diary of a mad pasty gimp-woman

ooooof. this recovery business is a tedious thing, let me tell you.

i've been lying on my ass so long that my bed has a massive mr nice guy-shaped dent in it. [i am lying on it now and i just watched an across-the-street neighbor emerge from a house and piss on the graffiti-scrawled fence next to the building. in broad daylight. no bathroom inside?] the days are a blur. i am lucky if i get downstairs more than once and sitting at the dinner table is only tolerable in 30 minute chunks. still, i have made some major post-surgery milestones. here they are:

last wednesday: watched "batman begins," courtesy of netflix. took me about 8 hours because the percocet kept making me alternately fall asleep and hallucinate that i was being persecuted by liam neeson's mustache. at some point in my feverdream, my 20-pound one-eyed cat leaps up onto the bed and lands heavily on my knee. for the next hour i can only see the color pain.

last thursday: made it downstairs for dinner. daughter christens me with new name: Daddy Boo-Boo Knee. i die a little inside when i can't hoist her into the air and fling her around.

last friday: changed the bandages on my knee, which looks like a woman's basketball painted with a bitchin' sunburst design. my left quad is already visibly losing muscle mass. the sight of my pallid, broken body triggers mrs nice guy's gag reflex.

last saturday: consternated and constipated: begin learning the hard way about one of percocet's shitty (or should i say "un-shitty") side-effects. later my wife gives me a shower with my leg encased in saran wrap and a tall kitchen trashbag. least-erotic constipated soapy rubdown of all time.

last sunday: put pants on all by myself! also not very erotic ... later that day: the cat leaps onto my knee again. i invent new obscenities in 12 languages and swear upon all that is holy that i will have vengeance. ever been irrationally furious with a hapless housepet? not a proud moment.

monday: well, now! it seems i have finally grown my first-ever full beard, mustache and all! (stache-spiration: liam neeson in batman begins.) i shave the facial overgrowth into shape a little bit until i look remarkably like a red-headed barry gibb. look out, ladies! ("you can tell by the way i use my walk i'm a ... pathetic gimp?")

tuesday: the doctor told me i'd be out of work for at least a week and he was right. by tuesday my brain (such as it is) felt about 100 percent even if my leg was still a dead-weight rotting slab of roadkill. so i started working from home -- and actually had a more-productive couple of days in bed than i have been known to have in the office (where i have delicious access to cable tv).

yesterday: after eight days confined to my little cave, i decided it was time to venture outdoors for the first time since my surgery. it took me about 15 minutes to get into jeans, a sweater and one shoe (i had to ask my mother-in-law to apply the other shoe ... which was actually slightly more erotic than the shower). my goal was to make it to the coffee shop four short blocks away. despite being thoroughly exhausted just from getting dressed, i ventured forth on crutches. once outside i felt like a lumbering lummox, the littlest beegee. everyone was probably laughing at how ridiculous i looked in my full-leg brace and crutches and gibb-beard. i felt ... tired. i made it two blocks. i could see the coffee shop two more blocks away and--even though it looked like it was 600 miles on the horizon--i knew i could make it there. but then it dawned on me: how the hell was i going to make it back? i was out of breath, my arms ached, my knee was throbbing and i wanted to take a nap. defeated, i did an about face and headed home. i barely made it. i heaved myself upstairs, almost taking a tumble, took off my brace and flopped onto the bed. as i lay there hyperventilating, i see the cat out of the corner of my eye about to jump onto the bed ... with astonishing speed i fling my right leg into the air, deflecting her from landing square onto my broken left knee. she goes flying across the room, lands on her feet and slinks away, dejected. i feel glorious.

today: heading in to the city to get my sutures removed and hopefully hear that there are no massive irregularities going on with my leg. my saintly long-suffering wife has been threatening to change the grimy, crumb-filled, coffee-stained sheets of my sick bed. then, since i haven't had any percocet since last night, i am going to drink a beer and, with a little luck, poop.