My Knee HURTS; My Favorite Cap Blew Away; and I Don't Think Jesus Loves Me Anymore

Apologies to whoever wrote the song with the lyrics, "My head hurts, my feet stink and I don't love Jesus" but this was just too good a title to pass up.

Those of you who remember that I wasn't due back until LATE Thursday will be wondering what I'm doing posting in the early morning hours of Wednesday. And those of you who remember that I broke a finger in June, and hurt my collarbone in July will be groaning...'now she's hurt her KNEE ?"

You could say Saturday wasn't such a great day for me. I'm trying to figure out just which parts of the cord between Mom's electric ice chest and the plug on the wall need to go into the back of the mini-van, when I make the HUGE mistake of touching the part that looks something like a computer circuit board. Know how you have those weird moments, where several things happen all at the same time, but time seems to s-l-o-w down? I had one of those moments.
There was this blue-white arc of electricity from somewhere on the "circuit" board to the web between my thumb and forefinger; then I watched as the electricity traveled up my forearm, through my elbow and felt like it "came out" about where the old dog bite scar is on my triceps; there was also a LOUD pop and blue-white arc from the plug on the wall; I yelped and dropped the "circuit board". Those of you who knew me back in '95, will remember that I have nerve damage in that forefinger from the whole "No Good Deed Goes Unpunished" pickin' up the empty Champagne Bottle, then trippin' and fallin' with it and cuttin' my hand open. So my finger was MORE numb and my arm felt "weird" for a couple of hours...but I finished loadin' the van and Mom and I were off on our vacation.

The Unit we were stayin' in this time was a split level. 5 steps down from the parking lot to the door. Then a landing. 7 steps down to the living area; 7 steps up to the sleeping areas. No Biggie. I'll bring the heavy stuff in first, and Mom can put the food away while I'm bringing in the clothes. I get most of the food inside, and on my 3rd trip down those 7 steps... I miss a step and fall missing the last two. The bags and their contents go flying across the room. I land on the heels of my hands and my right knee, the one with arthritis.

I have to say something here...I have a fairly high pain threshold. AD will back me up on this. Those of us with chronic pain have a higher pain tolerance for pain than those who don't have pain on a daily or weekly basis. I won't bore y'all with the details, just trust me, all I want for Christmas are some new C- and L- spine vertebrae, discs, and musculature. So when I say I was driven to tears by the pain, you have to know it frellin' well HURT.

Once I regained the power of speech, I asked Mom for a bag of frozen veggies. After about 15 minutes, I traded her the the corn for the broccoli and tried moving it from it's original position to about a 30 degree bend and kept the bag on it for another 15 minutes. Then I tried getting off the floor. I could stand, I could even walk, if I moved very slowly and didn't put too much weight on it.
Together, Mom and I finished unloading the van, I'd bring things to the landing and set them on the 3rd step down and she'd reach up for them. For the upstairs stuff, I did the same thing, but put them on the 3rd step up, and she'd take them the rest of the way up.

I called Flo, the only Nurse I know who takes call on the weekend, gave her my symptoms and asked, trepedatiously, "Now, I don't have to be a sissy-baby and go to a STRANGE ER and let some STRANGE Doctor look at it do I?" She told me that "RICE" should do the trick. I told her that I'd been keeping it elevated and iced and was resting it now that we had all our stuff in. And that I'd go get an ACE for it tomorrow. While I was at the store, I picked up some Ibuprofen, too. Two ibus q 4 was NOT even touching the pain.
By Monday morning, it was still just as swollen, even MORE tender and gettin' harder to walk and climbin' those dahm stairs was harder than ever. I called my Doc's office. He wasn't there, but I knew he wouldn't be, he does surgery on Mondays. I talked to Tina, after hearing my sad tale of woe, she suggested I up the ibu to 800mg 3 times/day and if I wasn't better they could work me in Wednesday.
Well, Monday night I woke up 3 times from the pain. And that's in spite of the sleeping meds I take. And Tuesday, it was tender to touch. Where? on the right side of my right knee...that's where the lateral/collateral ligament is, right? And then on the left side, below [not underneath] the kneecap. But the side is where it hurts the mostest. And it aches when I'm not doin' anythin'!
So there you have it, my Freak Accident for August.