There is a friend-of-a-friend going through knee stuff -- stuff that makes my little procedure last year look tiny and insignificant. My friend is receptive so he gets lengthy reports, some of which get forwarded to me as I deeply empathize with a sad patella in a way that my friend probably does not. For a while I was drafting a book about what it means to be put back together, and how difficult getting back together truly is. Other projects have popped up and I'm very, very, grateful. But I gobble up these physical therapy reports because it's all good stuff, and I may yet come back to my knee book one day. It's in that stewing-place at the back-burner of my mind.

OTHER THINGS

I recently had a very rare thing happen: a book sent to me by a used-book person got lost in the mail. Amazon’s file-a-claim page is fairly straightforward, and features a cute little explanation of claim process in pictures. Reminds me of Ikea’s instructions, which are strictly pictures. At the beginning it always depicts your options if things are overwhelming:

A little guy looking at the instructions with a wavy mouth of concern. Is it confusing?

The same guy smiling on the phone, the phone with a little word bubble with an Ikea store inside. Don’t worry! Call us!

A guy trying to lift one side of a long horizontal object. Is it too heavy?

Two guys lifting the same horizontal object Don’t worry! Get a friend!

Pictures make it better.

.

A year ago today I was sitting on a bench outside Union Station. I was facing a rare morning sunshine, yellow and orange.

I used to make a smoothie at the smoothie shop called "citrus sunrise" and it tasted just like that light looked like. Many's the citrus sunrise I have enjoyed, squinting and smiling contentedly facing the sun.

There was a pair of scrub jays trying to build a nest under the eaves of the roof, trying to be nonchalant and rather spoiling it by calling each other in that raw voice of theirs.

I was waiting for Anthony's bus to come in from Eugene, and although the bus was late and there could have been a lot of stress associated with this but there wasn't. There was a strange peace in that white, yellow and golden orange, waiting and waiting.

Waiting for what came next.

Three hours later I was in a hospital gown getting nervous about the knee surgery. Irrationally doubting the need for the whole business, remembering it was necessary as I hobbled to the bathroom across the hall. The difficulty in getting back into the bed. Getting anxious and weepy at the sight of tiny fat donkeys. Then the procedure, the pride of walking up TWO FLIGHTS OF STAIRS (with crutches and two helpers -- but I did walk) immediately afterward, and then the five months of physical therapy and recovery.

I was thinking of this as I knelt on my art desk's stool last night. I thought of it the day before in my yoga class, holding a lunge-type pose. During the six months of knee time last year both of these things were impossible. I thought about it during my brisk walk through the mist this morning, doing what I so badly wanted to do this time last year. I'm not absolutely perfect. The swelling has never really gone away entirely, I get fluctuation in feeling on my kneecap, and I am still in pain by the end of the day. But it's the dull ache of fatigue, not the sharp pain of BROKEN!, and as I sit and make pictures I can also apply ice and do stretches and rest.

And I can run and jump and squat and kneel, and I could walk forever if I needed to, and that's all I ever require of my knee.

Thinking of all this put me in an expansive mood, so drew this on much bigger paper than I've been working on. And in pure marker which is something I don't do often. Needed to loosen up. I also visited the Launchpad today and had a series of exciting conversations with one of the geniuses behind Geoloqi. Many other big drawings on big paper were made. Big feelings were had.

It was a big day. It was a big day last year too, so it's fitting.

.

a reminder

Of fish and knees

After what was described to me as "a brief set back," -- the sharp pains on Saturday had me hobbling off my leg just as I had been doing back in January -- I am somewhat back to normal. Normal for recovery-time. I am trying to get back on the Sesame Street, back on the simple happies rhythm of life. Trying to remember what rhythm works best for all this waiting and hope.



Today I am going to see a third doctor about this knee stuff. I am hoping there is a fish tank in his office. None of the doctors I've been to yet have fish tanks in their offices. My childhood doctor did for a while, and I loved it. It's so nice to lose yourself in the world of fish.



I have a big blank space over my desk and I think I'm going to make an aquarium above it. Somehow. First I need to get some fish. Then I'll need to make a place to put them.

IF: Brave

Outtakes from this weekend

I keep looking at this thing. I want to be working on it. Perhaps this weekend. Last weekend we went to Seattle to watch the Oscars and help Peter prepare a 10-course dinner-party.



It's always an adventure to go up to Seattle and be with our friends, imagining their bigger lives in the bigger city, but this time it was even more of an adventure because of this knee stuff. Shampoo, deodorant and cough drops were pulled out of the overnight bag and replaced with rubbing alcohol, wound-tape, painkillers and arnica cream. Instead of paints I brought the physical therapy checklist.

I navigate my own space pretty well at this point. I have learned how to make do with what I can't yet do in the places I can't do them. But Seattle is very steep, and has agendas much bigger than connective tissue. It felt a bit like going back in time as far as recovery goes. A new wave of people to tell about the procedure, a new wave of problem places and a new wave of problem pains.

There's nothing to do but re-learn how to be patient. You can't hurry a knee like this, even when you want to.



It was also a magical weekend of feeling curious and alive. We'd been asked to run by a farm outside Tacoma to pick up raw milk on our way. And there is something pretty amazing about turning onto a gravel road in the farmland in the golden late-afternoon light, passing the chickens, ducks, are sumpy cows, stopping by the sign that says FARM STORE with an arrow, and literally walking into a sort of shed with a few fridges and printed instructions about where the cash-can is. Inside the fridges there are big gallon jars of milk. A label printed on a home computer. MILK. There is a tiny pillow-dog that follows you cheerfully everywhere you go. The farmer sees you on the way back to your car, makes sure you found everything you wanted, thanks you and waves. He calls the little pillow-dog Pippin (!)

Support the local farmers. Support your friend's chef aspirations. Support your knee.

The internet is a captive audience

Hello! Welcome back. To me. Where have you been? I've been getting knee surgery. And subsequently trying to survive recovery. I feel like I am behind on every project I've ever wanted to do, and I just returned to work (the bill-paying one) today and feel like I can't do anything but rattle off statistics. So pull up a chair. And leave your sense of time at home, you won't need it where we're going.



STRANGE THINGS ABOUT THE HOSPITAL

1. They had a dispenser next to the Kleenex on the wall that was for
baby-wipe type things. There was a red sign on the wall above them
that said "Caution: do not use on skin." (?) There was also a little
picture on the side that had a baby with a no symbol on top. No skin,
no babies. None of us got close enough to see what they were actually
for.

2. There were signs all over the waiting room that said absolutely no
food or drinks allowed, despite the fact that almost every single
group we saw had tons of food and drinks sprawled all over the place.

3. They made me fill out several forms before we went in that were
identical to the forms I'd filled out during the pre-registration
procedure online a few days before. They had me do this after having
not eaten for about 14 hours. I was kind of light headed and useless
anyway, and then had to mark down lots of questions about health
history and whether or not I was sane. It was a really tricky,
unintentionally hilarious exercise. My signature has never looked so
bad.

3a. When you get put out for a surgery you have to not eat or drink
anything for 12 hours beforehand. If your surgery is late afternoon,
like mine was, you can have "clear liquids, dry toast or crackers for
up to 6 hours before". I had like a 1/4 cup of rice and about 12 cups
of coffee and water to try and tide me over, and it worked okay until
about 9. At that point my stomach said cheerfully, "hey! I think it
might be snack time, you know?" And my brain would say "oh totally.
Let's do it." And then my knee said, "no wait guys, we are getting
surgery, remember?" And they would say, oh yeah! sorry man." And then
about 3 minutes later my stomach would say cheerfully, "hey! I think
it might be snack time, right? Let's go see." Rinse, lather, repeat.
Once this started happening I found out Anthony's train was late, and
I had to start the tricky process of getting him to Mom's hotel and
then getting all of us to the hospital. It really wasn't THAT tricky,
but it was hard to concentrate a little over the constant "food? >
sure > oh wait, no" loop my various body parts were in. Thankfully,
they really didn't turn up the volume until I was in the hospital bed,
in my cloth-napkin gown and all hooked up to wires, and then they
manifested in the form of Fear And Anxiety rather than RAAR HULK
SMASH, which is a very good thing. Oh, the adventures of low blood
sugar.

4. Above the drinking fountains in the waiting room there was a
helpful signs that read "WAIT! Talk to your nurse if you are here for
surgery!" Because, you know. No water. They don't want any vomiting.
And really, you don't want any vomiting either.

5. My nurse was a tiny little Asian lady who was so, so nice. Really
good bedside manner, as Mom put it. She was nice enough to ask if I
had problems with needles, and I said as long as I don't see them. She
did all the IV-setting-up work down below the level of the (very tall)
bed. But then I also had Anthony and Mom to
look at, which helped too. We had to hang out in the hospital room for
a LONG time (about three hours) before things really got busy, so it
was kind of strange. Sitting in a cloth napkin, in a hospital bed,
giggling about the CALM channel on the TV, which was a series of
nature shots with a nice little piano score. That got turned on
because I started to kind of freak out a little when I admitted I was
sacred -- dude, how often do people get surgery? I don't often. Hadn't
EVER really, so it's hard to know what to expect. Plus I was starving
and had no Keep It Together reserves left. My nurse offered to "give
me something" for the anxiety but I begged off. I figured I've be on
enough drugs and I was going to spend the rest of the weekend at the
mercy of everyone else, I thought it'd be nice to at least be aware of
what's going on. Even if it was a little scary. I held onto Anthony's
arm and we looked up at the CALM channel on TV, which at that moment
inexplicably had tiny fat donkeys hanging out in a little wooded
glen. Which made me laugh/cry. I don't see donkeys and think, ah, I
feel calm now. I see donkeys (particularly out of context donkeys) and
I laugh.

6. They had a little chart next to the Kleenex and the
wipes-that-weren't-for-skin that had a scale of one to ten, ten being
the worst. It was a pain chart. It had faces on with increasing
degrees of frowny, the last with squinty eyes and tears. We had a lot
of fun wondering about that list, making faces.

7. My anesthesiologist came in to tell me how I would get knocked out.
He told me he would give me some "I don't care drugs" while they
wheeled me down to the room, and then they would give me a little
thing in my IV to really put me out. Then they would put a little mask
blowing the gas and oxygen into me to keep me out. They'd do the knee
stuff, then I'd be wheeled to the recovery room, where I'd come to.
And once I was not dizzy or nauseous, they'd take me to my short stay
room, where I would get crutches and learn to use them, and once I
could sit up and not feel too dizzy or nauseous, and my pain was "a
solid 2 or 3" I would get to go home. He told me all this WITHOUT
BLINKING ONCE.

8. Then the time came! They took my glasses, and gave me the "I don't
care drugs", put on my ridiculous blue puffy bonnet. Then a guy came
and wheeled me down the hall and through lots of doors. All of the
doors were double doors, but all the doors opened differently. Some
opened out, some in, some only one door opened, but all were automatic
doors. My wheeler-guy and I talked about the doors and how strange
they are.

9. Then I was in a room with lots of circle lights and people in lots
of blue things. They were mostly talking about not-me-related things
("when are you going to California?" "Oh yeah I can never get to the
bank before that line gets there".) My knee doctor came and said hi,
but I couldn't see him (no glasses), so I didn't recognize him. Oh well. Shortly
thereafter I woke up in a different room, with a nice lady giving me
ice cubes to chew on. I had a little green light flashing above me,
and I asked what it was. "That means you're ready! We're waiting for a
room for you"

10. The nurses were very encouraging, which is their job, but they did
say I was recovering well. Really quickly. I was MUCH more lucid than
I thought I was going to be on the way home. I was able to give
Anthony directions home, albeit quietly and thinking "let's not vomit
yet" thoughts. I had the window open, much to the dismay of the others
probably. We did the heroic walk up the stairs -- and I did it, I
walked up there, with Anthony holding one hand and Mom behind just in
case. But I toddler-walked all the way up, by myself, and thought I
might throw up but didn't. And then I got on the couch and stayed there
for three days.

The following lists were written four days after surgery

THINGS I COULD TODAY THAT I COULDN'T DO YESTERDAY

- Sleep in bed without supporting pillows. (Okay that's a bit of a cheat because I actually did, but I didn't NEED it to stay propped up on my side, I just like to sleep cozied up next to something.)

- Make toast. (A task that requires two hands and freestanding any time, but in my apartment it also means getting up on a stool and reaching up to the ledge above the cabinets, since that's the only place near enough my kitchen's only outlet.)

- Sit at my desk

- Go up and down stairs without crutches (two flights!)

- Drive the car!

- Walk a block to the coffee place

- Go a whole day without the big pain killers

- Listen to Sesame Street songs on iTunes (I finally got a hold of this big 3 disc set, and it has nothing to do with my knee other than it is going to become my centering, calm-me-down soundtrack for recovery.)

- Help Mom plan her flight back home

THINGS I DID YESTERDAY THAT I DIDN'T DO TODAY BUT ARE OF NOTE

- Took a bath (with knees-and-legs hanging off the side)

- Got weepy with pride from taking steps



ONGOING ISSUES I AM (STILL) WORKING ON

- Sleeping through the night (which is another reason I kept the pillow-bolster, I hoped it'd keep me from rolling around too much. Part of the problem is the ice pack; by 1pm it is almost BOILING if I am under a decent amount of covers. The other part of the problem is my knee never feels great, no matter where I put it.)

- Cold toes (I wore two pairs of socks yesterday around the house and it didn't alleviate the problem, though I'm sure it helped. It's hard when it's chilly out and I dress warmish yet then strap ICE to the bare leg. Rough. I was generally pretty cold all day, but the toes are a problem. Uncomfortably cold, even though I'm wiggling toes and rotating ankles all the time like the nurse told me to, to prevent blood clots. I may soak them in water-and-Cayenne-pepper for a little bit tonight before I go to bed.)

- Walking, i.e., my actual gate and stride (this will take longer than getting up on my feet, I imagine, but it is a little frustrating for me since I was walking badly BEFORE the surgery, and now I have the added bonus of being STIFF AND SWOLLEN. But there's nothing for it but to press on. Keeping the back straight, not moving my hip around to compensate for the limp, but just muscling through it, BENDING that knee, straightening it out in back. Again, again, again. Heel, toe, heel, toe. It is painfully slow going.)

- Standing (I keep standing like I did before: with all my weight on the good leg. The doctor said I need to reverse that for a while, stand with all my weight on the "involved"* leg, and let the good leg take a break. That makes sense, and is totally fair for the good leg since it's been working over time, but it's hard to remember.)

*All the medical people call the surgery leg the involved leg rather than the bad leg as I keep doing. It's a subtle linguistic way of reminding your brain that you are in fact normal, despite all the pain and swelling and drugs and motion problems. I find the idea of this very sweet, despite the difficulty in putting it into practice. Hopefully this will get easier as time goes on.

- What to read next ("Mr. Phillips" was so British and well written, I gulped it down in about two days, which I haven't done in a LONG time. I liked it just as much as "At Large And At Small," which would have gone as fast if I'd had 4 days to lie around and read. And nothing else seems to really click with me like those two things did. I have been rifling listlessly through several books today and nothing really sticks. I don't know what I need, but apparently it isn't "Stand Still Like A Hummingbird", "Catch-22", "Love in the Time of Cholera", or "Debt to Pleasure" (though I may go with that, since I'm already on page 58).



HERE'S HOW THINGS ARE NOW

With the notable exception of my post-op appointment, (where I learned I couldn't straighten my leg from muscle atrophy, saw the creepy cavernous wound-holes, and learned I may never regain feeling in my knee-surface*,) the first week of my recovery was mostly a kind of quiet calmness, a blissful time of tangible progress and great celebration over small achievement. Also flowers. I've received a silly amount of flowers from my parents, but also from the girls at work and from a friend who was breezing through town on an impromptu road trip.



This, the second week, has been a bit more trying. Many of the flowers are dead. I had a second appointment with the knee people, and as my doctor put it, "you are now entering the boring part of recovery." That is, I continue with my physical therapy exercises (so long as I am feeling tight, swollen and uncomfortable,) and wait for the connective tissue to scar together and reinforce the stitches. This is estimated to take about three months, though he thinks the swelling could stop flaring up in one month. THREE MONTHS! People. This is a long time.



During these three months I'm forbidden to do a few things. While it's not like I run, jump, or do yoga all that often, not having these things as an option makes me feel a bit strange, particularly since now there is sometimes no outward sign that I am damaged. (That's right! in the morning I walk almost normally!**) I'm not sure what I'm to do if I'm mugged by crocodiles, if I break a hole in the earth's crust, or if I feel a bit tense and need some loosening up. But I also cannot squat down or kneel down on my knees during these three months, which is really tricky if you clean houses for a living. As David Sedaris says: "Either you want a clean floor, or you want to use a mop. But you cannot have both."

I went back to work today and had to make a series of strange pirouettes and lop-sided-wheelbarrow impressions in order to get down to the baseboards and in the end my left leg felt cheated. Will this cause me to blow my other knee gasket? And how am I supposed to weed my new garden plot? From a chair? Maybe.

*I have to make a conscious effort NOT to think about this, because I find it deeply upsetting, like on a base psychological level.

**Well...walking normally albeit very, very slowly. I take after my grandfather in that I have a pretty brisk, purposeful walk, whereas my new walk is a conscious, slow, pausing gait that hurts. I am hoping that soon people will not be able to detect my limp at all, because I am working hard to get rid of it, but even when the pain goes my walk will not be mine until I want sally forth at a respectable pace again.



Anyway. I threw out most of the dead flowers and that seems to have lightened things up around here. I am trying to remind myself that all the little daily accomplishments are still worth celebrating. To wit:

- Cleaned a WHOLE HOUSE by myself, and part of another.
- Was able to go UP a set of five stairs without toddler walking.
- Only tapped my bad involved knee with the vacuum hose twice.
- And I didn't cry.
- Did three rounds of PT before work.

I have much to do. Among them:

- Mail the latest etsy order. I have been selling postcards like crazy lately. I wish I could charge $10 for them, then I would have been able to pay my electric bill on what I made last week. But then, the only reason those things are selling is because they're so damn cheap. I don't expect I'll sell anything ever again once I run out of those.

- Try and get my brain back into creating mode. I was fine before the surgery, had great momentum and stamina, but these days it seems like even 20 minutes at the desk makes me feel feeble, insignificant and like I'll never paint anything interesting ever again. I think that simply goes with my general feeling of Being Sick Of This Knee Stuff.

- Similarly: stop moping around, start thinking healthy thoughts.

- Endorse that awesome dude on Linkdin, like I said I would.

- Send thank you notes for the flowers and things.

- Fix my taxes


Oy, that was a lot of words. I'll give you some pictures soon.

This essentially sums up my valentine's day, although I hope by the time the 14th rolls around I will be all recovered from all this.



This bright little ditty is proud to be participating in Reading Frenzy's Valentine Invitaional. You should try and make it down there tomorrow and keep it company, since I will be too busy getting ready for my arthroscopy medial meniscectomy on Friday. (This will not be news to you if you follow me on twitter.) That title makes it sound very big and complicated, which is why I keep throwing that impressive string of letters around, but actually the procedure is fairly minor. It's outpatient, I will be able to (in theory, we hope, keep your fingers crossed, etc.) put my full weight on it immeadiatly after the surgery, and could be back to work by the end of next week which would be VERY good. And apparently it's not all that uncommon to blow your knee gasket, both the nurse-practitioner and the specialist gave me the exact same diagnosis with the same movements on the same model knee. Meniscous tears, knee locks, we go in and get it. The end. The doctor breezed through options and scenarios very quickly, seeming very calm, almost to the point of ever so slight fatigue. My case is easy. It bores my doctor. I am so very releived by this.

Knee surgeries are NOT so humdrum for me, so I am frantically getting my art stuff ready for bed rest and trying to coordinate a mother and an Anthony's arrival to help me be operated on. And reminding myself that it isn't a big deal.

The meanwhile

I may or may not be facing knee surgery, but in the meanwhile I find myself here, at my desk, until further notice.



Sometimes I feel like I live here, in the meanwhile. I used to call it the meantime when people would tell me stories from their lives and how worried they were about something. I would agree, saying it's the meantime that is so tricky to wade through. People say that, knowingly. "But in the meantime..." A few weeks ago I listened to my copy of the Hobbit again and remembered the word "meanwhile", which at least has a different taste.

That might be the hardest thing about waiting -- it's often the same. It's being stuck in a place that isn't where the information is. You have worked yourself to this point, passed your information to others. The others will give you new information, which will affect your decisions on how to move forward, to move out of this waiting place, to move out of the meanwhile.

Generally when one asks questions, one prefers to have answers handy immediately. So it's hard when they aren't, particularly when the questions are rather big ones. Will I get to go on this California vacation, the one we were just about to reserve hotel rooms for? When can we start to live together? Will anyone ever pay me a livable wage to paint? The answers will come in their own time, and in the meanwhile. We are stuck in the meanwhile.

We had a lot of meanwhile in Canada, somehow. I am thinking of the day we were at a Safeway, considering the magazines, marveling how they were the International edition. That moment isn't in my notes, so I can't remember what day it was, but I am thinking about it, about wandering up and down the isles carelessly. Waiting to use the bathroom? Looking for snacks? I picked up a copy of Cook's Illustrated's "meals for two", primarily for a creamy mushroom pasta dish that I fantasized about in another Safeway parking lot a few days later in Seattle, but didn't end up making until Anthony started school that fall.

On the drive to the doctor Thursday I told myself that if it turns out I am at home for a few days I should start trying to pull some of the travel notes together and start telling the stories I haven't been telling. And here I am.

I can't tell the whole story in four days, and to be honest I don't know if I can do even one day of the journey justice in that amount of time, but I can at least start coaxing it out of the coals, feeding it attention and the storytelling wisdom that can come from the hindsight and not being so firey-passionate about what happened immediately after the good stuff.

And mostly.

I'm dreaming of walking.
Dreaming of going places.

I am dreaming this even as my plans for this year dissolve.