I HATE CRUTCHES

My arms hurt. By the time all this is over I'm going to have two buffed out arms, one really strong leg, and one shriveled up pale and wimpy leg.

Went to my family doctor today who basically took one look and said, "Orthopedic surgeon." This is an unhappy phrase. *sigh* I have an appointment with that guy on Wednesday. Looks like surgery and PT are in my future. Let's all pray for a LATE first snow in South Dakota this year, ok? Like.....March.

I've decided that you can all help me out. "I tripped over my own clumsy ass and flapped my useless arms down the steps" makes me sound like a drunk hippo. So let's come up with something better. My doctor recommended something having to do with dancing with those Chippendales guys, but that's not really my style. I'm thinking heroic. I think "tackled a mugger who just snatched an elderly lady's purse" sounds pretty good. I did consider "rescued a kitten from a tree" but that's what the fire department is for. So try to come up for some explanation for this injury that does not have an insult component to it.

Never a dull moment

The stairs are ok. I am not. They won.

I should just end this post now to make you all wonder what happened. I won't do that to you though.

I fell down a flight of stairs.

I've told the story about 100 times and I'm sick of it already so I'll make this brief. The heel of my shoe gave out, I ricocheted down the stairs - skipped most of them, clawed at the walls and for the railing (and missed, obviously), landed facing back at the stairs on my left leg, twisted that knee back around the other way, landed on my right knee facing away from the stairs, and shrieked my klutzy head right off. (Jeff and I just now tried to re-create this mishap with some Lego stairs and a Bionicle from a Happy Meal and it did not look pretty and my description above doesn't even come close to what actually happened.)

I scared the living daylights out of Jeff. He thought for sure I was broken to pieces. In any event, the ambulance came (how embarrassing), and I spent a couple of hours in the ER. As it turns out I miraculously managed to NOT break anything - just the other day Jeff was teasing that I'd never get osteoporosis because I eat cheese like a rabid mouse. Guess he was right. Aaaah the power of cheese.

However, my left knee made a very strange and horrible tearing and crunching sound when it twisted and there is some serious damage in there somewhere. I have a big immobilizing brace, crutches, some fun pain pills, and an appointment with an MRI machine. The ER doctor thinks I tore up my ACL? ALS? ABC? ligament or tendon or some damn thing. This generally requires surgery. My left knee is about twice it's normal size and I can't bend it without weeping. Fun.

It's happy pain pill time. More later.

*And hey - it could have been A LOT worse - my head, neck, and back are all cool...knees are way easier to fix than any of those things.*

So....

...here's what happened.

It was a bad couple of weeks culminating in a bad weekend leading to a bad morning. This is not an excuse - it just is what it is. In the throes of a tantrum (me??? a tantrum??? I know how shocked you all are, but stretch your imaginations ;), I bought a pack of cigarettes. Lovely lovely Winston's. I smoked one.

One.

It was such a bizarre experience. I suppose that my very first cigarette ever was similar, but I don't remember that far back (11? 12? 9?....I dunno). The first big lungful was just heaven - just a flood of sweet smoke and everything I had been missing.

BUT....

Then the taste. How can I describe this? 'Bottom of a shoe' is probably the closest I can get. It was so horrible. It just like coated the inside of my mouth and nose. Egaherblarghwerwyucky. The smell. Not good. All those times I walked by someone smoking and thought it smelled so good.....WRONG. It's one thing to walk by someone doing it....but it was in my nose and all around and just gross. Just holding the dang thing felt weird and foreign.

So then I cried, shredded the rest of the pack, and flushed it all down the toilet. Nothing too dramatic. Just a momentary lack of concentration. Or something similar to that.

The Quit Meter. Frankly, I'm sick of it. Tick tick tick. It just seemed to be mocking me. If I'm really a "non-smoker" why do I have to count up all my non-smoking days. Seems silly. I understand that for the Fill-in-the-blank Anonymous people there is some value to getting the monthly or yearly chips.

(Wait. Just a dang minute now. They don't give the Gambler's Anonymous people chips to celebrate the time gone by do they??? I'm not trying to be snarky or make fun...but seriously....what do those folks get??? Because a chip would be like a 30 days sober commemorative shot glass. Not good.)

Sorry - where was I? Quit meter. Ok so I'm sick of it and I'm not putting it back up. I know the date I quit - August 8. I'm unlikely to forget the date as it is a big day (and a month before my birthday).

Chantix. I took a pill after I smoked that cigarette and have not taken one since. There is no real reason for this. Other than maybe I'm somewhat sick of the whole process. This does not me that I'm sick of the other bloggers or the topic. Mostly I'm just sick of ME. I'm bored with me smoking, me quitting, me being tempted, me smelling smoke, me worried about smoking, me and insurance. There are lots of other things about me that I'm still totally fascinated with...but ME smoking or quitting...eh...not so much. Plus I think that obsessing about it just keeps it at the forefront of my mind. It's weird. For me.

*Whew* This is way longer than I intended. I still plan to keep up with all the other Chantix bloggers. Y'all are way too cool and interesting (and in the case of Ren's video - very cute ;) to not read. But I may just give the smoking/quitting topic a rest for a while. I'll still blog about the other things that catch my eye. If you want to stick around for that - swell. If not - also swell, may you live in interesting times.

:)

Got me

Do you see a quit meter off to the side?

Almost got me

This morning I held a cigarette in my hand, along with a lighter and an ashtray. I wanted so badly to smoke that cigarette. It just smelled absolutely divine. Imagine the smell of your absolute, number one, all time favorite meal just about to be served. That's how it smelled. I just wanted to let that sweet smoke clear all the bad crap out my mind and just relax. Just relax. Relax. That's all. No big deal.

I wound up peeling all the paper off the cigarette and just letting it shred up. I don't really feel all that great or brave about doing it either. Bleh.

Finally Finally Finally Friday

Wow it's been a crap week. The other day I stopped my van and noticed that the odometer was at 77777. I thought that was really cool and took a picture of it with my phone. If I were more technically literate, I would know how to get the picture off my phone and post it here. But anyway, I kind of thought that the 7's were a harbinger of a lucky week.

WRONG.

The 7's mean nothing!! If you see this on your vehicle - just ignore it. Really all it means is that your vehicle is going to start breaking down in weird and interesting ways very soon. The warranty is gone. Start saving up for something new (and hopefully not as dorky as a van).

So this has been my mood all week. Kind of bratty and tantrum-y. That's why no posts for a few days. The ultimate irony is that the van is actually fine. (Except for that annoying "run the heat on full blast or have no heat at all" glitch.) It was everything else that went to heck. Squabbled with everyone, insanely busy at work, not enough sleep, etc. But no smoking. So that's good. I have been SORELY tempted. I also missed my pill two days. Can't remember which ones though - maybe Tuesday and Thursday. I think what has kept me from smoking is really trying to face all the downfalls of it. It rained here all week and I would have been making mad dashes to the 7-mobile to smoke without getting drenched. I do NOT miss the smell in the house. I felt bad for a guy who just reeked of smoke stink. These things are all so helpful to staying away from the butts.

Well I'm just rambling now, so I leave you with one last funny thing. Jeff bought me a pack of M&M's and they just sat unopened on the computer desk for a couple of days. (This is not amazing willpower on my part - I've been nibbling on an embarrassingly huge Toblerone.) Last night Dylan and I were goofing around with Noah. He walked away from us and then turned back around and came towards me. With the world's most serious look on his face, he said....and I quote..."Mom, I just want you to know that I opened your M&M's for you." Dylan and I looked at each other and just cracked up. What a grand, selfless act. That's what the problem was. I couldn't get them open. Naturally, I had to go see the state they were in. He actually left some for me to eat. I suppose he did deserve half the bag since he had to expend all that effort getting it open. That kid is a nut.

Offended

Just got done watching "Bizarre Foods" on....the Travel Channel. Gross. That guy will eat anything. I can't even imagine how hungry I would have to be to eat a whole roasted sparrow or a plate full of silk worms. Yucky. Anyway, the show playing on the same channel right now is called "Tornado Alley USA." I think this show is way worse than the gross food show.

I'm sure many of you know my complete and utter spineless fear of tornadoes. I think anyone who willingly chases these things around is a special kind of crazy. I realize that it is important for scientists to research tornadoes in order to better understand how/why/where they form in order to protect people. I get it. I'm for it. Better them than me. But here's why the show offended me. (And it had NOTHING to do with them showing a giant 7-tornado-spawning-supercell that hit August 2006 less than an hour from where I now sit.) The show is following some big shot storm chaser guy and his company that offers tornado tours. Tours? I really find that to be ghoulish. There are people who lose their lives and everything they have from these storms. To pay money to chase them around seems really freaky to me. It's like paying money to visit horrible house fires, or sites of famous dog maulings, or following the Ted Bundy trail. The sad thing is that I'm sure there are people who would love to do these things as well.

On the clip from last August the main guy sees a tornado hit a house and he says, "oh wow that guy's house just got totaled!!." Oh yeah. Great. What a thing to be excited about. Let's take a wrecking ball to your house (with you in it) and then cheer on the destruction. What a sicko. He then gives this lame-o kind of look and says, "there were no fatalities with this system, just some minor injuries." Yeah that. And some poor guy losing everything he owns. Whoopee. What sick jerk.

I understand that it's a pretty amazing weather phenomenon and I'm sure that these people would argue that it's no different than watching lightning or enjoying the rain. But it is different. When I finally left the room to come do this post, the people were kind of upset that after two days on the road they hadn't seen a tornado yet. So they're hoping and praying for a horrible destructive force to happen just so they can be entertained. I just can't understand why anyone would pay money to gleefully chase something around that kills people and destroys lives. Do these folks like brag about it back home?? "Hey look. Here's our pictures of the storm that wiped out a neighborhood. Yeah like three people were killed and 40 homes destroyed. Oh yeah it was a blast. You should go next year." Sick.

A bunch

I've had about 10 topics swirling around in my head for the past couple of days - let's see how many I can remember.

1. Brave
I just found out that one of my cousins is going back to the middle east for the third time. He was in the first Gulf war, went back after 9/11, and is heading back again. I have no desire to engage anyone in a political argument with this topic. I just want to tell the world that I am amazingly proud of him and fervently hope he comes back safely to his wife and two little boys.

2. Joe Exotic
On a wildly different note, we went to see a magician called Joe Exotic today. I've never actually been to a magic show before, so have no real reference point from which to judge this guy. I'll just say - not bad. Lots of loud noises and fake smoke - that was not fun. I only bring it up because this guy does what he does to support an interesting cause. Part of the show is very much aimed at kids. He talks quite a bit about saying no to drugs, drinking and driving, and not picking on people. On top of all that, this show is in support of the G.W. Exotic Animal Park. Apparently there are thousands of exotic animals in this country that get dumped after their idiot owners realize that owning an 800 lb. tiger that wants to eat children is NOT a great idea. So this park takes these animals and supports them. Something different on a Saturday afternoon.

3. Noah is scary
Did any of you see Toy Story? As I was typing the last section, Noah came up and asked me to "fix" his toy. He has this little guy that rides a motorcycle. For some reason, the arms and legs come off this guy. Noah wanted me to put the legs where the arms go and the arms where the legs go. Okay freaky Sid - no problem.

4. Chantix
Okay. I've kind of decided to start tapering off. I am no where NEAR as organized as Maggie so this is going to be totally haphazard. I am also not going to consult my doctor (there's me riding the ragged edge of disaster again). She already told me I could taper or just stop on my own when I felt I was ready. Here are my 2 reasons (one good and one stupid). One - I feel pretty good about my ability to resist smoking. I think I'll do okay. I think it will be HARD without Chantix, but okay. Two - I'm sick of taking 2 pills every day and can't remember to do it. I know that's just lame, but it's true. In the past week there were 3 days when I only had one pill because I forgot the morning dose. So I might as well switch over to one pill a day anyway. I'm going to do this with the bottle I have left (20 or so pills) and then re-evaluate. I SERIOUSLY doubt that I am going to go through the pill-splitting like Maggie did. I am way too disorganized (ok - lazy) to try that. I might try an every other day thing though. Stay tuned for updates.

5. The gays and the coloreds
(By the way I ***am*** willing to get into a political argument on this topic)
I recently had someone tell me "we didn't have 'the gays' when I was younger." At some other point in the conversation, the person mentioned, "the coloreds." I so badly wanted to say, "you had just as many of 'the gays' as you do now, but they saw how you treated 'the coloreds' back then and decided to stay out of your way." But I didn't do that. This person is of a certain age and it would have been a senseless argument. In the same set of circumstances I had someone tell me that a certain university should not have had to get rid of their Native American (these would be "the reds" I assume) mascot because "they had that mascot for so long." Ok. Sure. I've written about the mascot issue before. (Ha ha - that post has a picture of Noah with a pull-up on his head.) Anyway, I don't get too bent out of shape about mascots - it's very very low on my radar. But the whole set of conversations just made me a little sad. Maybe my generation and younger is messed up in a lot of different ways, but I do think we're WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYYY more tolerant (as a general rule). Sometimes this is not good in terms of being apathetic towards things, but mostly I think it's a good thing.

Okay, I remembered five of the maybe 10. That's fairly good for my head.

I just

KNEW those kids were trying to kill me!!!

"Among this group, she found that those who bore sons had shorter life spans than those who gave birth to daughters. This discrepancy has to do with birth weight—male babies are typically larger—as well as testosterone. “Testosterone can compromise your immune system; it can affect your health,” Lummaa says, and the mothers of sons proved especially susceptible to endemic infectious disease, such as tuberculosis. “Boys are a little bit more costly” to raise than girls as well, because they drain more physical resources from their mothers, she adds, as has been seen in other mammals, such as the red deer. Sons also are not as likely as daughters to stick around to help their mothers out later in life."

Also, Blender magazine has it's list of the 50 worst rock songs. As a child of the '80s, I take exception to MANY of these choices.

Jitters

It's been a weird day. I can't seem to relax. This is my fourth attempt at a post. I feel really jittery and kind of nervous almost. I have no idea what this is about. I got a big fat face-full of cigarette smoke this evening. I know I've complained about stale smoke smell, but the fresh ones.....SMELL.....SO.......GOOD. Ugh. I wish I would have kept one of my dirty ashtrays. Then every time I smell a lovely fresh cigarette, I could go stick my nose in the nasty ashtray to remind myself how the cigs REALLY smell. The smell of a dirty ashtray when you run water over it to clean it has to be one of the top 10 grossest smells. Maybe I should get a job washing out ashtrays after the bars close.

What else? Oh I read this story about a 6-year old who tried to drive to a restaurant. I'm still all freaked out about Dylan driving....now I have to worry about Noah. Great.

We're going Halloween costume shopping for Noah this weekend. I really want him to be Batman. His older brother was Batman when he was four. This leads to absolutely no logical reason why Noah should have to do it - I think it's just one of those stupid things that only a Mom thinks is neat. Honestly, I don't even think Noah really knows who Batman is. Halloween is not one of my favorite holidays. I hate the smell of pumpkins, it's just too much candy-temptation, the ringing doorbell all night gets annoying, the make-sure-there's-no-razors-or-poison candy inspection is depressing, and trying to explain to a little kid a) why they can't eat a bucket of candy all at once and b) why all the people they know are giving out candy only for this one random night is just impossible. Bah Humbug. Or Bat Humbug maybe. I guess the only reason for a parent to be involved in this insanity is to get pictures like this that are just too dang cute:

Hypocrite

Yeah yeah yeah....I know I was just complaining about small towns....I'm no more cultured than anyone else....shaddup already. I know the following is juvenile and silly....but it really makes me giggle.

Maybe not

I just wrote this long, cynical rant about Native American/Columbus Day. It was really negative and kind of ugly so I deleted it. No one wants to read ALL the garbage that goes through my head. It didn't even have any funny parts. Boo.

I've really wanted a cigarette today - no particular reason. Just to smell one would be good. I think I need to go watch that lung cancer video again. I'm starting to lose focus about this whole process. I think there's a part of me still throwing a tantrum about it. Way in the back of my head there's an obnoxious me on the floor kicking and screaming. Hey speaking of that...

My friend Owned By Dogs, put up a post about the side effects of some medicine she's taking. This is the craziest thing I've ever seen. How could she possibly even know if the medicine is working under the worry of these potential problems. My two personal favorites are "Fit" and "False Sense of Well Being."

FIT???!!! Is that an official, medical term?? Do people pitch fits still? Isn't that kind of a mean way to put things? And what, exactly, is meant by "fit"? Is she going to have a seizure, or just come unglued in the grocery store and start screaming for a toy?? "False Sense of Well Being" Now that's just horrible. So she starts taking this medicine and feeling better. But is she REALLY feeling better? OR....is she just having a false sense of well being?? How cruel. Might even make her have a fit.

I understand that the drug company probably has to put every remote possibility on the warnings to stave off lawsuits. LOL. I just read through it again. "Broken Bone" How does that happen? Just all of a sudden her arm breaks? She says the "Abnormal Fat Distribution" bothers her. I'd like to see pictures of that too. "Nervous" This probably only happens to people WHO READ THE FREAKIN' LIST.

Back by popular demand....or...other

Wow check out the quit meter. 1200 not smoked, $300 saved. 1200 - that's HORRIBLE. 1200. Bleh. $300? I need some shoes...and a purse...and a coat.

Back from my travels. It was reeeeeeeeeeeeeeally hard to not smoke in the car. There's nothing else to do, so I just wanted to smoke smoke smoke. But I didn't - even when my mom lit up. Last night we stayed in a smoking room in a hotel (that's all they had) and boy did it STINK in there. I still like the smell of lit cigarettes, but that months and years of smoke in the carpet/curtains/walls smell is so awful. Yucky.

The trip was good and bad. Nice weather down and back - good. Didn't smoke - good. Got to shop in real stores - good. Ate REAL barbecue - good. Got some nice coffee in a place that didn't also sell anything with the phrase "high octane" - good. Absolutely angelic non-complaining non-crying didn't fuss even once during four long days of being strapped in a car seat beautiful 4-year old boy - PRICELESS.

But it was also very bad. Just sad. Dreadfully sad. I don't want to put up details that are not mine to share, but I saw someone for what is almost 100% certain to be the last time. This person is far too young and good for what he/she is going through.

I saw my husband do and say and handle some things this week that have put me in absolute awe of the man. He is so brave and strong. I sometimes cannot believe how incredibly lucky Dylan and I were to find him and how lucky Noah is to have him too. When you're with someone day after day, doing the same old daily things, having the same old squabbles over mostly small things, it's so easy to forget why you put up with this insane stranger at all. And then you see them act in a way that is so courageous and selfless and HARD that you can't even believe you happened to get this person to notice (let alone MARRY) you. He is simply the best man. If you ever see me even put one little tiny word of complaint about him on here, you clog up my comment thing with links to this post.

It's good to be home. It was mostly a really hard week.