Black Doggerel

aargh fuck oww. My twisted knee was nearly BETTER. I could nearly walk again. Then last night I bent over to slide Spike's cushion from his spot by the Uncomfy Chair over to be by the bed, and my knee unexpectedly made this sharp crack-pop sound.

I have a friend with a chronically bad knee and I've heard her use the phrase "my knee exploded" before. I hadn't realised how literally she meant it. EXPLOSION OF PAIN. I couldn't sleep last night despite the icepack and painkillers, there was no position I could rest it in that didn't throb with pain and I couldn't stop fretting about how the fuck I was going to walk dogs like this. Getting from the Uncomfy Chair to the bathroom or kitchen is just about possible but unprecedentedly difficult. Down the stairs didn't seem likely.

In the end I scooted downstairs on my arse with the dogs offleash and let them out to piss in the communal back garden. This is strictly not allowed in the tenancy agreement and it worries fuck out of me to resort to it, even though downstairs neighbour does it every day with his greyhound. But it was either that or have them both piss on the floor in here, what can you do? Spike didn't drink for a day and a half after he had that accident on the floor last week and I'm not risking that again.

happier news: Spike had his stitches out yesterday, barring a few inside his mouth that he'd broken. The vet put those back in with dissolving sutures so we won't need to go back. The lab results are back on his poor departed nose, and all the indications are that we got a good clear margin and Mouth Thing is no more. YAYYYY WOOO HOOO YAYY!

they also both really enjoyed the back garden. I was too paranoid to leave them out very long but they ran and bounced and were happy.

my cat boxes need emptying and my kitchen is an unholy shithole. I was looking forward to ...not doing those, but having gotten them done. Now I can't even fucking stand up without a piece of furniture to lean on and fuck fuck fuck OW. Did I say ow? OW.

Have you any idea how fantastic it feels to walk without a limp?

Some of you do, certainly. My f-list comes in all ages and conditions of health. But lots of you are young and lithe and limber and don't have fucked-up knees. Take some time to revel in them, okay? I can't run, dance or play football but today I can walk easy. It makes everything better. In a few hours when it's cooled down I'm going to celebrate by taking the dogs to Big Park, where I'll probably ruin my Good Knee Day yomping in hedges. But hell, gifts are given us to use.

In other news, I've been handed the ticking fiction time bomb again. Seven days till Volcano Day. When all this is over, I'll be able to show and tell everyone who isn't ambersaigh, rozae or deathwokclan what it was all about. Till then, I'll be a bit incommunicado again this week. I'm hunting plotwabbits.

Finally had my doctor's appointment about the knee today. The knee is actually not too bad right now - I can stay on my feet a good forty minutes without limping, although I can feel the instability in the stretchy bits round the kneecap (which I think is the anterior cruciate?), and I have to walk carefully. It's much better with Squish on the harness and long line - he has enough freedom of movement that he doesn't feel the need to jerk me off my feet. But it still needs looking at. My doctor's referred me to the orthopaedic department to get it looked at, MRI'd and - I dunno what they'll do next.

I shut the cats in the bedroom if I have to go out without the dogs. I trust my dogs absolutely not to harm my cats deliberately, but Spike is excitable and annoying, Squish is guardy and jealous, they're both a lot bigger than cats and I don't trust Murphy's Law. So they're only all together when I'm there to supervise.

So when Mum comes to pick me up, of course there's always one cat that hides under the couch. Spike goes all herdy and pins cat under couch, Squish gets all incensed because OMG YOU CANNOT COME NEAR MY COUCH, cat (Hamish on this occasion) gets freaked by all the dog commotion and won't come out from under the couch until I take the sofa cushion off and poke cat in the backside. Cat shoots into kitchen and I have to intercept him swiftly before the now thoroughly overexcited dogs drive him back under the couch. So of course I didn't notice Squish's bone falling off the couch (where it wasn't allowed to be in the first place) and I step on it, barefoot and with all my considerable weight. OW OW OW FUCKING OW. The sole of my foot is one great big magenta-and-indigo bruise, with a hole in the middle where the bone had a pointy bit, and now I'm limping on my other leg. Not. Happy.


Mum and I cheered ourselves up by shopping on Holdenhurst Road where the little foreign food shops are. Bought spare rib sauce and char sui sauce and prawn crackers and a litre bottle of light soy at the Asian food shop, and a big garlicky phallic kielbasa at the Eastern European food shop. I wish to hell we had some fun shops like that round here.

Saffron cat got spayed yesterday. Stitches are looking good and now that the grogginess has worn off, she's showing no sign of even knowing the incision's there. Three cats done, one to go!

Arrrgh pissfuckbugger, the fucking knee went again. I was being so careful. I'd even got to the point where I wasn't limping any more.

On the plus side, we met a fawn coloured bully (one of the local American Bulldog/Pittie/Staffie types that are so common around here) in the park, and Spike actually went to greet him and had a few moments of civilised friendly interaction with him before I called him back. Thank goodness he was offleash. He's not a big fan of most other dogs at any time, but he only gets obnoxious about it when he's leashed. And he's improving on that score too - we ran into a yellow Lab after I'd leashed him and I was able to get him to stop barking long enough to reward him for not barking.

Squish was leashed, though, and set up a storm of yapping - it wasn't fear or aggression so much as plain excitement, but I started practising his recall to distract him and that was when I fucked the knee up; I was backing up and calling him to follow me and I backed into a tree. I'm going to have to get myself a knee brace or this is just going to keep on and on happening - and I can't live my life unable to walk, with two exercise-hungry dogs, no yard, an upstairs flat and no car.

( OMG IT'S THE INFAMOUS DOTPETCHATLOG POST! RUN FOR YOUR LIVES! WHATEVER YOU DO, DON'T CLICK THAT CUT! )

In other news, spent half the day at the hospital getting leg scanned and do not have a DVT. Yay!

so I was supposed to get up early this morning to be at the doctor's. I tried to go to bed early, I really did, but I haven't fallen asleep before 5am in two months and my body clock wasn't about to start now. I lay in bed listening to Big Finish audio dramas for three hours before giving up and drinking coffee instead. That was much easier than actually waking up from sleep at 0830 would have been.

Doctor thinks I probably don't have a DVT, but he agreed the risk factors and symptoms made it a good idea to make sure. Attempted a blood test, but I never had cooperative veins even before I turned them into masses of scar tissue and they defeated him completely. So he's sending me to have my leg scanned, which will stop my mother worrying without the need to stick any more needles in me. Huge relief. Don't ask why or how someone who can't even look at the damn things managed to be an IV drug user because I have no fucking idea. I make no sense.

Spike hates me because leg + lack of sleep meant I couldn't face a proper walk with a ball game today, but he successfully picked the tuggy out of my pocket while we had our short walk round the block. That cheered him up a lot. Must find someone to take a vid of Spike in full blown tugmonster mode. He's scary as fuck, all whirling and snapping teeth and bouncing effortlessly to eye-level. I love him so.

Squish is singing along with the Beatles. Weird bastard. Me, I'm going to bed. Night all.

arrrgh! that knee was almost better!

well, not almost better. but it was improving. but Squish just yoinked me on a patch of slippery ground. the knee (the BAD knee) bent the wrong way and just exploded with pain.

ow ow ow ow fucking ow bastard horrible dogs.

one slightly used singing pointer going cheap. anyone?