And we all fall down

It was a perfect summer's evening. The sun had just set, and stars were beginning to pop out of the deepening blue sky overhead. And then the fun started. There was screaming. Children were traumatized. Neighbors came running. No big deal, really. It's just a day in the life at the bishop's house.

The knee that has been the bane of my spring and summer has been improving dramatically in recent days and I have been working hard on getting my full range of motion back and re-training myself to walk without a limp. Last week my physical therapist, Ed (aka The Dungeon Master) was so happy with my progress that he said I only needed to come in once a week. I even did a tiny bit of clogging - yes, dad, I was careful! - to help Nathan and Megan practice for summer lessons. I am jazzed about getting my mobility back, and with it, my life.

Life is good.

Oh, except for one little detail.

Last night I fell out the front door and hurt myself. Again.

It was one of those stupid things that you keep going over in your mind and see all the ways it could have been avoided. If only I'd taken my stupid waffle stomper shoes off earlier so that my toe didn't catch on the threshold. Or maybe if I'd picked my feet up or -- oh here's a good one -- watched where I was going instead of scanning the horizon for a stupid planet we'd been watching for all summer. If only I'd declined my husband's offer to come and see Venus in the sunset instead of brushing my teeth. I had the toothpaste on my brush. I already had two buttons undone on my shirt. It all happened so fast. One moment I was stepping out the front door to see the sunset and the next I was on the porch, kneeling a step down on the welcome mat with my feet pinned behind me on the threshold above, my still tender knee bent as far as it would go-- far more than it had been bent in the last five months since I first hurt it.

I made quite a spectacle of myself. Tom was standing right behind me when it happened, and although it seemed like forever, within seconds he had lifted me off the porch and drug me backwards into the house so that I sat clutching my knee with both hands, my feet dangling out the door down onto the wide top step. I don't remember why the screen door didn't close on me. Was he holding it open or was I? I could hear Megan wailing in the kitchen. A door slammed somewhere in the house. The floor was shifting and the walls began to spin slowly. Someone was groaning loudly. It made me mad. SHUT UP, already! Oh wait... that would be me. Quick, somebody get a sock and stuff it in my mouth to stop that pitiful mewling noise!

Just then the neighbors arrived. Are you ok?! Oh... hi! Uhhhhh - yes I'm fine, but could you do me a really big favor and maybe get a gun and just shoot me? Right now would be real, real good.

One burly guy helped Tom hoist my great bulk the rest of the way into the house and onto the couch. Karianne, ever the calm one, filled ice packs and brought them to pack around me leg. I think maybe she should go into nursing or something. That girl has nerves of steel. Tom went to comfort the sobbing Megan and checked on Susan, who had fled to her room in tears.

So now I'm on the couch propped up on pillows and my knee is blessedly numb from the ice. I am telling the kids that I will be okay and I that I don't think I did any more damage. I'm telling them that I'll be back up and around again in no time.

But there's one burning question in my mind that I don't have an answer for...

Did I ever button my shirt back up?

In Which I Whine and Complain A Lot

I am not having fun. I just thought you should to know this. I have spent the last several days trying not to scratch (and failing miserably) the hives that erupted all over my body after finishing a course of antibiotics last Thursday. I've learned a few things though; lying on the couch with nothing to do but read ain't all it's cracked up to be. It's hard to feel creative when one is distracted by constant pain. It's hard to look in the mirror or go out in public when ones face is so swollen that one looks like this:


I wish that I was brave enough to post a real picture of my moon face. But I already have appearance issues enough without putting a really ugly photo of myself out there.

I've done nothing but recline on a couch for the last three days, feet elevated, applying aloe vera (thanks Kris!) and consuming a ridiculous and probably dangerous amount of benadryl while waiting for the swelling and desperate itching to subside. Hello, God? I'm ready to be done now, kay? Hello? Is this thing on?

I got out of going to church today due to the simple fact that my feet are so swollen that I cannot wear shoes. Walking on them feels like hot coals. Despite all this time I've had on my hands, I have struggled to come up with anything to blog about. Well, anything positive or funny, anyway.

So I decided to conduct a little quiz. I will post a few of the dominant whiny thoughts that keep invading my head, and your challenge is to label the Cognitive Distortions in my thinking.

1. I am never going to get my knee straight and will never be able to clog right ever again.

2. But probably no one will notice because my clogging was already pretty crappy before I had surgery.

3. This itching will never stop and I will go stark raving mad and become a serial killer or maybe something even worse: a vegetarian.

4. I should just get up and tough it out instead of lying here like an invalid.

5. Every time I get ready to start a serious weight loss effort, something like this happens.

6. My SIL's probably think I'm faking it so I won't have to do my share of the work.

Ready, set, GO!