Knee Deep

So, my knee clicks.  That's the word written on the medical report.  In reality, it's like a sharp snap that pulls my kneecap out and a bit to the right.  It happens every time I straighten or bend my knee, which is a lot.  Every once in a while, it locks and sends an intense jolt of pain through my leg that takes my breath away.  It's especially great when this happens while I'm sleeping.  The best part is that it's obvious and noticeable.  What I mean is, you can touch my leg and feel it happen, and if it's quiet enough, you can even hear it.  So, what the heck?  After having half a dozen or so medical professionals play around with my leg, I might as well let everyone else in on the weirdness, too.

To figure out what exactly was going on in there, I got to see an orthopedic surgeon and then get an MRI.  This doctor specializes in knees, particularly the left one.  (Had I known back in pre-med that I could have established a career as the "Left Ear Lobe Specialist," I might have stuck it out.)  The surgeon moved my knee around every which way, looked up at me, and said, "Well, you've got a neat party trick here."  Party trick.  Really.  I mean, I'm about as socially awkward as a person can be, but even I know that busting this thing out at a shindig is no way to get down.

After my MRI (see previous post), I knew what to expect from the doctor and waited for the explanation of all that was to come.  Unsurprisingly, he started out by asking me how my "party trick" was doing.

Me:  Well, it's actually a lot cooler than I knew.
Doctor:  How so?
Me:  You know how some people have joints that predict weather patterns?  Like, 'My elbow aches, so it's definitely going to snow today.'
Doctor:  Yeah, I guess...
Me:  Well, my knee can tell you where Jimmy Hoffa is, which is a hell of party trick if you ask me.  Who needs to know the weather in Austin?  Hot.  Every day.  I'd say the location of a notorious criminal is much more relevant.

Sadly, Hoffa's fat pad edema is in fact named after some boring doctor who isn't even related to Jimmy Hoffa (allegedly).  It's much the same as the Baker's Cyst, which has nothing to do with baking, even though that would have made total sense to me because I spend most of my free time doing stuff like this:

So, that was two major let-downs on the knee injury.  He asked if I had any other questions before he went into detail about my options.  Of course I did.

Me:  Well, the PA said that I have extra high-riding kneecaps and extended mobility.  Is that like a super power or something?  Like, maybe I can end world hunger with the extra knee work?
Doctor:  Um...well...it's not really a good thing.  I mean, it's not...the worst thing.  It's just not what we typically see in the average patient.
Me:  So what are you saying?  I belong in a freak show?  "Come see the girl with High-Riding Kneecaps! She's not normal!"
Doctor:  Okay, well, I wouldn't go that far.  It's just that there's a range of normal, and you're at the very high end of normal or perhaps even the low end of abnormal.
Me:  I don't believe anyone has ever described me so aptly in one sentence before.

Abby Normal.  I'm almost sure that was the name.

As we went over the options, he discussed the pros and cons of each choice.  Basically, the bottom line is that this clicking and aching is going to stay with me for the rest of my life, and there isn't really any good procedure for a permanent cure.  The doctor noted my frustration and said, "Hey, it isn't cancer, and you aren't going to die from it."  Well, those were two outcomes I never worried about.  Thanks for making me feel like a jerk for complaining.  I know it isn't cancer.  It isn't a lot of things, like starvation, or EF-5 tornadoes, or even the Zombie Apocalypse, but it is my knee.  And it is also quite unpleasant.

So I now have a non-life-threatening, "it's not cancer," snap crackle pop in my knee, and it can't even tell you where Jimmy Hoffa is.  This is the worst party trick EVER.  Thanks a lot, Suburban, thou lump of foul deformity!

That Time My Knee Solved a Mystery

This week, the orthopedic surgeon's office called to tell me the results of my knee MRI had come in, and I needed to be seen as soon as possible.  I explained to the woman that my dog was having an emergency surgery and everything was kind of up in the air, so I had no idea when I'd be able to make the appointment.  Instead of the understanding reply I expected, the extremely huffy response I received was something along the lines of, "Well, I guess I can tell the doctor that, but you still have to come in if you want to get your results.  This is very serious."

I wanted to tell her that I was so overwhelmed I hadn't been very good at doing anything useful in the last week, including things like sleeping or eating regularly.  What I have been good at is crying, worrying, feeling insanely guilty, and cleaning obsessively.  (Obsessive cleaning means nit-picking my way through cabinets and drawers, item by item, for hours, when dishes may be left un-washed next to the sink.  It's less useful and more of a cleaning obfuscation.)  I couldn't explain any of this, though, because I knew she didn't have any compassion and because I was so far past my stress threshold that I was afraid anything I said would come out in a strangled half-sob, half-maniacal guffaw worthy of a Batman villain.

Actually, now that I think about it, if Ben Affleck can play Batman, I think I could make a pretty good villain.  So if any big, important movie casting directors are reading this, have your people contact my people.  I'd make a pretty good PenGwyn, seeing as I can bring my own personal flair to the name.  But, I probably can't be Catwoman because I'm allergic to cats.  Bummer, right?  Well, I'm sure we could still work something out.

And now, back to my point.

The next day, I got another phone call from the same woman.  She started out with, "Okay, so the doctor said I can read the report to you, but you're going to have to make an appointment if you want it explained."  Okay.  I get it.  I need to make an appointment. 

As soon as she said there were four points on the report, I knew I was going to have to write it all down.  This may seem less than helpful until you recall that Google's most important feature is allowing all of us to ensure we are actually dying of the worst possible diseases before we even step foot into a doctor's office.  Your knee hurts because of a car wreck?  Actually, no.  You have cancer AND ebola.  That's some pretty crap luck. (Obviously, I had a fun evening planned.)

To be extra considerate, the woman on the phone was spelling certain words for me to be sure I got them all down correctly, except I began to notice that she was spelling out normal words like l-a-t-e-r-a-l and skipping the medical terms, as if she thought I was some kind of idiot savant.  So you're going to spell out joint, but you're leaving popliteal up to me?  Gee.  Thanks.

And then she got to the part I couldn't understand at all.

Lady:  Number four is *mumbles* fat pad edema....
Me:  I didn't catch that word in front of fat pad.  Did you say Hoss, like Bonanza?
Lady:  No, *mumbles*
Me:  Okay, can we spell it out?  Hostas?
Lady:  Not essssessss, effffffs.
Me:  Oh, so Hoffa's fat pad?
Lady:  Yes.
Me:  I didn't know my knee had a fat pad.
Lady:  Well, I don't know what it means, either, so you're going to have to see the doctor.
Me:  It would be nice to know the hows and whys of the gangster's abode in my knee.  Who would have thought Jimmy Hoffa was in there all this time?
Lady:  That's why you're going to have to come in.

Clearly, she was done listening to me at that point.

And then I got some messages from my dad.

Dad:  What did the doctor's office say?
Me:  Well, there was some stuff about MCLs and cysts and unimportant stuff like that.  Oh, and I have a phat pad in my knee, and Jimmy Hoffa lives there.
Dad:  In other words, you didn't understand what they told you.
Me:  No, I wrote it all down.  Hoffa's fat pad edema.  I think it makes perfect sense.  Edema means swelling.  If you had a supposed-dead teamster hiding out in your fat pad, it would be swollen.  See?  I don't even need a doctor.  What I need is the FBI.
Dad:  Or maybe some sleep...?

I guess my dad could be right, but whenever I do get to go to the doctor, it would be nice if they could explain how a mob boss got into a fat pad when he died more than a decade before I was born.  Maybe Jimmy Hoffa is a Time Lord.

Hold on to Your Potatoes!

Paper is a hot commodity at my house.  It just doesn't exist.  Well, of course, there are books.  I have books on every wall, on the floor, in my bed, on every horizontal surface... If I could stack books on the ceiling just to fit more of them in, I would.  But writing paper is so scarce that any time I chance upon a notebook, it's like finding the lost city of El Dorado.  

Except, I seem to have some sort of dementia when it comes to notebooks.  They're all filled up, by me, but I have no memory of the things I've written.  I'm talking NO memory.  Like, there are plenty of inside jokes that I don't even understand, and they were *my* jokes.

I'm the girl who hates lists and couldn't write one to save my own life (or make grocery shopping easier), yet I have scores of notebooks filled with lists and words and doodles I don't even remember making.  And, they're all ridiculous.  Things I Would Teach a Parrot to Say, Inappropriate Songs to Sing at My Funeral, numerous bucket lists, books to read, old words that should make a comeback, the countries of the world in alphabetical order....and it goes on and on.  (People who have sat next to me at meetings sometimes must have wondered why I have Azerbaijan in my notes, because they must have missed something.)

Today I found a notebook I don't even remember seeing, let alone writing in, but I found a list of things I should do with my life.  At the top of the list, I wrote "Know All the Things!"  and then crossed it out and wrote, "Damnit, Google." next to it.  At the bottom of the page was a list of pros and cons for becoming an archaeologist.

In case it's too hard to read, the pros say *My name is already Jones *I could find a good man, and *I hate Nazis.  The cons are *I don't have enough Asian friends *Maybe he wouldn't be a Time Lord, and *Sometimes it is snakes.  Apparently I decided the cons outweighed the pros in this case.

My favorite part is the fact that I believed having a kid that looks like Data from the Goonies follow me around yelling "Doctah Jones!" was more of a pro than finding Biblical artifacts.  

Okay, so it is a pretty good pro.

If the Shoe Fits...

I was at what was to be my last appointment at the chiropractor when a woman walked in who commanded all the attention in the room.  Her heels clacked on the hard floor, and she talked on her cell phone, loudly, about what a horrible day she'd had.  And even though she was late for her appointment, she would go before me.

When she sat down, I snapped a quick picture at her unbelievable shoes.

Her shoes weren't the only unbelievable part of her get-up, though.  She was wearing an outfit of clothes that were a couple of sizes too small so as to accentuate her features.  I have to give it to her - the overall effect on her was much better than it would have been on me.  If I wore clothes like that, it would be less "Hey, look at my curves!" and more "Hey, it's the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man!"  But I digress.

She went into her room, and the chiropractor attempted to tell her that she had significant spine and hip rotations that would need to be worked on.  And then he mentioned the shoes.

Doctor:  I'm not saying the shoes caused all of the problems, but they will add to it. 

Lady:  Yeah, but, my feet don't hurt.

This was the part where I wished he would have broken into a rendition of Dem Bones so that she could understand how her foot bone eventually connected to her hip bone and made it unhappy somehow.  Every sentence she said from that point on started with "Yeah, but..." and got louder and louder as she tried to defend her shoes and her lifestyle.

The rest of us just sat and waited, getting to hear it all.  As the door opened, the conversation had not ended.  Maybe I was feeling brave because this was my last appointment to see the chiropractor or any of these people, or maybe my eye-rolling muscles were feeling tired and over-worked. 

Doctor:  Whenever you wear heels, your body is tilted forward.  In heels this high, you walk like...

Me:  A Tyrannosaurus Rex.

Doctor:  I was going to say you walk like you're tilted on a ski slope.  All of your muscles are tight and eventually going to be damaged beyond repair.  Walking like a dinosaur isn't far off.

The girl shot me a prissy, murderous look, but I didn't care.  Everyone in the room felt the same way about her.  I just wanted to have my appointment and then go home forever.  I wouldn't be back, so I wouldn't have to worry about seeing anyone here again.  

But then...after my appointment, the doctor said he needed to see me again next week.  That figures.

Oops.

A Sadist on my Back

I haven't written in a while.  In fact, I haven't done much of anything in a while.  I suppose the last few weeks I have suffered from some depression, caused by my accident and the fact that I haven't won the lottery yet.  In the time since the accident, I had held on to a lot of hope that I was healing, that life would have to get better, that everything would get better.  People keep telling me I'm so lucky, and so I tried to hold on to that.

Then I started having sharp pains in my back and chest like nothing I'd ever felt before.  The doctors knew something was wrong, because I usually list severe pain as a 4 or 5 on the scale, and I was calling this a 9.  Unfortunately, I attempted to Google "left shoulder blade pain."  Don't do it.  WebMD always says you have cancer, except this time.  This time it said dissecting aorta.  I wished it were cancer.  When I finally got to see my doctor, she took my shirt off and moved my arms around.  She said I was having muscle spasms.  Muscle spasms.

Somehow, the diagnosis seemed lacking.  When the pain got intense, my body would contort in such ways that my bra even unhooked on its own.  Try as I might, I haven't been able to re-create that particular move, but once I do, I'm going to market it.  I mean, this all has to be worth something.  I told the doctor I was going to call the muscle spasms Annie Wilkes, because that sounded more in line with what I was actually experiencing.  I would have been far less surprised to hear that a maniacal sadist had taken up residence in my trapezius and was ready with a sledge-hammer when I needed a good hobbling.

I am your number one fan.

Nothing has really helped the pain, so I've sort of retreated.  I haven't cooked or baked, even though I love doing those things.  I haven't really talked a lot to friends, yet I feel irrationally angry with some who haven't reached out to me.

Perhaps this too shall pass, and in the meantime I'll work on finding my funny again.  I tend to find it in margaritas, though I have to warn anyone who drinks with me that I'll probably explain things like the historical significance of des mouches or why the Royal Baby doesn't have a last name.

Speaking of the RB, I bought a commemorative cheese to celebrate the occasion.  That's right.  This child has a limited edition cheddar called Royal Addition.

Someday when I have kids, I'm going to give out cheese instead of birth announcements.

I had been waiting for over a week to try out my new cheese, and it was difficult to leave it untouched each time I opened the fridge.  Today, my dad called to tell me the good news, in case I was not online.

Dad:  You can open your cheese now.

Me:  Really?
Dad:  Yep! The British had a boy.
Me:  The whole nation had a baby?
Dad:  You know what I mean. I'm watching the whole limo thing. Everyone's excited, but not like jumping up and down or anything crazy. You know, they're British.
Me:  Well, yes. I think I want to be British myself.
Dad:  Not me. They live on an island. Scary stuff. Once global warming really takes off, there will be a lot more water and a lot less island.
Me:  Technically all land is surrounded by water, but I guess if I were insane I'd see your point. I've got to go eat my cheese now. Thanks for letting me know.
Dad:  Really, shouldn't you wait until you know the name of your Royal Cheese?

So, I guess congratulations are in order, even if I am waiting to try the commemorative cheddar.

That Time I Almost Died of Sticker Shock

I went to HEB on my way to the Frio, and everything started out normal and boring.  Or, as normal as can be when you realize you've parked next to this:

Plant food = God's "chemo"

So anyway, I walked into the store to look into getting what I needed for my trip.  I'd been in this HEB before, but only ever with a friend who is one of those list people and had a plan for the whole week written neatly on a piece of paper.  I just knew I was going to starve if I didn't grab a couple of kind of thought out items.

I was making it through quite nicely, when I started to feel an itch on the back of my leg.  At first I thought it was just the new capri pants I was wearing.  It's just a weird seam thing, right?  As I turned into the next aisle, the itch was back, and I realized it wasn't just an itch.  It was a scraping, scratching feeling going across my thigh.  Moving.  It was a living itch.  I stopped in my tracks, trying to think of what to do.  Surely it was nothing.  It's always nothing, isn't it?

But then my brain remembered Grandma's story about the time she put on a dress as a little girl, and there were wasps in the "bosom" of it, which turned out to be pretty awful but then later doubled as a good tactic for keeping grandkids (or at least me) terrified and awake.  And then I thought about how we had to check all of our shoes and things left on the floor when we lived in Arizona because we had scorpions and other disgusting things in our house all the time.  My dad even tried to describe scorpions to my grandparents when they came for their first visit, saying it was some little armored thing that had a big stinger tail on it and lobster claws.  As we all stood around the kitchen listening to him describe it, Grandma suddenly said, "Uh, like that?"  And sure enough, one had scampered across the kitchen floor to stare at us as if to say, "What up, yo?"  until Grandma just reached out with her little vinyl flat and crunched it to pieces on the linoleum.

Grandma, as portrayed by Harry Hamlin

So now I was sure.  This wasn't just an itch, it was a poisonous creature.  Maybe it was a black widow, and I was going to die before I could even get to my car.  I mean, I was in the middle of the grocery store, and it wasn't like I could just reach into my pants and get the little beast out of there.  By now I had started sweating and trying to keep calm, thinking it would keep me alive longer if the horrid creature in my pants couldn't sense my ever rising panic.  What did I need again?  Oh, right.  Milk.  I started promising God and myself that I'd write lists from now on if I could just live through this experience.

The scratching was getting more insistent.  Forget snacks and whatever else I had planned for the rest of the week; I needed to get to the safety of my vehicle.  So, I went to the check out and tried to look as non-panicky as I could while asking for a bag of ice, but that probably just translated in an over-large, awkward smile as I had sweat rolling down my face.  I felt like someone in a hostage situation who has to secretly convey their plight to be rescued, but how do you do that when the terrorist is in your own pants?

I run to my car awkwardly, trying to not move my leg even though legs are required for things like running, and then leaving my groceries and ice in the backseat for a minute, because, well, getting this thing out of my pants is more pressing.  I have tinted windows on my car, but it's not like I drive a limo, so I have to do that fun contortion of trying to look like my arm isn't down my pants even though it's totally down my pants.  When I grab onto the first thing that isn't made of me or capri pant material, I grip it tightly enough to be sure it's dead on the way out, but then I realize that it's much too small to be a black widow.  What if it's a species undiscovered by science?  It would be just my luck to find something as yet unknown to science, but then die before I can report it, or, perhaps worse, have destroyed it completely.  Still, being cautious, I get the menacing little harbinger of death out of my pants and then throw it onto the passenger seat, in case it has the cockroach-like ability to not be dead even when it's dead.

Except, it's not dead.  It's not even alive.  It's a piece of paper.  I un-crumpled the little bits of stickiness.  Who knows?  Maybe the spider got away and left me a message that would make sense of the last 15 minutes of my life.  Instead, I find this.

Well, that was unexpected.

So, I guess that was somewhat of a let down, all things considered.

That Time My Dad Diagnosed My Whole Life

One day not too many months ago, my dad called just to say hello.  This time, I was in quite a bad mood because my non-level oven had just ruined a lemon meringue pie I was making for a party.

Dad:  What's up?
Me:  I ruined a pie, so I'm mad.
Dad:  Didn't you ruin a cake last month?  You're supposed to be good at baking.
Me:  I did NOT ruin a cake.  My oven caught on fire.  I'm pretty sure oven fires are in the category of "not my fault" until such time as I intentionally set this piece-of-junk oven alight because it un-levels all of my cakes and sometimes decides to broil instead of bake.
Dad:  You're like a living episode of I Love Lucy.
Me:  Shut up. I'm hanging up on you.
Dad:  But everybody loved Lucy. It's a good thing. You just have a lot of mishaps, and it's funny.
Me:  I don't want to be stupid.
Dad:  Lucy's not stupid - she just had adventures that didn't turn out so great for her. For us, they were hilarious.
Me:  Fine, but I still like Ethel better.
Dad:  Oh, now she was stupid. Her best friend was Lucy, and that b**** was dangerous.

So this is how I came to be diagnosed with Lucy Ricardo Disease.  It all makes sense now.  Every time I have a somewhat dumb conversation with a stranger, or say the world's worst curse in front of a little old lady, or tell a police officer my whole life story until he decides not to give me a ticket, or become a witness to some silly adventure at the store, it's really just a symptom of my disease.  And while I can't see that this disease is terminal, at least in the dying sort of way, it does seem that the harder I try to do the right or nice thing, the more likely I am to set my fake nose on fire or be forced to eat a million pieces of chocolate.

Yeah, I took awkward photos ON PURPOSE.  What now?

I guess there's no point in trying to hide just how awkward I really am, but I figure being a little like Lucy Ricardo isn't the worst thing in the world.  After all, I could be Ethel.  

She makes a good point.