My Status: MUCH better
Mood: Ebullient

My title of the post today may be a bit cliché, but it is the truth. Or maybe more appropriately, what a difference a good night sleep makes. Yesterday, by the time I had posted about the whole knee incident, I was feeling a bit better. Today when I awoke, my knee was a bit stiff… that’s it. Right now it feels like nothing ever happened. Okay, so my arms and back are still telling me that my right knee refused to cooperate and they had to pick up the slack, but other than that??? Not a sign in my knee that it has been anything other than right as rain. And my arms are better. They no longer shake when trying to lift them more than three inches and I can actually raise them above my head without more than a minor protest. They feel like I went to the gym and was over aggressive about working out. Which is close to the truth.

Yesterday morning, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to make the commute to work … across the upstairs landing to my office. And the thought of getting up and sitting down in my chair, and making the trek back to the bedroom overwhelmed me. But I put in a full day’s work, made it up and down the stairs several times, and drove myself to the doctor’s office and had my labs done—all without one ounce of pain and I didn’t even wear the knee stabilizer.

The fateful meeting between Doogie and me took place today. Since I had called in and spoken to him, he had to see me when I was in to have my blood drawn. Yes, he still has all of his own teeth—I restrained myself from kicking them down his throat. Probably because I felt so good. Sunday might have been touch and go, especially before the drugs finally kicked in. I did manage to make the points that all I needed were some drugs that were stronger than Tylenol. He was thorough enough to pull up the records from my trip to the ER, and since they had forgotten to post the Doppler results, he had them sent right over as well. His conclusion was about the same as the ER doc—no one has a clue about why the knee responded in the way that it did. Doogie does agree that calling the oncologist vs. my regular doc was the best course of action. Now comes the big question … do I still have to go to my regular doc since I saw a doc today? Ask my doc and he’ll tell you yes, I do need to see him. But he’ll agree the strangeness surrounding the knee issue would be more indicative of a possible chemo reaction. Let’s hope it doesn’t happen again.

Anyway, if you can’t tell, I’m just so happy to be out of the pain that I was in … and that’s all that matters today. Well, that and as I posted on Facebook, I may have just had my first Christmas miracle of 2013. Denny decided to make himself dinner tonight, and it did not require reheating of something purchased from a fast food establishment, or simply heating up in the microwave. He was ambitious and actually made his very own salmon burger. He did ask me how, brought me the package and I told him only to make up one patty and to use olive oil in our cute little fry pan (and to use the lid from the pot so it didn’t splatter all over). He was quite proud of how he put everything together and told me it was quite delicious. And when I checked the kitchen later … it was STILL STANDING. No scorches, and the stove top was in decent shape. A TREMENDOUS milestone has been crossed.

The picture at the top of this post has special significance. Yesterday as we were both crashing—Denny from exhaustion, me from drugs and actively seeking oblivion—Denny said, I guess we won’t be changing the bed today. Sunday is the day I like to wash and change the bedding, a process he thinks is far too frequent, by the way. I think he said monthly is sufficient. I disagree—we do it my way. But to be honest, another day that comment might have irritated me, but the thought of having to move enough to even strip the bed wore me out, so as much as I love clean sheets, they’d be fine for another day (and at that point I was thinking or seven). By the time he made it home from work, I had stripped the bed, washed the blanket and the sheets were in the dryer, and the fitted sheets were in place. So he helped me with the blanket and Christmas comforter. I may not get much decorating done this year. I’ll live. But at least the bed has been decorated and was my triumph over the latest bump in the road.

PS Elsa couldn’t figure out why I was taking a picture of the bed … she was just happy the flash wasn’t going off in her eyes.