please send bonbons, 2nd opinions, and a housekeeper

Well, here I am on the couch - but where are the bonbons?  I fear this is a case of ‘careful what you wish for’.  Remember when I was gearing up for my MRI of my pinkie last week, I thought I might end up resting on the couch recovering from cyst removing surgery with hands bandaged and everyone else doing my normal duties, ie:  everything.

Instead - I messed up my knee.  Doing what?  NOTHING!  Had I not been lucky enough to marry a physical therapist, I would have landed in the ER last night.  People, I COULD NOT straighten my leg.  Weight bearing - no way!  Nightmare.  

Coach informed me that people over 40 (Who, me?) are walking around with torn meniscus tissue, and I tweaked one such tear when I, wait for it, . . . . WALKED ACROSS THE FAMILY ROOM.  

On Thursday, I walked across the family room while talking to my babysitting buddy, Becky, who came over to watch my crew while I ran Reggie to a doctor appointment.  All of a sudden, my knee kind of locked up on me and made me feel like I was going to go down.  It hurt like Hell to straighten my leg, but after a minute I was able to straighten it.  Becky wondered what the heck I did, ‘Did you bump it on that high chair?  Did you twist it?’  I was like, nope.  I did nothing!

Thursday night Coach works late, so we barely saw each other.  As I climbed into bed, I asked Coach to take a look at my knee.  Coach mumbled to me (aka the shoemaker's child):  ‘No.  Tomorrow.’ 

Friday morning, my glorious day off, I stopped at his clinic in hopes that he would tell me that I could still workout in the attached health club.  The knee was stiff, but I was walking fine.  He moved it around a bunch and then told me it was the meniscus thing while simultaneously calling me old.  The great news is that he told me I could indeed workout, but that I should just do things without twisting my knee.  I did 6 miles on the elliptical.  No problem.

Saturday I did not workout because I was going to a National Literary Fest at my Alma mater with Mini.  Amazing day, details later - remind me if I forget.  We drove an hour and a half, hopped out of the car, started to walk into the building, and my knee went out from under me.  I almost fell.  Damn.  

Posed the crutches here because it
 is the only corner of the house that does
 not look like a disaster.  Going to bed,
Coach was like 'if we had crutches' - I
 informed him that we had a pair behind
 the door in the laundry room.  He texted
me this am that I could
use them if it really hurt.
 Did we not establish this?  But he pointed
out that one of the handles is missing. 
Anyway, I am confused because in one breath he
is all 'motion, blah blah' and in the other he is like
'use the crutches and try not to
weight bear if it really hurts.' 
I considered posting a photo that Curly took
 of me when I was crying on the floor because she
 wanted me to know that my hair looked good.
 I think she deleted it though when I scolded
her for taking photos of me
 grimacing, good hair or not.

Sunday I worked out and did a bit more than the elliptical.  My knee hurt afterwards and all day it complained.  I was still walking - more like shopping:  $400 at the grocery, $420 (including my renewal fee) at Costco, boot shopping with Mini at Nordstrom Rack, and finally I drove to pick up Curly from dancing.  

Now that it is winter, I moved heaven and earth and a lot of golf clubs, basketballs , lawn mowers, and bikes to be able to park the minivan in the single car part of the three car garage.  The former airport shuttle is always in the 2 car garage area but the single garage area is usually a disaster.  Anyway, it requires a gymnastic maneuver to exit the parked-in-the-garage minivan.  I (no gymnast) rotated and pushed off of my right foot to be able to squeeze out of the slightly open door and scoot between the car and one of Tank’s mowers.  That was it - the knee was like ‘No, no!  You should not have done that.’  

Curly exited the vehicle while on the driveway because no passenger can escape once in the garage.  My knee locked up and I struggled to get in the house - all alone.  I hopped inside crying.  Coach made me a plate of dinner and then invited me into his makeshift office aka the family room floor.  The kids gathered around and watched me cry as he forced my knee straight and ‘worked’ on me.  I asked them to get my contact case so I could preserve my salt-hating contact lenses.  

Coach shook his head.  ‘I have been practicing for 21 years and people do not cry like this when I treat them (for issues similar to what I have).’  

Tank:  ‘Wait, you only practice.  When are you going to be ready to stop practicing and really fix people.’  Ah, Tank - still cracking jokes while his mommy writhes in pain with a wet-from-tears face on the floor.

Me:  ‘It hurts!  Are you sure it is OK to be moving it like that?  It REALLY hurts!’  I regularly recommend Coach to other hurt people, but my confidence in him flounders when I am a victim the patient.

Coach iced it and told me ‘motion is lotion.’  That means I am supposed to keep moving it and keep trying to straighten it.  He kept assuring me that it would get better on its own, like a cut finger.  Um, I have experience with that - foreshadowing, people.  Stay tuned.  No MRI necessary.  

But I have made friends at the MRI place.  They loved my ‘Hey, I might need to hit the bars tonight’ joke last week when I was finally able to remove my wedding rings.  I don’t want to wait for it to just get better while I hobble around, I want to be fixed.  

I am trying to decide if I should cancel my babysitting peeps on Tuesday.  I normally babysit for one guy on Mondays, but sadly his grandpa is not doing well and the family flew to New York over the weekend - so today I ended up with the day off, which made the skipping of my favorite workout class a real bummer.  The Tuesday crowd includes a fat baby (no joke here, they feed her sugar cereal and veggies from a can) that I might not be able to haul up the stairs for her nap.  Curly has generously offered to stay home from school tomorrow to help me. 

A mountain of laundry awaits me.  Teenagers version of cleaning their rooms:  dump it on the laundry room floor and make it my problem.  Coach texted me this morning and told me I could come and see him at his work today, but I know THERE WILL BE TEARS, do I want to cry at his work?  Plus it snowed, and I don’t want to drive.  Reg and Curly have no school, Reg is going to a friend’s house, Curly has dancing tonight and Coach works late, so I will have to drive at some point.  

All this, and still no bonbons!