Hi Darling Ones,

I’m a little down the dumps today. I’m trying mightily to get out of these dumps, listening to R.E.M I’m like I did in when I was feeling blue in ninth grade. I made chicken stock and prepared pork for some Thai curry ramen I’m gonna make tomorrow.

Yet I am still here in the dumps.

Yesterday I found out I have “severe arthritis” in both my knees, and it’s kind of hit me in a weird way.

Perhaps I’m simply wallowing in self pity, but I feel like I can’t catch a break. This is just one more hard thing I’m gonna have to do in the mountain of other hard things I am already doing.

I’m not quite at the point of pain where I need injections or new knees, though eventually I will get there.

The Knee Guy is how I am referring to him even though he went to 38 years of med school and blah blah, which is weird because he looks about 26. I referred to him as The Knee Guy even before I met him because I rudely assume all knee guy became doctors because they wanted to work for professional sports teams. This is probably a jerky stereotype, but hear me out. . .

My Knee Guy, I decided wanted to be a basketball sports doctor. I jumped to this conclusion the minute he walked into the room and my brain was all, “hooey, he’s a big’un.”

He’s 6’8″ which I could not resist finding out. Throughout the entire appointment I chanted “don’t do out. Don’t you dare do it.”

Darling Ones, I did it. I had to! Do you know how many people I know taller than I am? One. It’s Wolfdogg.

When I stood up to after the appointment, he walked me out. I looked over at him from my hunched position at my walker. “You’re about as tall as I am,” I said.

“I got a couple inches on you,” he said.

“Six five,” I said.

“Six eight,” he said.

“Yep,” I said. Then he told he how to get to the lobby. (Which, incidentally, I knew because this appointment was at 1601 St. Francis Ave, my home away from home.”

When I told the family chat about The Knee Guy, Sister #2 immediately asked if he was cute. He was, I told them, but not my type. Also, wearing a wedding band.

So my knees are shot because I am old and fat. The Knee Guy told me I should “continue to lose weight.” I did not tell him how I was put on my first diet, by a doctor, when I was four years old and basically they have never worked. Instead, I nodded my head.

I told him my hope for the appointment was to learn what is wrong with my knees and that continued physical therapy will help. He said it probably will help. He suggested I keep going with my pool therapy, which I am happy about cause I really love it.

At some point I will have to get new knees, so that’s something to look forward to!

It’s a lot. Everything in the last seven months has been a lot. It’s all so hard all the time and. . .

I just I don’t know. I just don’t know.

Today it’s taking all I can do to not curl up in a ball and cry for hours. I’m just need a break. Just one thing to go my way. One thing, that’s all I need.

Hopefully I’ll feel better tomorrow.

Love from the dumps,
Jodi
sta, which sadly are delicious but so being alive.