A new hip for dani part II - The freakout

I'm done with the logical, motivating speak regarding my hip replacement. After reading my surgery packet over dinner and visiting a truly horrifying website.....Two things.

1. All the people in the brochures and instructive diagrams are wrinkly and hunched over.
I'm not wrinkly and I don't want to use a stick with a grabber claw to put on my underwear! OH PLEASE SAY THAT'S NOT GOING TO BE ME

2. I totally suck at leaving things that say "Enter at your own risk" alone.
Oh, yea - To the asshat that put the real pictures of a total hip replacement on the virtual tour website: WTF! FO! OMG! ETC! When you do things like that, you make people like me click the button that clearly takes that person on an adventure they don't need to be on. That looks like something out of Monster Garage and I was perfectly happy pretending that I would be handled with loving care. I know, silly fantasy, but now it's gone. THANKS A LOT

Anyone else wanting the virtual experience? www. edheads.org

A new hip for dani

Finally.

I was born with bad hips. Really bad hips. I'm also a person who does a poor job of sitting still.

Bad hips + move much = bad pain.

I spent 18 months of my life in a body cast from my armpits to my ankles, followed by years in a squeaky brace that held my knees outward to try and mold sockets for my legs to rest in. Imagine a toddling cowgirl who had the horse kicked out from between her legs and a metal bar inserted in its place...that's what I looked like.

It was cool though. My dad built me a pull cart that I could ride in and I had a huge bright red and orange stuffed turtle to rest my legs and brace.

The brace, my parents tell me, was squeaky - hampering my ability to sneak up on people. My mom tells a story of an incident in which I wanted to find my Dad....

The approach: squeak, squeak, squeak

My verbiage: "Where's Richard? I can't find the ol' coot!"

The exit: squeak, squeak, squeak - fade to black.

I think it was my being immobile for so long that led to my hatred for being still. As soon as I lost the brace, I began a life of playing soccer, volleyball, tennis, swimming, hiking, biking and found my true love for martial arts.

About 14 years ago the hips started telling me they didn't want to do it anymore. At first I scaled back my activities. With the pain still persistent, I got pissed off and gave in, thinking that 'rest' and beer would help ease that pain. It just made me fat. After 5 years of 'resting' and clocking in at about 170, my doc told me the pain couldn't go away until I lost the weight.

So I lost it. And threw myself back into the dojo to gain the mental and physical strength I needed to power through my life that consisted of a nagging limp and throbbing pain.

But for the past 4 years I have known the clock was ticking more quickly. My recovery time, even from little workouts, is taking longer. Anti-inflammatory pills have been a necessary beginning and ending to many daily activities. And sometimes, I sit down and cry because I can't climb the stairs at home without someone to help me.

I've also been stalling. Stalling because I know that it is time.

So when the doctor marched in and told me my hip is shot and I need a new one, I smiled. If I don't think about the way my body will sliced open on the operating table, or the fact that I could die...I get pretty damn excited.

Soon I'll have the opportunity to set off airport metal detectors and I'll pee out metal ions as they leech out of of my joint. I also think the Bionic Woman is hot, so I'll get to improve my own self image by living vicariously through a fictional character...

Today is a good day.

Eat your greens!

HI! I'm Buster!

I love salad.

Yes salad.

Lettuce, tomatoes, spinach, carrots, celery, bell peppers, baby corn, peas, apples, pears, olives, beets, beans, asparagus, and a jalapano once by accident.

Sometimes, I get salad stuck in my teeth. That's when I look to my mom for help....Today, I'm wishing she would stop laughing and remove the baby romaine from my upper k9 so I could go back to having snacks. (Sigh) Humans.

blog, delete - or - why I toy with the publish button

More blog entries have been created for this page than will ever post. I think part of this comes from my lack of ability to commit to the publish button. The other component lies in my ability to hide in my journal rather than risk commentary from placing my thoughts online.

Not that my blog is dishonest - 'the long and short of it' will be an account of real feelings. I can commit to publishing things that are funny, even if I am the subject. I can also commit to publishing things that may be shocking. What I haven't made the commitment to is publishing the deep emotions and events that help shape who I have become to be.

Because I've been reserving that for paper. I can scribble through the words that I did not mean to write, but their evidence still remains and the thought somewhat intact. I can spell badly and not feel silly for writing loose instead of lose. Grammar - I don't need it in my journal...As long as the context is close and I can remember what I meant, it doesn't matter if it looks pretty.

But when I sit down to do this - to write my thoughts in a place where others might see, I can decide my ramblings are either too off the wall or they are not exciting enough to hit publish. When I hit control+a+delete, I still feel the cleansing that comes with my writing.

I mean, technically I wrote it down. I made note of whatever it was that made me come to my office and type. But when I delete, there are no scribbles. No bad spelling. And finally, no real account of what it was I felt like rambling about.

So can I learn from blog, delete? Probably not. After all, I'm writing about thoughts and events because I feel I need to. If I delete them, no lessons can be learned from the experience...Even if it is something as goofy as the time I hit myself in the face with a flaming marshmallow. Maybe if I had wrote that down, I wouldn't have done it a second time.

icanhascheezburger never gets old

moar funny pictures

When sales and science collide....

I don't know much about what this picture is, other than it involves a motherboard and is taking place in my kitchen right now.



I came upstairs after dinner for a bit and when I went back down, this is what I found.



I giggle, snap a couple of pictures and come back up to the office because once again, I'm struck by the differences in this relationship that ultimately allow things to work as well as they do.


I sell stuff. Pretty simple. I'm a strategic thinker who likes to solve problems. I also like to take on a lot of projects - keeps me out of trouble. Oh, and I'm powered largely by caffiene and can be a bit on the 'extremely alert' side.


Jason is a scientist. An analytical thinker who is always looking for a new factoid to learn. Chemistry, particle physics, building computer components - these are the things he's reading about or playing with in his free time. And he's sooooooooo grounded and calm.


I ask a lot of questions.


He has a lot of answers - and the methodology behind why things are the way they are....and the history of how they came to be. This way, I get to learn something new.




I lose things.


He gently leans over and pulls the sunglasses I've been searching for off the top of my head. After that, I can finally leave the house.



I burn myself, a lot.



He laughs his ass off...So I can stop swearing, and start to laughing too.




It works well for us. I think I help him too somedays - maybe I'm the comic relief he was always searching for. And I'm cute, so that helps.




So whether he is building motherboards in my kitchen, or dissentigrating concrete with chemical compounds in the driveway, I'll always admire the mad scientist I found on a barstool in Colorado and decided I just couldn't live without.

Brownies and the downward-facing dog

When I was growing up my parents always told me to wait 30 minutes after eating to go swim. It turns out the same adage goes for yoga...

I'm a person constantly motivated by food. For as long as I can remember I've felt the need to satisfy a nagging sweet craving that never seems to take a vacation.

So as I was going through the mail tonight, my one bite led to two - and then to two-thirds of my chewy chocolate chunk brownie...Then I took a quick phone call from my sister, changed into my super baggy pants and zoomed to the gym.

Into the second series of sun salutations, I was violently reminded why you don't eat and then play hard immediately afterwards. The brownie did really mean things in my tummy while I was upside down, leading me to realize that Newton's laws of gravity apply to all things...even acid reflux.