SurgeonWatch2009 has been going on so long that I've run out of snarky ways to discuss my surgeon not phoning, so I will give it to you straight up, no chaser: no, Dr. ___ did not call today. After countless days of playing the most one-sided game of phone tag ever, (tag, you're it! Tag, you're still it! Tag, you've been it for three weeks!), I took a day off from SurgeonWatch2009. But today, alas, was not without its disappointments.
You know how I've been talking about how badly I wanted to get down to Illinois to see the Neko Case concert because my friend knew the guitarist and had VIP access, and how my plan was to book a flight the minute I saw the surgeon and knew what the hip-timeline was? Yeah, well, the ticket kind of fell through. So, now, endless questions: do I try to purchase a ticket without knowing whether I can even make the concert? Is there a way to purchase a ticket so that, if I am not able to go, A. could go in my place? Can I even purchase a ticket? Should I take this as a sign that the concert is not to be? This question is made all the more prudent by the fact that I've learned that Sarah Harmer is opening for Neko Case and Sarah Harmer's "Dogs and Thunder" is one of the first songs I ever learned to play on guitar and is my very, very favorite to sing when I'm having a bad day and I really want to hear it live. Fuck. Why can't Urbana be closer to Vancouver?
It did not help that it was dark and rainy in Vancouver today and that I was a dumbass who decided to walk for an hour, then do half an hour on the elliptical machine at my mom's friend's house, then try to walk back home. I slogged through the rain for half an hour until I got a couple of blocks from my house and my hip quite literally refused to go any further. I had to stop, rest, and turn off my Ipod so as to devote my full powers of concentration to walking the last block or else I would probably have still been standing there, humming "I Believe I Can Fly" and trying to levitate home, since it probably takes more than the Jock-Jam remix to get all 160-odd pounds of Arleyness of the ground.
When I used to play basketball, Tuesday practices were devoted to "chair skills," which is a euphemism for "push so hard you vomit your breakfast several times in your mouth and have to swallow it because you're in the middle of a set and can't stop" (sorry, gross). I actually really loved chair skills (there's something so fantastic about being done, when you've exerted absolutely every ounce of energy you have and you're pleasantly tired and that drink of cold water tastes like the best thing in the world), but every once in awhile when I would hit the wall, I would count down how many more pushes I had until I could rest. Just knowing that I only had 50 more pushes (even if it was untrue) gave me something to focus on and made everything seem more managable.
So, there I was, dragging my hip along the wet-leaf-strewn minefield of the sidewalk, counting outloud to myself. I'd set 200 steps as my target goal and it actually turned out to be pretty accurate because I reached my front yard at 190 steps and I got inside the house at 212....where I promptly took a shitload of Extra-Strength Tylenol and had my mom make me tomato soup (thanks, mom!). When I got home, I also learned that my brother's girlfriend's mom (who's an orthopedic nurse) had sent me tons of information about repairing a torn gluteus medius. (Thanks!) I'd found so many conflicting reports on the internet that it was great to read some information that's been sanctioned by an authority higher than Google. Here's hoping that Dr. SecondOpinion can get the surgery party started.
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