Even when...

I've been feeling better.  Or so I thought.  Physically. I've definately been feeling better physically.  Mentally and emotionally is still a bit of a rollercoaster.  It's weird, because you think you should be off the rollercoaster since "everything else is going os well."  But maybe it's when you're feeling almost normal but still can't do everything by yourself; that's when it's more frustrating.  There's not painkillers to help dampen the pride enough to ask for help.  You just have to do it.  And it's nice to see everyone.  But it's like being so close but just skimming something and losing.  Now, I still have a far way to go-it's not like I'm going back to work tomorrow or anything.  I'm on day 13!  But paitence was never my virtue-and I'm trying really hard to work on that through this whole process.  Between the motivation to do the stuff at home, and the increasing need to feel like I'm on one piece again!  It's this battle of wills.  Thankfully I have a fairly extensive Itunes library you manipulate myself with. The proper motivation.  You just get to this point where you want all of the small steps to be bigger.  And they're not. 

I think, too, it's the drug haze is gone and you start to realize the actual length of time and committment needed to really get back to normal.  Monetarily, time, energy, scheduling, mental-months.  The magnitude starts to hit you.  I mean let's face it, you don't have much else to think about when you're not at work every day or going out with friends often.  It's a lot of "me" time.  And boy that can drive a person batty! 

The good thing in it all is I have no choice.  If I want to be able to walk normally and work normally I have to do it all.  There is no other viable option.  So it does take, at least, the stress of decision making out of it all.

I don't know.  Maybe I'm just bummed I didn't get to go to my Michael Buble concert tonight. :(

and my ass still hurts.

I'm thinking when all of this is said and done I'll need anew left ass cheek.  But I'm guessing that that would be an unpleasant surgical experience as well.  But I bet I wouldn't have to sit on my butt so in fact, my butt wouldn't hurt for that reason!

Right now I have the set up so the cooler and computer are on my left side since my right leg is in the machine.  But tomorrow I'm thinking of changing this up a bit and seeing how it all works on the right side of me.  My left cheek is getting all the pressure right now and that's just not fair.  At least as far as I'm concerned it's not fair.

I think the late night melt downs are on a stand still for the moment.  2 in a row was too many.  But I hadn't really had a melt down yet, not prior to surgery or post.  So during the whole duration since I injured my knee I've been pretty good.  I was doubly due I guess.  Of course today could just be better because I took a shower!  A real shower!  Not a sponge bath/rag bath tease.  But a stand under the spray and let the water wash down you, over you, around you shower.  Now I did have a plastic bag over one leg, but it was still so nice!

Getting in the shower was interesting.  I used a kitchen chair and crutches.  kind of hoisted my bad leg over the side of the tub, then stood up from the chair and used my crutches to support the majority of my weight while I brought the other leg over.  It was scary and dangerous-and so necessary!  Note here: if you are ever in this position I advise turning on the water after you are fully in the shower, that way you're not getting into a slippery wet bath tub.  Thankfully I thought of this before hand.  And have something on the floor for when you get out-again to avoid the slipperiness. 

I've also switched to mostly advil.  Now I'm still taking a lot.  But it's better than the vicodin.  Why anyone would choose to take that stuff I have no idea!  But they do.  I don't like it.  Besides being constantly tired.  You don't sleep well on it.  It makes you woozy and funky all day.  You have weird dreams!  I've had the weirdest of weird dreams.  Involving bikes and bunnies and work and famous people that I've never met.  craziness!

The Rollercoaster...

Well day 4-and I'll say....
 Well it's definately better than day one I guess.  It's just a total rollercoaster.  Good hours and bad hours.  There are times when I'm moving around (well as much as I can)  or doing the CPM machine-where I'm like-ok this is doable.  I'm getting along just fine.  And then I hit a couple hours later and it's a totally different story.  It's when the back hurting, the butt hurting, the nausea, the feeling like crap-just wears you down.  And no musical mix at the moment can fix it. 

And it's exhausting!  I dread going to the bathroom because I know what effort it will take to get there and back, besides having to lower myself to the toilet and back up!  And it's so frustrating!  Just completely annoying and frustrating.  Not being able to do simple things for yourself.  Where minor things, like an achy throat or upset stomach, are just magnified by the fact that almost every muscle in your body is tired.  I thought being tired was just me being lazy-but I had no idea what a toll it is on the complete psyche-mental, physical, emotional.  It's full fledged.  And I've had friends and family there-and that's good and appreciated.  But I'm on my own a lot which just gives me time to think about all the crappy stuff like this. 

I'm just tired. I'm just exhausted.  I'm just spent and it all makes me over emotional.  It sucks really.

Home from the hospital.

Well hello world!  Looks like I made it through!  Actually i don't think i would've minded sleeping a bit more-waking up was NOT fun!  And it was the part I was thinking was going to be the worst-so that's not too surprising. But it hurt like a mother lover!

And so getting ready for bed.  That was an adventure too!  It just took me forever-and i don't know wehre to put all of this stuff!  The CPM machine-the cooler!  everything has cords and is big!  I just want to be able to walk without the crutches!  I don't want to rush myself-but i'm already tired of being so dag gone needy!

And going to the bathroom is a big pain in the ass.  Cause getting underwear down enough over the stupid brace that comes up so high! It'll be comical when it doesn't hurt.  It really will-I mean I almost laugh at it now.  And it's a little more annoying when you have to pee really badly!  They didn't prepare me for that part. I mean I guess I could've figured it out if I would've thought of it long enough-but I didn't.  Thought of a bunch of other useless stuff.  But when it came to going to the bathroom and how to rearrange my room so i could fit everything by the bed-those weren't in the packet Rita gave me.  :(   And really these are the things that end up mattering when you get home.  I mean when's the last time you had to figure out how to pee?  I will say it comes in handy to have some loose wide skirts though.  Especially the ones that can go over your head.  No bending trying to get your broke ass foot (well it's not really broke but since it doesn't really move that far on its own right now), into shorts.  Which i don't recommend-skirts are the way to go!
 
I'm starting to see double now-so the pain pill must be kicking in. Gnite everyone!

Genius

So i enabled the genius function in my Itunes. And so far I kinda like it.  It plays music that I don't hear a lot and forgot that I have.  So in that sense it's nice.  On my list of things to do while layed up is to go through and delete all the music I do not want.  There's a lot of it.  The majority of my memory on my computer is probably music.

Tomorrow is the big day. Surgery day.  Tons of fun.  Can't wait.  Really I can.  I really want to walk and squat like a normal person again.  But other than that I could wait a while for this.  It's just so much stress and it's not worth it.  It really isn't.  Especially when I could have socialized health care if I'd be born in Canada.  Oh well!  Short term-i'm just trying to hydrate myself as much as possible until midnight so they can find a vein in me tomorrow.  ugh needles.  I hate needles.  I wish I could listen to music during this whole thing-that would totally ease my mind. I'd relax and let them prod me as much as they wanted to-with the right music i can almost block out anything.  I'll have to ask my doctor if he listens to music while he works-that would be awesome.

Took the parents around a bit today.  I even got them on a train to go downtown.  Crazy i know-but they did it.  We saw a bit of the zoo and walked around my hood a bit.  Tomorrow they get to see my store before the surgery.  Because, of course, i can't go too long without going to a Barnes and Noble.  I guess it's nice to like where you work and be proud of the company you work for.  Not everyone has that.  And as much as I complain, it's hard to see myself anywhere else for a while. 

I don't imagine it'll be easy to sleep tonight.  As much as I'd like to think it will be-I'm not holding my breath.  If my parents weren't sleeping in the other room I'd question whether all of this was really happening. 
Well here's to going under and hoping i come up.

Turkeys will return..

Okay-so the wild turkeys and other fierce animals will return.  However, my creative juices (if we can call them that) are not flowing. 

Dena Jo is getting knee surgery.  Torn ACL torn meniscus.  tons of not fun.  So far I haven't had a break down.  I'm just waiting for that.  Been keeping it together though.  Which is a little rough.  And I know everyone keeps saying it's for the best, you'll be happy when it's all better, it's not that bad-this stuff has come so far in the years.  Blah blah blah.  I know I'm not having heart surgery here.  But I also know that I am a single white female alone in Chicago on a tight budget.  That's the stuff that sucks and worries me.  I've worked pretty hard on trying to maintain and stay on top of finances.  Improve my credit and all that jazz.  I'm just dreading yet another bill that I have to pay and don't always know where the money's coming from.  Or not where it's coming from but I guess it just mean that any sense of a social life is gone.  Ugh.

With my impending trip under the knife brings the first visit from the parents.  2 1/2 years and here they come.  So I'll be able to show off my sparsley furnished apartment and Northwestern Hospital.  And the hospital is downtown so they'll see a little of the city.  And we do have to drive past my current B&N store to get there.  Not a completely lost cause. 

The turkeys will have to wait

Today started out pretty good.  A little drowsy-but that's usual.

I saw my very first opera-Damnation of Faust.  Riff Raff from Rocky Horror made an appearance-so it made me feel a little more at home.  But it was really cool.  It was a modern interpretation so there were no long braided wigs or viking hats-but hey that's ok.  Lighting was pretty darn awesome.  As it was a dress rehearsal there were a few technical moments of interest for me.  So I loved it.
Then a trip to Garfield Park conservatory-pictures and video coming soon.  It was pretty and warm and smelled good!  And then I checked my voice mail...

Which I guess I should've done last night-or this morning-or well anytime before I did-cuz then I would've been able to call and get some more details-instead I was left with a voice mail and google.  Not a good combination.  The voice mail you ask?  It was the results from my MRI of my knee.  Yeppers-a voice mail.  So, apparently I have a ruptured ACL and torn maniscis something.  She had a name for the tear in the maniscis but I couldn't understand what she said.  Now for all I know this may not be too terrible-however the words surgery and surgeon were also in the voice mail.  And online it said when the ACL and manisicis both have damage-you should probably just have the damn surgery.  But i don't know if we're going with total ACL replacement or if they're just trimming some stuff or what. Thus my worried state. 

And thus why medical people should not leave you voice mails with this kind of information.  Or at least a little more clarification!  Cause now i just have google and key words and put that together and I'm looking at some pretty scary stuff.
And nothing really defines the difference of a rupture compared to a tear-or if there is a difference.  I don't know!  It's all meshed into one-which is why I'm confused worried and mad! 

Ugh.  I wanted to write the second installment of the Turkey blog.  But my creative juices are just not flowing at the moment.  This sucks.