Tuesday at 2am (wee hours of the morning) Calvin woke up and wanted to use the toilet (no, he's not potty trained). He has a weird quirk, and only uses in entirely in the nude. After he had used it, I was kneeling on the floor helping him back into his pajamas. As I stood up I felt a blindingly searing pain tear through my knee. I called for backup (Peter) and hopped back to bed, hoping things would be better in the morning. Alas, they were not.
The symptoms: I couldn't straighten my knee the last 20-30 degrees or so without the terrible pain returning, but I could bend it just fine otherwise. I could not walk (requires a certain degree of straightening which I could not achieve) and used crutches the next day to get around (oh my aching armpits and biceps).
I saw the NP and she sent me to the Ortho specialist. After much prodding, poking, pushing, and a whole lot of pain, they sent me home bewildered, telling me to "wait for a week and see if it gets better or worse," before the x-rays and MRIs began.
That evening I was lying on the couch, and decided to test my extension again, when a miracle happened and I could straighten it the whole way. I did this a couple of times, then tested some weight on it, and behold, I could walk! Whatever it was is gone (for the time being, spit spit knock on wood).
Okay all you budding Dr. Houses, go.
The Ortho specialist theorized it was either severe meniscal irritation or a meniscal tag that had gotten caught in the knee joint mechanism. I'm just glad to be walking again. Things I learned from my 12 hours of mono-pedness:
*hopping is an excellent cardio workout
*stairs stink for the disabled; how dare they be invented
*I have no idea how I would have cared for my 2 children alone (Peter fortunately could be home all day yesterday)
*the walk from the parking lot to the medical office is so much longer than you might guess (I stopped halfway through and contemplated calling 911 just so I wouldn't have to walk the rest of the way)
*people who use crutches on a regular basis must have some serious biceps and armpit fortitude
*knees are extremely valuable and precious joints and I will try to be grateful for everyday I can use both of them
We enjoyed a sunny family walk on Sunday to the local horses, where Calvin fed the horse a carrot, then pushed it's head away perhaps in fear that his hair might be mistaken as a tasty treat. He's so fond of big animals (that's a sarcastic remark in case you can't read his body language above).
The Stata Center hosted a Halloween Spooktacular this afternoon complete with carnival games, music, and cotton candy. Of course the only thing Bryn had to do was get her face painted, which meant waiting in line for more than 45 minutes.
We saw some friendly familiar faces, and Calvin showed off his face to his cute little friend.
His costume is a wolf suit, but he wanted his face painted like a tiger. So I guess he's a wolger. I left the red eyes in for dramatic effect.
I took my first swipe at the leaves today. After almost 2 hours of blowing leaves into the forest across the way, my yard is now a happy mound of dirt again. Go me. Unfortunately, there are still plenty left on the trees and I could almost hear them whisper,"this ain't over."
Two adults and five kids participated in this safari adventure (gratis thanks to the public library), and thankfully, no children were eaten although the lion and the big gorilla seemed to contemplate it.
We joined the gorillas right before their snack, and they were all quite anxious for the food to rain from the sky so they did a lot of interacting with us through the glass (mostly by staring at us like we were morons for not feeding them).
This guy (let's call him Lambert) put on quite a show with his strutting and vocalizing (very loud). The kids started imitating him by crawling around and growling, and Lambert came over, stared them down, and took a mighty swat at the glass. We were all quite delighted by that.
Usually the kids just run into their bedrooms and slam the door when they hear the vacuum, but I guess Calvin was feeling lazy today.
