. So I have a lot of incentive to lose the weight soon and make it a 100-lb. loss. It's doable. Until the last couple of weeks I was losing about 2 lbs. a week, and it hasn't gone up or anything. But for the surgery, my BMI has to be under 40. If I lose 26 lbs. it'll be at 39.9. Wish me luck!

Images for dramatic effect. Hey, it's not a HIPAA violation if I share my own knee images. 🙂 Besides, many of you are either medical folks or have gone through similar stuff yourselves.

Ugh

It's 9 pm on a Friday night and both my roommate and I are headed for bed. He cooked and did a lot today at home. I worked really hard despite less than 4 hours of sleep and forgetting to take my meds till about 3:30 pm. Also, I hurt all over tonight (a fibromyalgia flare up) but also my knee is throbbing so badly I can barely walk, and it's swollen. I haven't done anything to it recently. It took three ibuprofen and ice to get where I could do the dishes. I tore my meniscus when I fell in February of last year, but not to the point of surgery. I think I've somehow irritated that. I'm off it now; hopefully it goes back to its normal, everyday osteoarthritis pain. Good night.

On Saturday

I took a pretty bad tumble at Kohl's coming out of the store and crossing the curb. It was one of those gradual ones for the carts and was marked, but I kind of stepped on the slanted part and just went down to the ground. A couple of guys came by and made sure I'd gotten hurt and check if I needed steadying as I got up. Fortunately, I didn't fall into traffic or break my glasses (which would have meant that I couldn't have driven home). Also, I was wearing jeans, so while I came down on my right knee hard, and it is red, it's not bleeding much. My right elbow is scraped up pretty badly. Both palms of my hands are scraped and my left wrist (which is already a jumble of bones, as at some unknown point in my childhood it was broken, according to x-rays from a couple of years ago,) is really hurting.  All the fingers are sore, especially if I make the 'ok' sign. My shoulders are both sore, not from direct hits, but the impact shock. It happened about 12:20 pm and finally about 6:30 I went to the urgent treatment centre for x-rays and to make sure nothing was broken.  I just have a mild sprain in my knee and a bad sprain in my wrist and hand, so I've been taking ibuprofen, icing it, and wearing a brace (the night splint I already had at night, a smaller one during the day).  

As YKWIA says, I am a danger to myself (but not others). I hate being a klutz.

:(

Well, after nearly 4 1/2 years, I finally did something to the car. I was trying to get into the local government parking structure and got too near a bollard. :( But it's not too bad, I guess. And the parking spaces were so close that I couldn't get out my door and had to literally climb out of the passenger door, wrenching my knee. So renewing my registration was, shall we say, an adventure. On the other hand, there wasn't a penalty, so my total bill was something like $46.13. Not bad. There are advantages to having an old (16 years old) car. :)

Tired and hurting

A loveable but clueless 75 lb dog decided to greet me this afternoon by coming up to me not on the side with nearly three feet of clearance,  but rather by pushing her way into the five inches between my leg and a table,  thus pushing my knee backwards.  Yes,  the same knee that was operated on a few weeks ago.  Owww!!! So I am going to put my feet up for a bit and then write later,  assuming I don't fall completely asleep,  anyway. I'm sorry I have been AWOL the last couple of days,  though.  Okay,  here's to blogging later,  after the ibuprofen has a chance to kick in.

Today I:

1. Paid my rent
2. Took books back to the library and got some more
3. Called and cancelled the game.
4. Helped a friend look over some things in preparation for going to the store
5. Helped a friend get reading glasses and those eyeglass holders
6. Took a friend to the store for a larger run than we though at the bigger store which was hot, and neither of us thought we'd make it
7. Got another friend a chocolate shake
8. Watched an interesting video on the philosophy of the question of the reality of fictional objects and entities (thanks to YKWIA)
9. Watched a hilarious Christmas episode of 'Eureka' where the characters were translated into lots of cartoon styles and Jim Parsons of 'The Big Bang Theory' was the voice of Carl the ever-suffering Jeep driven by the sheriff
10. Rubbed a friend's feet until he fell asleep
11. Chatted a bit with the other for awhile
12. Came home
13. Had a bite to eat
14. Listened to some music
15. Read a book
16. Took a nap
17. Paid my cell phone bill
18. Revamped my résumé and curriculum vitae online, since I'd redone the print ones
19. Removed the steri-strips on my incisions, as they were curling up and they had told me that would be the signal to remove them--seems odd to have a bare knee again

So it was a busy day, but not so much as a normal Saturday, and I had from about 6 pm on to myself. We're not playing Call of Cthulhu tomorrow, so I'm going over much later than normal and presumably I'll work on some things here, like straightening up, getting a little laundry together, putting the massive laundry from last week away (no, still haven't done that), made the bed completely (it's just blankets and two pillows right now), take out the trash and recyclables, that sort of thing. Also I want to try out a popcorn popper I got some time ago, take it out, and figure it out. It and air popper, but it's round rather than the normal air poppers. Then I'll go over to their house, do my little bit of laundry and some things around there, and visit. I don't think we're all up to watching The Grand Budapest Hotel at the moment, so while I have it, that may be put on hold until sometime next week.

Despite the fact that the doctor was running an hour behind

and I had to get a friend to another appointment right after (we were about 15 minutes late for that), my followup to my surgery went really well. The tech took out the staples and put steri-strips on my incisions, which will just stay on until they come off. The surgeon was pleased with my recovery and told me to do some exercises with some ankle weights to strengthen the leg, but otherwise just come back if something else is needed. They gave me a CD with pictures of the surgery, and he showed me the difference between the shredded and cleaned up meniscus, as well as the smoothing he did on the femur head (I think that's the chondroplasty part). I am a little sore now simply because of taking the staples out and because I've been walking fairly fast (for me) and without a limp most of the day, so I took some acetaminophen and that's taken care of it. Even at the end of the day, normally, it already feels better than after the injury, and I'm having less pain walking and driving. It's not even hurting much getting out of the car, which was the worst part for the first few days. So all in all, I think things went pretty well.

I thought

after I finished watching Despicable Me 2 (which was quite fun), I would just go back to sleep for a little while, especially as I'd changed out my CPAP supplies. But I found I wasn't too sleepy, so I listened to Bastille's Bad Blood and played on my phone for awhile, mostly downloading updates to applications and looking at Facebook posts. Per a conversation with YKWIA earlier, I added A Streetcar Named Desire to the Netflix queue, as I've never seen it.

I have decided that unless I feel terrible tomorrow morning, I will go into work at least part of the day. If I feel like I'm overdoing it, I'll go ahead and leave. I don't think either of my bosses would have trouble with that (although neither of them will be there tomorrow, as they're both on vacation). So, here's what I need to do tomorrow:

• Send Despicable Me 2 back in to Netflix
• Send my mom her birthday card
• Enter the charge sheets from Friday if there are any and Monday as they come in
• Work on the referrals
• Do the OR reconciliation
• Take care of any library requests that are waiting
• Check about possible speakers for that forum on mobile devices

No lifting, no rearranging, no shelving books or journals, nothing like that, yet...just getting to my desk, doing stuff there, and maybe getting my sheets from another department and going to the cafeteria and the like. No overdoing it. If I need help, I'll ask for it. I'm sure people will be willing to help if I need it. I will take my cane just for a little added stability going through the parking lot, but I shouldn't need it around the hospital any more than I do here.

All in all, despite the surgery, it's been a good weekend. My friends who took me were great, my mom called and checked on me (she had a procedure at the same time, so she couldn't come up) as soon as she was able, A was great about staying over, today has been pretty peaceful, and while I had my doubts about how quickly they said I should be able to do things, I must say the doctor has been right so far. Apparently he did talk to my friends (I don't remember even seeing him, if I did), and stressed my need to lose weight, which of course, he'd already spoken to me about. If I can start walking without the pain I've been having, I think I have a chance of doing that, and I'm trying to watch my blood sugar and eating already. My left knee is also hurting, and I plan on mentioning it to him when I seem him for my post-op visit. I don't know if it was hurt when I got down on the ground like the other, but not as badly, or more likely it's hurting because 1) it's my 'bad' knee, and 2) it's been working harder with this one being so bad off. We'll see. If it's just arthritis, then that's one thing. If the meniscus is an issue on it as well and it's about the same as this one was, then I may need further treatment. But I'd like to see how this heals and if I have less pain first. But if I could get to where my knees weren't painful, I'd be much more likely to walk and exercise, as it has been one of the limiting factors for years.

I have now proven

that I can drive. I've been off the pain pills since early this morning, on just regular acetaminophen, so the narcotics should be out of my system by now. I woke up just a little while ago and it was actually sunny, so I decided to try to do a shower and change the bandages on my own, which I did, and then got into some comfy shorts and a shirt and checked to see if I could wear my sandals okay, and then went out to the car and tested that out. It's a little painful to get out of the car, not as bad getting in, actually, but I did okay. I went the shortest route up to the corner store, Circle K, meaning that I was going between a reservoir and a marsh, but hey, sometimes we must dare. I wouldn't have gotten into the car and put it in gear if I hadn't been feeling well and comfortable doing so.

I parked behind the store so I wouldn't have to do any tricky stuff with trying to get out of their busy lot, and I must say walking to the store, around it, and back was about enough for me. So even though technically I could drive to work in the morning, I'm not sure I can get from the car to my desk and back easily. If I wake up feeling bouncy and ready to go tomorrow, I'll go. If I feel like I still have some healing to do before trying to make it the full day, then I'll stay home, or perhaps come in for half a day. In fact, the half a day might be good in order to gauge how I'll do for a full day, rather than rushing in.

In the meantime, I now have some caffeine and paper towels, and a DVD to watch (Despicable Me 2), so I'm hoping I can sit up for awhile and do that.

In some ways

I felt better on the day of surgery than today. Maybe it was a combination of the fluids and anaesthetic. You can tell every time I've been up by when I posted today (well, and yesterday, too), usually at a half an hour a time. But I think I've actually slept more today. Since A left, I've pretty much just gotten up to eat and then went right back to bed, for longer and longer periods at a time. For example, He left around 11:45 am. I woke up about 1:30, then 3:30, then 7:30, and now 11:30. The last time I went to bed I listened to music for awhile and put my phone on to charge, because we're supposed to have storms tonight (in fact, a warning just popped up on my phone). Because I'd gone over 6 hours without my pain medicine, I was in quite a bit of pain around 7:30 (I'd taken it when A left). Even elevating the leg hurt some, so I finally just went on my side with a pillow between my legs, and that was more comfortable. I'm going to take some more in just a bit so that I can get back to sleep comfortably, even though it will be just over four-and-a-half hours this time.

I am beginning to regret the decision not to get any soda for my time off from driving. Water is better, and I'm drinking quite a bit, but going cold turkey from caffeine maybe wasn't such a good plan. That and the pain medicine combines to make me very sleepy every time I do try to get up and maybe surf the net or do something not strenuous but engaging the mind, like read. I know I should get some rest, but it's a little frustrating. Maybe tomorrow I can do a little more. I'm going to try to cut back on the medicine to half starting tomorrow afternoon if I can, so by Monday I can switch to regular acetaminophen.

The wind is really starting to pick up outside. I hope my window boxes don't get blown off. I managed to water all the plants earlier, including the ones outside, and thought about putting them down on the ground, but decided that was too much bending.

Okay, I'm sleepy already (and I haven't even taken the medicine yet.) I'm going to go take that and head back to the bedroom. Sorry I'm not good company. But all in all, the surgery went well and the recovery is progressing well so far. Hopefully it will continue to do so.

That was the closest thing to a sleepover I've had in a long while, even if it wasn't for the most fun of reasons

My friend (read 'keeper') has gone home after making sure I did fine in the shower and helping me change my bandages. Despite the serpentine ACE bandage that's as long as my leg, there are actually only two small stapled incisions under all that gauze and cloth, which I kept dry with Harry Potter Band-Aids, plastic wrap and Kroger's bags. I did use the shower chair, too, and angled the shower head away from that leg, so that helped. I didn't even need to use a blow dryer before we put new gauze on it and the other bandages back on. He was very good about making sure I got rest and didn't overdo it, so much that I had to chuck the whole 'good hostess' thing and just get used to being waited on. Thank you, A! I will bring your ice cream over when I'm driving again!

I'm eating veggie burgers and some Doritos A had asked for, and I think I'm pretty much going to back to bed now. I'd taken a pain med right before he left, then slept for about two hours, but my stomach woke me up actually hungry, so I thought I should get up. The mail just ran, and I checked it, but there wasn't anything. I haven't really read or watched TV (except for about fifteen minutes with A at one point this morning while I ate breakfast). I did listen to a little music last night. But mostly I've rested, with my leg up. I'll see if I can start taking the pain meds down to half a pill tomorrow. I might be able to go back to work Monday, but I don't want to push it, and at this point, although yes, I can put weight on my leg, I'm not sure I'm up to driving. But by Monday or definitely Tuesday I should, barring anything like infection or the like. I go back to the surgeon on the 5th, I think, and then I'll have the staples out. I've never had staples before. These are pretty small, a little thicker than paper staples but about the same length. My mom, back in the 80s, had chest surgery and they had these huge staples under her rib; they looked like the ones on big cardboard boxes. I had never seen them before. I asked if they had a special tool to get them out or if they just had to pry them off with scissors (I was being a smart aleck), and she told me to stop cracking jokes because it hurt to laugh.

Okay, I really am getting terribly sleepy again. Time to go back to bed. I gave A the big fuzzy blanket last night, so now I get it back. The short, thin one was fine last night, but I was a little cool when I woke up a bit ago.

I've pretty much spent the day

elevating my leg and sleeping for about 2-3 hours at a time, and then getting up briefly for food and water. The notable exception was about 3:30 pm, when I had just spoken to YKWIA, who was checking up on me. I heard a knock on the door, and thought it was way too early for my friend A, who is spending the night, to be there, as he was coming from work on the bus. I went outside and heard a motor outside. Thinking it might have been the post, and knowing I had CPAP materials on the way, I went outside and was up the first step without even realising it. I stopped there and cried, 'Wait!' It was a UPS truck. I asked the driver if he was trying to deliver to my apartment, and told him I was sorry, I'd just had surgery today, and hadn't gotten to the door in time. He backed up and gave me my package and had me sign for it, then went on his merry way. It was only after the adrenaline started to fade I'd realised what I'd done, and that while I wasn't obviously bleeding or anything bad, I was hurting a bit and it was time to go back inside. I was out of breath, and called YKWIA, who was somewhat exasperated with me and told me to go to bed.

I slept for a little while and then got up again about dinnertime, when A came over. He took out my forgotten trash from this morning. I oriented him to things like the phone, the food, TV, etc., and then ate something myself. Then it was time to take a pain pill and I went back to bed. This time it was a three-hour sleep. I came out to take my Lantus and get a snack (I hadn't eaten much at dinner, because pain pills rob me of my appetite, and my Byetta limits it a bit, too). I took out a blanket and pillow. He was asleep on the loveseat with 'Law & Order' on, which is sort of his natural habitat. I did have the air mattress out if he wanted that, but I think despite being nearly six feet tall he'd rather sleep on the loveseat rather than blow it up. So at least he has a blanket and the pillow, plus all the pillows (mostly small cat-shaped ones) to get comfortable with.

I got some water and went back to bed, this time starting up the laptop and I've got myself propped up against one of those pillows with arms and a pillow under my leg. Of course, I need to elevate it above the heart, so when I'm sleeping, I have three pillows--one regular, one sham, and one fluffy Euro pillow--stacked up and my leg on that without actually being behind my knee, as per instructions. I'll go back to that when I go back to bed. I just wanted to wait up a bit when it's time to take my next tablet for the night, which should be in a few minutes. Then I'll go back to bed. I hope A is not too bored. I'm doing better than we expected and was up a bit when he came in, and when he called YKWIA he passed on in no uncertain terms that I was to take it easy, not wait on him, and get some rest. It's nice to be loved. :)

Up for a bit

I decided it was time to:

• Go to the bathroom for the first time since early, early this morning
• Get a bite to eat (veggie sausage, egg, and cheese biscuit)
• Take my insulin
• Take my oral medications
• Ice my knee

and generally try to get back into a routine. I'm finishing up the last of the Diet Root Beer YKWIA gave me after surgergy, which was very welcome. Believe it or not, when I did that grocery shopping yesterday, I didn't get soda. A didn't want any, and I decided water would probably be best.

I walked over to the hospital this morning, which meant both knees were in pain before the surgery. The one is, now, even with the pain pill they gave me earlier, but it's not horrible. I can walk a limited amount of time on it, like from one end of the apartment to another. Getting up and down is best done in a sort of straight-leg fashion, leaving most of the bending for the 'good' knee. When I'm elevating my knee, though, I tending to rotate the knee out a bit, and my feet go out on the pillow. That happened with the ankle surgery and it was fine, but the knee seems to hurt worse when I do that, so I'm trying to prop it up in ways it won't rotate. My knee apparently has the equivalent of Band-Aids on it, but is wrapped from above the knee to my foot in an ACE bandage. I'm looking at my post-op instructions, and if I wrap the area with plastic wrap thoroughly and keep the incisions dry, I can shower tomorrow. I'll do that while A is still there, and probably use the shower chair just to be safe. I can then change the Band-Aids. It sounds like if I can tolerate the pain enough without the meds in a couple of days, I should be able to drive and hence return to work, barring any problems. Yay!

My stomach was just a tiny bit upset when I laid down in the bed after getting home, but the Pepcid they gave me before the anaesthesia did pretty well--I've never gotten sick from that or pain meds. I know one poor lady who had cancer and was given pain meds that made her throw up horribly.

Apparently the main reason my surgery was moved is due to the need for latex precautions. I react to latex, usually as itching, but I once had a dentist who re-gloved with latex gloves and my mouth and tongue began to swell. So they're fairly careful with me now. At the time, the dentist wound up taking me to the sink and rinsing my mouth out with soap, which stopped the reaction, thankfully, bu it tasted horrid.

I managed to get up by 4:15 this morning and finish a lot of the home stuff that I couldn't the night before. The only two important things I forgot were to take out the trash (I'm going to ask A to take it out--I put it all together and got it ready and then walked off without it) and then putting on deodorant, which I rectified a little while ago. Funny the little things that slip your mind and then bug you later.

Okay, I'm still a little sleepy and I should really be elevating this knee now that I've eaten. Actually, I'm having trouble keeping my eyes open. Back to bed! Hope your day is going well. It's so odd to be off from work on a Friday. Have a happy weekend.

This isn't my surgery itself

But it is basically what was done to my knee today...

<

Now, time for that nap...

Home from the hospital

Having some pain,  but it should ease up now that I have my knee propped up and I have taken some pain medicine. I will ice it in a bit. They did a partial meniscectomy with a chondroplasty.  I can put weight on it for short periods of time.  Right now I am in bed and I think I will try to get some sleep--I only got about three hours max last night or so.  I will write later,  hopefully.  All in all,  it wasn't too bad.

Almost too tired to blog

I don't often blog on game Sundays, and to be honest I'm doing it from bed at the moment, having brought the laptop in here instead of setting it back up in the living room. I have returned home with clean laundry, the laptop case with computer and voice recorder so I can work on notes, as well as a lunch bag full of food and my purse. So I had quite a bit to bring in, although only the computer was particularly heavy, as I have a book in the bag I meant to show Brenda on small-scale gardening. That's twice I've brought it and I've forgotten to show her.

I did get with her about taking me to surgery, and formally asked YKWIA if he would come, too, since he's my medical surrogate. A is going to come over by bus when he gets off work and stay overnight with me.

I have to admit, I am a little nervous about the surgery and recovery. But with any luck it should go fine. I hope so, anyway. I have to be there very early on Friday morning, so I really appreciate Brenda and YKWIA taking me. I did overdo things a bit while cleaning today, and my knee hurts and my feet are very swollen, so I'm going to elevate my leg and ice my knee a bit. I've already made the switch from ibuprofen to acetaminophen in terms of preparing for the surgery (ibuprofen works best for me in terms of pain, but as an non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug, it can make bleeding more likely if you take it before surgery). Here are some other things I need to do by Friday:

• Go to the pharmacy and get prescription refills for three people, including myself.
• Pay bills.
• Get an extra key, either from Brandon or, if he can't get it to me, I'll have to have one made for A in case he needs it.
• Get some things out of the walk-in closet I might need for recovery, like a shower chair and bedside commode (that goes over the regular toilet so I don't have to bend so far at the knee).
• Get absolutely as much as I can do at work for the week in four days.
• Make sure everything is ready at work in terms of backup in case I can't come back as quickly as I expect.
• Work out who will get YKWIA (either Brenda can get him on the way, or I could go get him that morning and meet her at my apartment).
• Get some documents together in case they are needed.
• Get the house ready for company.
• Put the sprayer on the kitchen faucet for bathing/washing hair.
• Make sure there is plenty of easy-to-make food, as A does not cook and I probably won't feel up to even trying.
• Blow up the air bed on Thursday night and put sheets, etc., on it, so A can stay the night comfortably.
• Move the laptop back to the bedroom Thursday night.
• Get the bedroom ready, making sure I have plenty of pillows, books to read, water bottle, etc.
• Lay out comfy clothes for the surgery the night before, transfer my purse stuff to a backpack, and have the walker ready to take even though I hopefully won't need it.

Meanwhile, here's to celebrating the first moon walk (and not the Michael Jackson kind) 45 years ago this evening, and I'm sorry to hear that actor James Garner had died. RIP. I think that's it for the night. I was going to write something else, but I must confess it's fled my mind. I guess I'm really sleepy. I'm going on to bed. Good night!

I finally broke down

And took some ibuprofen.  Hopefully I will  be able to sleep. Everything on me hurts,  but the knees are,  of course,  the worst--both of them together. The right starts out at a certain level of pain and gets worse over the course of the day. That is the one to be operated on. The left sometimes is fine and then sometimes the pain is very sharp. It is annoying,  but it is interfering with my work as about 2 pm I am all but curled up in my cubicle hurting. Still,  I've been working through it anyway. But I haven't been happy. Good thing the surgery is next week.  :) I can't believe I am saying this,  but I am looking forward to it,  if it helps with the pain.

Time for a makeover

For whatever reason, my template decided to start spewing items on random parts of the page, making things difficult to read, plus it would no longer let me edit gadgets from the page when I was signed it like it should. Now, this blog is almost 13 years old, and has gone through a couple or three re-designs, with lots of coding, much of which I did myself, and with some layering of template designs upon one another, and quite frankly, I didn't want to go through line by line and try to debug the problem. And yes, this is a ready-made template that I thought worked well with my personality. (I like watercolours, I like art, and it kind of looks like someone just sort of splashed the paint onto the paper in an attempt at flowers or some such, and that seemed a good metaphor for how I sometimes see and live my life.) Anyway, feel free to give me some feedback. But something had to be done. Unfortunately, the translation gadget didn't seem to actually be doing much anymore, so I removed it. I hope that doesn't inconvenience anyone. Again, if you want it back, be sure to write me or comment, and I'll try to restore it properly.

While going through some of the links. I discovered that Abbie the Cat died last year, in fact it will be a year in just a few days. I'm so sorry to see that. I'm glad they kept the blog up as a memorial. I'm sure he was a good cat, and I know the pain of losing a beloved pet. While I didn't read Abbie's blog a lot, it made me smile each time I did.

I've got a friend lined up to take me to my surgery (poor thing, she lives in another county and I have to be there at 7 am on a Friday later in the month). I also have lined up a friend to stay with me that day, as I'm supposed to have someone with me during the first 24 hours. I think I'd probably be okay, but it's best if we go ahead and plan for him to be there. A friend offered to take care of me at his house like they did when I had oral surgery, but the problem with this is they have a bedroom and a large library, but no guest room, and I don't think I could get off the air mattress to go to the bathroom with my knee like it'll be--I kind of have to roll off onto my hands and knees usually. So instead, A will stay with me and he'll sleep on the air mattress (I just have one bedroom and a loveseat). I've promised him TV and munchies. I'll just blow up the air mattress the night before and put it in the living room and get it all set up with bedding.

I'm getting the library ready for anything that may happen if there are any complications or if I can't make it back as quickly as I'm planning to. I ordered toner for both copiers so there are two bottles of each type. I'll order paper before the surgery date. I'm doing some organising and rearranging, as well as cleanup of my desk area, removing some extraneous stuff.

I must confess I am somewhat nervous about the surgery and recovery, but it really has to be done. I am in pain daily, sometimes enough to take my breath away, especially in the afternoons and evening, and that's when I'm just sitting. I've been leaning on the other knee to take up the slack and it's actually hurting just as bad at this point. So I definitely need to take care of this.

Okay, it's almost 10:30 pm. I'm a little tired and cramping a bit. I'm finally starting my period, which is a week late, although I haven't really begun in earnest, so I'll wait to do my libation tomorrow night. I think I'm going to get some water, curl up with Alchemy of Murder, and afterwards go on to bed. I'd like to get to work a little early tomorrow as I overslept today and was about 15 minutes late. Then I'll be back on track time-wise. Good night. I hope you like the new design. Good night.

Oh, it is so good to be able to stretch out

This morning the first work I did was to go through a closet filled with boxes of books, unpack several boxes,  put the books on a cart, and then transfer them to a cart in the clinic,  where they give them to the kids when they come for their appointments. It took awhile,  but the cart is now full and the clinic folks are happy.  But I felt like I got a real workout this morning, and,  of course,  you lift properly from your knees,  so it was really rough on the injured one.  I can't believe I am saying this,  but I am looking forward to the surgery in a couple of weeks and hopefully the end to the pain that has been limiting me compared to what I'd like to do, as well as keeping me from doing normal daily tasks without pain. Now it is nice to be able to elevate my legs and really stretch. I am all comfy in bed,  listening to the radio. :) Soon I will turn it off and sleep,  though.