Update and verdict

I’m still writing away, and it appears that 3Sum, the column that I contribute to in RedEye is going to be appearing online, so here’s the link, in case you’re interested.

And I’m also writing feverishly for National Novel Writer’s Month. I’m beginning to think that I’m crazy for this. I’ve been writing in Starbucks in Old Town, which can be a good place, but is also a people-watching extravaganza. The book itself is going slower than I’d like — it’s a hard story to tell for many reasons. I’m SO grateful for my saving grace, which is an anonymous blog that I wrote to document my mother’s illness. Without it, I would probably not remember the dates and details.

Anyhoo . . . thanks for the encouragement. I’m still writing this for the remainder of November.

To close the loop on my foot pain, I went to the orthopedic surgeon. He twisted my foot around, did some probing for pain, and ordered an X-ray.

Post x-ray, he examined the film and asked if I wanted good news or bad news. I replied that I just wanted news.

He said that the good news is that what I have isn’t a stress fracture. The bad news is that I’m in pain and he doesn’t know why. Here are my options:

1) A bad sprain, which we’re assuming is the problem, which means that I have to strengthen that foot with a bunch of exercises that the doctor gave me.

2) An occult fracture, which isn’t detectable in an x-ray, only through a bone scan or MRI.

The doc would like for me to do the exercises first, and said that my progress wouldn’t be measured in days — probably in weeks or months. But if it doesn’t get better, I’m going to have to go back in for an MRI.

I swear, my illnesses are never easy. But at least I got it checked out.

In denial

Weird story, but it’s on my mind, so here goes.

A little over a year ago — on September 24th, to be specific — I had knee surgery. It was my third. I had my ACL reconstructed from an old college quasi-sports injury.

As an aside, I sincerely wish that I originally hurt my knee doing something meaningful, fun, highly athletic, or even kind of kinky. Nope. For the record, it was powder puff flag football that did me in. But I digress . . .

So . . . two nights before my surgery, I had drinks with an old friend at the Four Seasons bar on North Michigan avenue. When I left, I decided to walk down Michigan for a while, anticipating that being one of my last long walks for the foreseeable future until my knee began to heal.

I didn’t get far. I was busy thinking about how glad I was to have reconnected with him, stepped off the curb at a weird angle, and felt the tiniest snap in my left foot. I screamed loud enough so that people next to me asked if I was okay. Embarrassed, I claimed to be okay, as I limped over to lean against the closest building to assess the damages.

I couldn’t see anything (as though I expected a bone to pop out of my foot), but I was clearly in pain. Nearly unwalkable pain. I hobbled into a cab and went home. I limped in and made an ice pack for my foot, convinced that ice would be the remedy for whatever I had done. I prevented any real swelling, did a little self-diagnosing on WebMD, and determined that I didn’t have a broken foot. If I had to guess, I would say that I had damaged a ligament attached to one of the lesser metatarsals (toward the instep on the top of my left foot).

The pain persisted, and I thought of making an appointment with my doctor for the following day. But here was the dilemma . . . I had hurt my left foot, and was due to have surgery on my right knee. A bum left foot would be a recipe for major incapacitation. Aside from that, I was afraid my doctor would think I was crazy. Well . . . crazier.

So, I had a little conversation with myself. It went something like this: “Woman up, you clumsy bitch!” (It was a short conversation. I mean, what would have been my retort??) I decided that whatever issue I was having with my foot would soon pale in comparison to what my knee was about to endure. I iced and practiced walking until I was limp-free, and put it out of my head like the denial expert that I am. I kept telling myself that if I didn’t address the problem, it didn’t exist.

And once the scalpel hit my knee a day later, I barely remember having hurt myself.
Over the next six months, if I had foot pain, I didn’t realize it. I was too busy healing and rehabbing on the right side.

Fast forward to now. My knee is fine, and now my foot is KILLING me. It doesn’t hurt so much when I walk or wear heels, but the dull pain is always there.

The new dilemma is what to do about it. Here are the possibilities:

1) I go to the doctor and get hundreds of dollars of tests done, only to find out that I had fractured something last year and it healed incorrectly. The only way to fix it is to re-break the bone and re-set it.
Let me tell you right now that THIS option? Ain’t happenin’!

2) I go to the doctor and get hundreds of dollars of tests done, and the findings are inconclusive. He recommends physical therapy.
Not a tragedy, but I’m not looking forward to any more physical therapy. Ever again.

3) I go to the doctor and get hundreds of dollars of tests done, which makes him think that I should have an MRI, which proves that I strained a muscle/ligament in my foot. Not much recourse here. Physical therapy, maybe? Surgery?
He lost me at MRI

4) Leave it alone and suck it up. I admit that, although I’m whining about the pain, this is the most appealing option. And the only one devoid of major medical expenditures!

Okay . . . I think I’ve sufficiently answered my own question. On to the next dilemma . . .

Inauguration

When Obama was elected, I immediately decided that I wanted to go to the inauguration. Over time, that desire waned, to the point where it no longer existed. And now, I’m wondering if I actually should have gone.

Most of my friends are there. I’m wondering, in fact, if anyone’s still in Chicago.

It’s a big part of history, but then I think of the crowds and the mess that will be made of DC during the few days, I’m happy to witness the inaugural events from my house in comfort.

Do-over?

I had big hopes for the beginning of 2009 — I REALLY did. Okay, I still do, because it can’t be worse than 2008. But I would like a do-over.

Let’s start with the column. If you scroll down, you will see that I resolved to sharpen my skills as a writer. Well, I have no idea how that’s going to happen because The Gina Spot is on hiatus for a while due to a space crunch in RedEye. I have no idea whether or not it’s a permanent thing, so we’ll see. I hope not.

Then there’s my health. I’m trying to be good about therapy, although I haven’t been good about therapy so far this year. This isn’t truly a big deal (and probably TMI), but I’ve already taken my first antibiotics of 2009, all because I hate drinking water. The upshot is that you can give yourself bladder infections if you don’t hydrate properly. Just thought I’d share. Ugh!

I’m still ruminating over this fling thing. the next person I’m with has to really, really like me — for more than a few hours. Ha!

Holidays, holidays

I’m so looking forward to taking a respite from the world starting Tuesday. I want to chill out, clean my house, watch movies, hang out with friends, go to parties — all while not having to get up to go to work. Now . . . if only the weather were better.

Christmas shopping . . . well, let’s just say that I haven’t done a lot of it. Okay, so I haven’t done any. The only gifts that concern me are those for the godchildren. I’m pretty sure they’re getting a Wii (which makes me extremely jealous), so I’m going to get them a game (which Auntie Gina would love to come over and play with them).

I did get a good Secret Santa this year. Last year, I had a bad santa — she didn’t give me any cute little surprises during the week — only the big gift at the end. The whole point of Secret Santa is to give fun little trinkets or candy during the week, and keep the person guessing. The first day of the week, I received a pair of purple slipper socks, which I adore. Not only is purple my absolutely favorite color, but I love slipper socks. Comfy! The second day, she meant well — I received a 2×2 picture frame that had a holiday theme. Realistically, I will never use it, but it was a very cute thought. The third day, I got a box of those caramel Nips candies. Love them. LOVE them! The fourth day, I received a tiny plastic Santa filled with Reeses Pieces. Wow! My Santa TOTALLY knows me and my love for peanut butter. I was stumped. At first I thought it was the senior partner that I normally work with, because she knows what I like. Turns out it was one of the admins who had just joined the firm. I was really impressed, as I’d only had work-related conversation with her. Who knew?

On another note, received the unfortunate news that “Date Night with Gina B.” has been cut from Metromix. As we’ve all read, Tribune has filed Chapter 11, and they’ve had to reduce content. I wrote for the Weekend Edition, and they’re saving money, so my little review column has been cut. Waaah! I’m bummed. It was time-consuming, but fun, and great to meet a lot of the bar owners/managers. Oh well. I have to figure out the next thing.

Sometimes I feel like I’m missing out on a lot of opportunity with The Gina Spot. I would love to do a weekly radio spot, or some sort of partnership where I actually get to talk and interact with people. People LOVE talking about their relationships, and I think I’m a pretty good facilitator.

I’m putting it out there . . . maybe it’ll happen!

Tagged by Miss Attitude

Okay, Jen . . . thanks for the tag. I actually have fun with these, so here are the rules:

Step #1 – Link to the person who tagged you. Here she is! Miss Attitude! Check her out.

Step #2 – Write Five Fun/Interesting Facts about yourself. Now this is the hard part . . . I’ll try to be interesting.

1. Most of you know this, but I love to write. I write two columns for RedEye/Metromix. One is The Gina Spot, and the other is Date Night with Gina B.

2. I’m a trained fighter. I’m a violent girl who likes to get her aggressions out, so I took martial arts — a form of Kung Fu — for a few years. After becoming impatient, and wanting to see more immediate ass-kicking skills, I took up boxing. My trainer was also a promoter, and tried to convince me to take off the headgear and go pro, so that I could be featured in one of his fights with another of his female boxers. There were a few problems, the most important being that she was a major bull-dagger and had no problems with her nose being relocated to the other side of her face, while I definitely didn’t. My father wasn’t necessarily excited about it either.

3. Although I have a half sister by my father’s first marriage, I definitely consider myself to be an only child, given that she and I never grew up in the same house — or even in the same city, and I think I can count on two hands the amount of times I’ve seen her.

4. I spend most Christmases alone. Other people think it sounds sad, but really . . . after all of the hoopla, the shopping, the sappy songs, the parties, bad weather, holiday drama, etc., I’m just happy to spend the entire day in the house, watching marathons of HGTV or TLC shows, while eating thai food. It feels like I have the whole day to myself. I love it!!

5. Writing a relationship column has turned me off of dating. It’s like a person who loves donuts taking a job at Dunkin’ Donuts. Eventually, they will find that they no longer enjoy a good chocolate glazed. In fact, if they eat another munchkin, they fear they might explode. That’s similar to my feeling about relationships. After that last one, I have no desire to get into another one. About a month ago, I wrote a column about how I’m taking a break, but really, I’ve been on break for a lot longer time than I let on. Maybe one day I’ll regain my desire. In the meantime I’ve had enough weird experiences to keep my in column topics for years.

Step #3 – Tag Six Other People and link to their blogs. Then let them know you’ve tagged them by twittering them or leaving a comment on their blog. I don’t think I know six people to tag — or, perhaps not six people who mutually read my blog, but I’ll certainly try. . .

1. Thaihoney (I can’t link to her blog because of her stalker, but I will send her a reminder note.)

2. Lemony Sarah!

3. Poppy Buxom

4. The Cougar Comedian

5. Ms. Jennsylvania (although she’s editing her book and likely too busy. I’ll give it a try)

A blogworthy occasion

I’m SO overjoyed that we have a new President elect.

Sadly, I spent the election at home, alone, watching on the set, taking intermittent naps because I’m battling a cold. Mind you, I NEVER get sick, but I’m thinking this was the Universe’s way of grounding me and preventing from dancing in the street and further injuring my knee in the crowd of hundreds of thousands. Part of me feels like it was a shame that I missed out on a piece of history that was happening about three miles from my home. However, thanks to my friends’ frequent Facebook comments, I felt like I was right there.

I woke up this morning at 5, and arrived at the poll at 6:20. As roughly the 15th person in line, I was happy that I didn’t arrive to find a line wrapped around the block to enter the smelly nursing home that doubles as my polling place. We used to vote in a school, which I liked so much better. It was an airy gymnasium, and voting was such a leisurely experience. No more. Now we’re relegated to the smelly cafeteria area of a sad little nursing home, which, upon leaving will always bring about scary feelings of aging.

Although the poll wasn’t completely crowded, for some reason, those in line behind me seemed to have no concept of personal space. There were three men crowding behind me, and didn’t seem to pick up on my hints of exasperated breathing, and my o
ver-the-shoulder glares. One particular man who was standing in very close proximity smelled like old AND new urine. Pee-pee Boy lived in the nursing home, I believe (although I can’t figure out why he was wearing a coat). I’m very odor-sensitive, so this smell, first thing in the morning, about made me lose the meager contents of my stomach.

It didn’t help that the election judge seemed to be alphabet challenged. I handed over my ID to make it easy for her to find my name. It was taking a while, and Pee-Pee Boy’s scent was rising up, so I looked to see what was taking so long. I found her perusing the G’s, and tersely pointed out that my last name begins with B. Hel-LO???

The whole process took about 40 minutes (voting for all of those judges gave my hand a major workout), but I would do it three times over because it contributed to the election of the right candidate.

Many thoughts come to mind:

1. The gift of this amazing new President makes the theft of the former election worthwhile. My mother always said that every knock is a boost. How right she was.

2. Obama’s victory was like a double-reverse-tomahawk-slam-dunk-with-authority in McCain’s face. The new Nike campaign should be Obama: Nothing but Net.

3. SO happy that, unlike previous elections, there was actually a candidate to vote FOR. The last election, most Democrats weren’t voting FOR Kerry as much as we were voting AGAINST Bush. It doesn’t work unless there’s passion. And there was, for this election. It paid off. It was overwhelmingly beautiful to see so much passion.

4. I’m anxious to be able to travel to other countries with my head held high, without having to explain our leadership. “I don’t know how Bush got elected. I didn’t vote for him. Come to think of it, half of the country didn’t vote for him either. Again, I have no idea how he got elected.”

5. I have a fantasy that all of the mentally-challenged red-state-living hillbillies who hatefully stated their inability to stomach the idea of having a person of color in the senior position of country leadership will be so outraged that they defect to any country that will have them. (Note: most won’t) Don’t let the doorknob hit ya where the good Lord split ya, I say. Kiss my ass, hicks. In fact, don’t stop with me — kiss the entire country’s ass. Take your double-wide and move it across the border. See where that gets you.

6. I have much respect for people who abandoned party lines to vote for the right candidate. Although I’m a registered Democrat, I consider myself an Independent, and am pretty sure that there will come a time in my life that I will vote Republican. If the Republican candidate is the best, I’m happy to do so. I refuse to go down with a bad choice just to be true to a party.

7. I wish my mom were here. She would have loved this. I like to believe that she’s loving it, wherever she is.

Physical Therapy

It’s been two weeks since the surgery – two weeks and one day, to be specific – and I started physical therapy on Tuesday.

Physical therapy is no joke.

My prescription is for 3x/week for the next 3 months, which sounds really excessive to me, but what do I know? Last I checked, I had no initials behind my name, much less an MD.

On my first visit to Athletico, I was seen by the district manager, who assessed my progress to date. Not bad. I’ve been faithfully using the CPM machine, and have made it up to 110 degrees. The trouble is that I could never bend my knee that far without assistance. On my own, while seated, I can bend to about 90 degrees – MAYBE 100. If I’m laying on my back, it won’t even go that far without tightness and the feeling that it might snap.

My biggest fear (knee-wise) is that my ligament will somehow snap again. I have screws in my legs that hold the new ligament in place (the ligament borrowed from a cadaver, in case you’ve forgotten), and God forbid one of those screws pops out similar to those that hold together my household appliances. At least one screw seems to be unreliable at any given time, and I’m hoping that, of the two that are lodged in my bones, I won’t have one that tries to go renegade. That would suck tremendously. But I digress . . .

My second visit was better. I met the physical therapist with whom I will be spending much of my time, and she really knows her stuff. Or maybe I like her because she gave me a great knee massage.

One of the things they work on in therapy is getting the swelling down, which will increase muscle mobility. They also work on massaging the scars so that the skin won’t be “bunchy” in that area. (sorry for the word creation, but I couldn’t find the right word to articulate the thought). They’re looking for the scar area to be supple and smooth, devoid of hard tissue, and that horrible ridge that is detectable to the touch. (Yuck)

We worked on bending exercises, and then straightening. I’m doing better with the straightening. The back of my knee nearly touches the table when I sit straight-legged.

I had electronic stimulation as I tried to flex my quads. If my quads aren’t working, I can’t ditch my hideous brace. I’m working hard because I want to get rid of that thing by any means necessary.

And, by the way, I’m absolutely amazed at how fast my thighs turned into a gelatinous mess. It’s only been two weeks, for chrissakes, and there’s absolutely NO evidence that I was ever athletic or muscular. There’s PLENTY of evidence, however, that my favorite foods are pizza and chocolate cake!

I’ve been very clear with my trainer that my objective is not only to get my knee back to a full range of motion. I also plan to have muscular, sexy legs. She laughs, but is well aware that I’m totally serious. Again, I digress.

After the electronic stim, I got on the bike! Yep, the stationery bike. I was a bit worried at first, but Colleen told me that I could do half rotations if I couldn’t bent my knee far enough to do full rotations. After the first few tries, I forced myself to do a full rotation. It was tight initially, but after a while it loosened up (I would give an analogy, but I think we all get the picture).

After the stationery bike, I did leg presses on the machine. No weight, of course, but the fact that I was on a weightlifting machine made me feel so much better.

I can’t wait to go back on Monday. Colleen will be standing at the door, waiting for me.

I’m going to a birthday party this weekend, and can’t wait to dance!

Infections and chickenpox (or something like it)

I had a birthday recently, and all of a sudden, I feel like I’m falling apart. WTF?

So, yes, I’m still counting down until knee surgery on the 24th, which actually requires more preparation than I thought. I have to have a pre-surgical doctor’s appointment with my general practitioner, which will include a mandatory CBC, History, EKG, etc. I have to fill my painkiller prescription before surgery, which makes a ton of sense, given that I don’t want that leg to wake up before I’ve made it to the pharmacy. I’ve been there, and it ain’t pretty. I’m also still in process of planning outfits that are brace-friendly.

Aside from all of that, I was the proud owner of a bladder infection earlier this week (and I didn’t even get it the fun way [wink, wink!]). That was easy. Three days of antibiotics and no more 12-times-daily bathroom visit.

The trouble came yesterday when I scratched a few mosquito bites. I couldn’t remember where I had been to get so bitten, but those suckers were red and itchy. This morning, I woke up scratching my arm — or rather digging at my arm. Hmmm. Perhaps I had a few more bites than I thought.

When I arrived at work, I leisurely lifted the sleeve of my shirt — to scratch again — and found a mass of red bumps that were trailing down my arm. Yikes!

So, I went on WebMD.

As an aside, if you’re ever stricken with a nebulous illness and have tendencies toward hypochondria, WebMD is not your friend. I repeat – NOT YOUR FRIEND! Why? Because you will do exactly what I did this morning, which is diagnose yourself into an immediate imminent death.

And what did I come up with (within the realm of reason)? That’s right . . . chicken pox! What else would give me a bunch of small red, itchy bumps? Never mind that I’ve already had chicken pox (although I found cases of people online who have had it up to three times). I got scared — I had just been around a pregnant woman, and I would have hated to have given her chicken pox.

WebMD had slightly differing stories, depending on which definition you were reading. On one hand, the site said that you couldn’t catch chicken pox twice. On the other, it said that you could, but that it might morph into shingles. SHINGLES!! That’s what my mom had during a phase of her illness. I wanted nothing to do with shingles. Absolutely nothing. And then I had “mother moment,” where I wanted to call and consult her, which was a slight bummer.

So . . . I called the doctor’s office. Three times in a week-and-a-half. Despite the fact that they probably think I have Munchausen Syndrome. They’re really nice, though. After I told them that I was convinced that I was bringing ebola back, they said they would squeeze me in.

I went to the doctor at 2:50, my squeeze-in-time. The nurse took my blood pressure and temperture for the 2nd time in a week, and then I noticed she was staring at me. I assumed that she was just being attentive. A minute later, she said “Are you Gina B. from RedEye?” I laughed nervously and fessed up, happy that I hadn’t come in for an embarrassing venereal infection. What’s weird is that I rarely get recognized. Why would anyone recognize me from that crazy picture? When I am, I’m always surprised, but I admit that I never thought it would happen in the doctor’s office. But I digress. . .

The verdict is that I don’t have chicken pox . . . or shingles . . . or scabies . . . or pleurisy (what is pleurisy, anyway?). What I do have is an allergy to something that I came in contact with unwittingly.

As I left the doctor’s office, I wanted to cheerfully wave and say: “See ya next week for my pre-op visit!” I thought better of it and decided to keep mum.

Several hours, it came to me. I had been weeding this weekend — and since it had been a while, some of those weeds were taller than I, and had nasty burrs. It wasn’t a pretty job — some of those weeds had made themselves at home, with deep roots. If I had known that I would end up with an itchy, creeping rash, I’m sure I would have cut bait on the weeding and upped the shopping.

I guess it’s time to gear up for the next doctor visit within the next week. Whoo hoo.

Surgery it is!

The MRI results were about what I expected (thanks for asking, Jen). I could give you all of the gory details about my miniscus and osteoarthritis, but in layman’s terms, my knee is totally fucked up. The doctor put the decision in my hands. He said something like: “Well, it’s up to you. If you want to have limited activity and mobility, don’t worry about having surgery.” This was tantamount to saying: “Well, if you don’t care whether or not you can ever run, go to dance class, or eventually walk, then feel free to avoid surgery.”

Naturally I chose surgery over the threat of being crippled.

We talked about the cadaver ligament, which I’ve chosen to use, just to avoid being sliced any more than necessary. I asked if there was a way to learn the profile of the cadaver whose ligament I would be receiving. He said that the only thing we would know about the ligament was that it came from a person who was less than 50 years old.

There is also a one in 8 million chance of infection from the cadaver ligament, which I think I’ll risk.

So, the surgery is scheduled for September 24th. I will be wearing a brace for about a month to six weeks, post op.

As you can see, the brace is really cute (NOT), and I have no idea how I’m going to work it into my corporate wardrobe. I’m thinking leggings, but I don’t know what to wear over them. This is going to take some strategizing.

Ugh!!