Kathy's Big Adventure: December 2013

Driving from Ohio to Vermont. We don't go anywhere without the Christmas Cactus Vin's Mom gave us 20 years ago.

Funny story.

I'd be lying if I said said that the screw in my femur (the one that sticks out of the bone and into the muscle because it's too long) didn't hurt quite a bit most of the time. So. I got an appointment with my surgeon in Vermont for December 6 to talk about surgery to either 1) take out the hardware and let the bone fill in on it's own 2) take out the hardware and squirt in some cement-like stuff or 3) take out the hardware and put in smaller hardware. Anyway. Vin and I have been scheduling the whole Ohio semester around this December 6, 11:15 am appointment. Our last class ended around 8 pm, December 4th. We rode home and packed the trailer until around 2 am and left around 8 am on December 5th, drove for 13 hours, slept 4 1/2 hours then got up to drive 4 hours to the appointment. Now, here's the funny part...my phone rings at 8 am in the car. It's the clinic. THEY HAVE A SCHEDULING CONFLICT AND NEED TO RESCHEDULE MY APPOINTMENT FOR TUESDAY DECEMBER 10. I'm not sure what kind of a reaction they thought they'd get but when they heard sleep deprived, aching-backed Vince yelling in the background, they sincerely apologized so many times I started to feel guilty.

Anyway, they guilted me into changing my appointment to Tuesday, December 10...slightly inconvenient because right after that we had to drive down to Western Mass to show some of our short films at the Plainfield, MA library. We were careful to warn folks to come with low expectations so I'm pretty sure no one was all that disappointed. Then I got a haircut at 8 am the next day from my friend Chris (I have a funny story about Chris too but I'll save it for another time) at 'Glamourama' in Northampton followed by a 3 1/2 hour dental appointment (I know, long way to go for a dental appointment...) Had to hustle back up to Vermont because I had to be at the hospital by 7:15 the next morning for surgery. Kind of like a spa vacation. I had a manipulation done on my right knee. A manipulation is when the surgeon puts you under and does a quick bend/flex of the frozen knee to break up the scar tissue limiting it's range of motion. Going in I was anxious because I knew that one of the downsides to the procedure was that the bone could break so first he went in and cut out a whole bunch of the scar tissue. Seems a bit better now, but 'ya never know' (like we'd say in Minnesota).

Something I learned today:
You can make a pizza crust without yeast, it's just not very good.

P.S. Being a glutton for punishment, I'm leaving the hardware in until Spring.