Kneedle

Guess which knee got the needle? No wait, no fair: too easy. One gets an allen wrench.

Ah, cortisone, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways. Those cc's of time travel serum have taken me back a couple years. Not as far as I'd like, not to those first few years after my amputation when I was strong enough on my feet to work as a barista, and even at a plant nursery...but compared to last week? No contest. 

I sat down and wept in the doctor's office when I explained how I'd gotten: if I stood after sitting very long, I couldn't put weight on my right leg. Only lurch and gasp and grab for a handhold. Thinking about getting out my cane. Feeling stalked by a wheelchair. Only after a few minutes would the pain and weakness recede, mostly because of my outstanding ability to ignore them. I need a plan for the future but it's hard to advocate in this frame of mind. Pain clouds my thinking & wears me down. But I insisted: xrays & a referral to an orthopedic surgeon since I haven't seen one in several years. Rx for the TENS unit, though it feels like ordering a new deck chair for the Titanic.

But the needle was good. Today I'm trying to accept I can stand up and walk with only slight pain in the joint. It's still weak. It still grinds. But it doesn't have that fragility of glass ready to shatter. Muscle memory screams Watch out! even when it doesn't hurt. Doctor said the shot should last three to six months, two at the minimum. I heard him but I can't believe it. Disappointments, pain and disability shave away your original sharp edges of hope until you are as streamlined as a torpedo. Always prepared to barrel head down through stormy waters because expectations are a liability. I've worked so hard to learn how to hope again. Still, I recalibrate down to resignation much too easily.

Still. Today feels good. I'm going outside.



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