I'm starting to feel housebound. I keep trying to invent reasons I should leave the house with the family, but they're on to me.

Dammit.

They know that if I leave the house my knee will swell up like a balloon and then I'll be set back a few days. I really need to get the fuck out of the house. Today, Leann drove me to drop Genny at Kindergarten and I was so freaking excited!

I'm such a sad excuse for a human being. Not to mention...so freaking sick of sewing, which is about my only creative outlet except here. For writing, I am tired enough and hepped up enough on painkillers to not be terribly creative in my writing, not to mention how little life I feel like I am living -- thus, a little low on material, though I'm an excellent whiner! I don't really whine to anyone, just kind of too myself.

I feel like I'm waiting for my future. I feel like I'm waiting for my knee to stop being swollen, for my ability to straighten to my leg. I was really disheartened today when the physical therapist said that my knee may never be able to fully extend. It was hard not to break down into tears in front of him. I've been working so hard and then to hear that somehow broke my heart into little pieces.

I do my PT 2x per day. Some of the exercises are excrutiatingly painful. I have to spend 1-2 hours in my torture machine. Sometimes, my thighs are spasming afterwards making midnight bathroom trips difficult at best. Last night, I had to actually increase the amount of leeway I gave myself for straightening my leg rather than decreasing it, but I seem to be able to bend my leg better and better. The goal is 90 and I am at 80 currently. My straightening is another matter -- I remain circling around 8.

People ask how I'm doing and I want to burst into tears. Practically, I'm doing ok, but my patience with myself is definitely lacking.

I mostly slept today. I got up for 3 hours and I slept some more. Then I got up and cut up food for stew for tomorrow night. Then Mikey and I didn't want to cook and thinking we could just sneak to a really closeby restaurant, we tried to head out.

Genny started on this coughing jag that turned into a high tight asthma cough, so no dice. We hunted for specific meds through Walmart to slow her down -- very freaking exhausting for both of us.

On the drive home, I sat in the back with her and she and I both snoozed. When we got home, I tried to find all the pieces to my asthma machine to no avail. We tried a treatment, which really didn't work because we were missing one of the significant pieces. I'm going to have to get this stuff tomorrow for her and if she's this bad off, then she can't go to school and we'll have to take her to urgent care. Only, I'm not really in any shape to take her anywhere, which means it will be Mike's problem and he just got handed a pile of crap to do at work that's all due in a week, of course.

I'm so stressed out and upset. I have no idea what we're going to do tomorrow. I haven't even begun to address it with Mike because I just think he's going to yell and take out his frustration on me and I'm so tired, I'd cry.

To top this off, I'm really frustrated with Russell. None of his work is getting done at school, but I hear about how the girl he likes gives him the kind of hugs he prefers. *groan* His resource teacher is sending us stuff, but Mike doesn't seem to know how to keep up with it and the boy is purposely being evasive, not showing us stuff, fighting with us about whether or not we should correct it or not, etc. I'm ready to brain him with a large blunt instrument. He's very frustrating to be around at the moment.

I'm plain exhausted. There is no rest for the wicked, ever.

I'm ok.

I had surgery -- ended up with a spinal anesthesia and the sleepytime IV and it was long and much more stuff than was anticipated was wrong with my knee. The orthopedist said he had to make a couple cuts on my tibia to clean it up and that it was a very good thing that we'd done the surgery when we had because not only was there extensive damage to my tibia, but I had lots of bone spurs. I'm assuming that this is why it hurt so much beforehand and why so much of my recovery has been "slower than expected."

Most people apparently are walking the first day. I was not among them. I was able to stand. I was able to do small versions of the physical therapy exercises and I did them a lot. Apparently, the physical therapist in the orthopedic ward was a bit of a psycho bitch and when I did not meet her expectations she patronized me, talked to me like I was a moron, who didn't have the slightest clue about my pain threshhold, and generally, was a complete bitch. I politely held my ground and said that I was doing the best I could and that I would continue to.

The next day was more of the same and I asked her to please leave because I did not like the way she treated me, nor the way she spoke to me, nor her presumption that I was an idiot about my own body. She began to become argumentative and unpleasant. I asked her to please leave again, saying that I would not work with her. She continued to be obnoxious at which point I said,"Look, today, I've had a good night's sleep and I'm not above ripping you a new asshole. Please leave. I will not work with you." She said that I had threatened her with violence. I said,"No, I merely have the wherewithall today to tell you to go to hell and have no problem doing so. Please leave."

Finally, she left. I worked hard with nurses and was able to walk more and get more flexibility out of my knee. That night, however, they put me on a machine (Continuous Passive Motion or CPM) that is used for helping with range of motion and the settings were quite wrong. I cried through the first session because it was pure agony. The second session, Mike pet my hair, while I cried through it. In between things, I was told I had been admitted to rehab upstairs and I cried through the third session.

The next day, I was moved to rehab. The thing that was cool through this all was that the kenalog shot for my right knee -- a steroid shot, which in the past had sent my sugars reeling to new heights held pretty steady, which I attribute to byetta. My sugars were absolutely perfect -- flawless -- throughout my hospital stay. In fact, so much so, that the day I accidentally dropped a 20lb. box of laundry soap on the suture line of my wrecked knee causing it to bleed profusely down my knee that my rehab doctor and my endocrinologist were blithely watching me bleed and discussing just how fantastic my sugars had been.

I told the new physical therapist about the problems I'd had downstairs. I told her I would work as hard as I could but that I apparently wasn't at the recovery level that most people would be and that my pain had not been well managed to that point. I said I'm not a bitch, typically, but that I hate being patronized and that I definitely know my body's limits. She said she wasn't about putting me through agony. We discussed the CPM. She measured me in my first session and informed me that I was only able to do 20 extension on the machine and 40 flexion and that the machine had been set at 0 and 60 -- way beyond my capabilities. She showed me how to reset the machine. Now, I am at 9 extension and 58 flexion. The goals are 0 and 90, respectively.

Friday night, at my new home in the rehab unit, Mike brought the kids to visit. I had been hugged and smooched by both kids, and Genny had spent some time cuddling with me. Later, as we played games together, I heard Genny coughing up a lung. I asked Mike, scared shitless,"Is Genny sick?" He said, "Yeah, but I gave her triaminic." I said, "Yeah, but she's contagious and I'm in a weakened state! Please get her a mask!"

The next morning, after PT, I said to the PT guy,"Please get me something to throw up in." He handed me an emesis basin and I said hurriedly,"Bigger!" He handed me a liner to a water pitcher in time for me to fill that, fill the emesis basin, barf down my night gown, and then barf partially into another pitcher liner. I drink an enormous amount of water because of the dry-mouth side effect of percocet, so it wasn't that I had a huge breakfast.

I got into the shower while the poor staff cleaned everything else. I came back and called Mike. Turns out -- Genny had barfed all night, too. Serves him right. ;P

At first, I suggested they not come because Genny and I didn't feel well. Mike cried.

In the face of that, I told him to come anyhow. I told him I'd probably sleep, but that he was welcome to cuddle up with me and we could put on cartoons with the kids. I don't remember much of that day other than Mike cuddled against me for part of the afternoon.

I worked hard during rehab and they released me on St. Patrick's Day -- 10 days later.

Now, I'm in wake up, sleep, wake up sleep mode.

During wake up mode, I do my physical therapy, take my own shower, and sort laundry.

During sleep mode, I sleep like the dead and sometimes with my CPM machine on to advance my flexibility.

Overall, I'm doing really well. Don't worry. :)

I'm really fucking scared. I'm always like this before big surgery.

I have the nervous laughter thing going on. And I'm just trying to get everything done and everyone handled before I go. It's been a very stressful day.

This morning started with me taking Bear to his psychiatrist. We're changing his meds back to his old meds. I send Russ in with the sheet signed by the doctor and myself detailing what pills at what time.

I go to Long's to fill the script. They tell me half an hour, so I tool around the parking lot for half an hour waiting. I go back and they tell me 15 more minutes. I come back. They tell me 15 more minutes. At this point, it's been an hour, I say screw it and head home. I call Mike to direct him with how many pills to the school and how many come home. I call the school to be told by the clinical aide that the school nurse must approve all medications and that she's at Marvin Piccolo all damned week. I say, but it's been ordered and both his doctor and I signed off on it, what the hell? I'm told he may not get his meds tomorrow. It's a class fucking 2 drug...he shouldn't really be self-administering it at school. Period. I'm ripshit.

I get home and run some laundry. I call the elementary school nurse from last year because I know the clinical aide and I tell her I need the nursing supervisor's number. I call the nursing supervisor and I leave a message saying that I expect a phone call by day's end telling me how this has been resolved -- a call I got about 430 with ten apologies and how this will never be a problem again and they're so sorry. Buttfuckingheads. I run out to the mailbox and find a fucking bill from the cell phone we just disconnected -- I thought it had been paid. We still owe them for all that time we didn't ever use. Fuckers. I talk them into giving me back the day's worth of bill that wasn't covered so that I don't have to deal with it next month. I get all the flexible spending account reimbursement requests finished and faxed. Realize I really should have gotten a damn check by now on one, so I call and ask...they have no record of it. I refax it.

Mike comes home early after doing the meds drop off. I show him the books. I resolve the faxing of crap to the fsa people. In the middle of this, he goes to cook lunch and as I'm getting off the line with the FSA people, I get a beep on the other line. I answer it.

It's the insurance company telling me that they've approved 3 days at the hospital. I start flipping out because the doctor had said a good 4 - 5 days. But the nurse somehow thinks everything's just spiffy because when and if the hospital can convince *her* of the medical necessity of me staying longer than 3 days that I'll be just fine. I explain, I'm diabetic and getting a steroid shot and that my sugars are going to be bouncing off the walls, so my healing is going to suck ass. She blows me off and reiterates that 3 days...nothing to worry about. I start panicking my fucking ass off. All I can think is that somehow I'm going to have to jump insurance hoops at the hospital and I can't even begin to imagine how I'm going to do that. I'm freaking out. She says she can't understand what I'm worried about. I say I'm worried that what you say and what my doctor say are two entirely different things and that you are a nurse, not a doctor who knows me making decisions about my health. She gets snippy, I start to panic more and cry. I ask, "So why are you calling?" She gets snippier. I am bawling and I tell her that I am very upset and getting off the phone now and I hang up on her overly officious bitch ass.

I call my doctor bawling asking if this bitch has any sway or what? Joe the nurse calls back and says no, and if they try to go against the doctor's orders that I should plan to sue the pants off them. :) We discuss the fact that the kenalog shot is going to fork my sugars He says he hadn't thought of that and he discusses it with doctor and calls me back and say that my endocrinologist will be monitoring my sugars. He says that they're going to want to finger stick me with their horrible hospital sticks, which sucks because my fingers callous up really bad with finger sticks and I tend to use my arm. We agree that I'll need to discuss it with the hospital and see if they'll stick my arm instead.

LaDawn calls to say that Nate woke her up and threw up in the tub and crapped on the floor in the middle of the night and that she's going to pick up the kids after a class tonight. I'm trying not to freak out about the prospect of the kids contracting stomach flu and Mike getting stuck with that mess and that they won't be able to visit. I would die. I'm trying not to worry that they won't get much sleep.

So it's 1am and I should be in bed, but I'm fretting.

It's been a fuck awful day. A day with a lot of fucks in it.

Fuck it. I'm going to fucking bed.

Today we got our septic tank pumped out. I kind of feel like I've hit some plateau of homeowner meets redneck to get my septic tank pumped. I don't know why -- it's a necessary evil and all, but damn.

My knee is awful. It's unadulterated agony, but I am doing lots of stuff as my last hurrah because I know in 3 days, I'll be starting something new and wonderful. So I'm icing the crap out of it, using the wheelchair to go out, and actually going out to do laundry and stuff because I know I'm nearing the end and I just don't give a shit.

I think after a year, that I am somewhat accustomed to the pain. Mike was massaging the back of my calf and hamstrings today and I was just weeping. I don't even know why particularly -- he wasn't hurting me in a bad way, it was just as if there was so much pain stored up in my body and he was releasing it by touching me. My calf below my knee is tight and hard like a rock -- it's had to be the bone in my leg, and without a working knee, it can't do it's job of controlling my foot fall and keeping my knee from hyper extending, it's simply had to hold my leg still, so I don't feel the familiar pain and crunching of bone on bone as I walk.

There was a chicken pox scare -- my son's dearest friend's sister had it, despite an immunization and at the same time, the friend had a bad flu. I was terrified that somehow I was going to get exposed to that before I went to the hospital because Russell hangs out with this kid all the time. I've been pounding vitamins and iron in an effort to fend off any bugs and to bring my iron levels up before a 2 hour surgery that sometimes requires blood transfusions.

I'm taking bariatric vitamins, so I absorb it better.

I'm tired, but happy. I saw Pink Panther with the kids today. There's nothing so wonderful as a 5 or a 12 year old busting up at Steve Martin's slapstick comedy. Nothing. It was like beautiful music heard for the first time. I feel like I'm savoring these kinds of things in advance of not being able to for a while.

We printed Genny a calendar, so she could remember when my surgery was. I highlighted the time I will be in the hospital on her calendar. She keeps asking when my surgery is and we've told her 20 times, but she's obviously worrying about it. I don't want her to worry, so the calendar makes it real for her. Russell is cuddling with me -- something he never does, so I know he's worrying, too. I feel sad that I can't put them at ease any more than I have. We've reassured them and made a big stink to that end, but Russell, in particular, is so close to me and he knows my every mood and feeling. There's no hiding my fear from him and he forces Genny to behave because he knows I'm scared and it's his way of letting me know they'll be ok. But Genny knows what it means, too, so she frets and cuddles, too.

I know that them leaving me at the hospital will put me into tears and that them arriving will be slaking an unending thirst. I'm eating them up in delicious little bites this weekend and savoring the flavor of them, so that it might carry me through the week and weeks ahead.

They are so beautiful.

I'm preparing for surgery!

I baked 7 pans of food over the weekend, which will amount to two weeks of stuff with leftovers.

The house is pretty clean. The family plan is to work on it all week and clean it up, so we can play all weekend, as the last hurrah before I go in.

Mike arranged the fridge and microwave in here for me. I think when i saw that, I realized...wow...6 more days....

However, I think I had some honey do list power because the husband did a Stupid Man trick. Stupid Man tricks are considerably different than Stupid Pet tricks because the latter are actually funny. Stupid Man tricks are not.

We had to drive to the small city and drop off a payment. So we told the kids that we'd get ice cream while we were there.

So we're in the line at Baskin Robbins. And we spied the one person I am sure broke his damn funny bone. He never smiles, never smirks, never says please or thank you. He's like the Antichrist of Customer Service aka the No Humor Man. I say,"Oh, look, it's the No Humor Man."

Stupid Man says,"And the chick who always wears the short skirt isn't here tonight. I always enjoy watching her bend over to get the ice cream."

Stupid Man becomes Dead Man.

First, Dead Man tries to justify it by saying something about that I had said something about Olympian speedskaters having coconut cracking thighs, which honestly, wasn't a drool comment, but more of a holy cow look at the size of the thighs on those people. Then he brings up how Sarah and I drool over Elvis. Justification is a Stupid Man secondary trick.

Very tricksy. Very Stupid. Very Dead Man.

Dead Man apologizes, while Wife cries bitterly because wife is feeling horribly insecure from recent weight gain from all the health problems and for having to demand so much from Dead Man, previously known as Stupid Man, previously known as Beloved Husband.

However Dead Man walking does have the common sense to work on that honey do list, when Wife wiping tears off face, says,"Would you please bring in the microwave from the back of the car?" He completely rearranged the bedroom, dusting and cleaning and putting away things...wait for it.....wait for it....without being prompted. The. World. May. End.

Dead Man walking thinks he should squeeze Wife's shoulder. Wife says,"Please don't touch me right now. I love you, but I am angry and while I'll be done being angry eventually, right now, I need you to leave me the fuck alone."

Eventually Dead Man reverts to Beloved Husband, and while Wife still feels hurt, her comment to Beloved Husband aka Stupid Man aka Dead Man was,"Looking ain't free, if you're wife is present." Beloved Husband says,"Point taken."

Wife adds,"Me admiring Elvis doesn't count, by the way, because the man is dead!" Beloved Husband agrees and smiles, which is what he should have done in the first place.

The epilogue of any good Stupid Man trick, however, is that Wife gets to take her pound of flesh by asking him to knock off a few more things from that honey do list.

The bottomline? It still hurts. I'll process it and it'll get better, but that was painful on a number of levels. Mike's done what he should to end the trick -- he said he was sorry, he showed he was sorry. Now, I just have to finish processing it.

I'm feeling intermittently rather vicious about the whole thing, which I am managing by giving him flak for admiring underage flesh, which just feels good.

Revenge isn't nice, but it helps.

I should be over it in a day or two.