Another six weeks

My knee is still broken. The follow up MRI I had last Tuesday showed my knee fracture is not healed. I got the results Tuesday night in UWHealth MyChart – since the MRI was a referral from Group Heath, GHC, to UWHealth, then I got the results again from GHC Wednesday morning. I waited until about noon to see if the my GHC sports med Dr. would message me about what I can and cannot do and when nothing came I sent what I hoped was a very polite message with my questions and it must’ve done the trick because they called me shortly after.

The medical speak in the MRI results described the fracture as “persistent” and “evolving” so I couldn’t tell if it’s getting worse, better, or staying the same and the doc didn’t flat out say, either. They were somewhat encouraging – I’m back on crutches for 6 weeks, basically until Memorial Day, but I don’t have to use them in the house. So I’m ok for childcare and cooking and walking around inside. But a bunch of other activities that involve more walking and lifting like stocking the shelves at the food pantry and volunteering at the WI Film Fest are out. I mostly need to use the crutches for longer walks outside. I CAN start riding my bike in a few weeks – I think first full weekend in May, 6th or 7th or so. But it’s a little weird since I still have to use the crutches outside, I can’t, for instance, really ride my bike to the farmers market and then walk around the market. I’d have to carry my crutches on my bike and even though I have seen people do that I’m not up for it. I think it’d be ok to bike to work, take elevator up, and then the only crutchless walking would be down the hall to the bathroom. And I can just go for bike rides for fun rather than errands that involve walking after I get off the bike. The main advice the doc had was I need to pay attention to the pain more and stop when it hurts. I guess I can do that. And I can show up at the Film Fest with my crutches for the three movies I used my volunteer passes for and get let into the theater early and save a seat for Mark. I mean even though I’m not working my 12 hours to earn the passes I attended close to 6 hours of training so sweat equity there.

But I’m kinda sick of my knee. It’s been a funny week – way too hot for April then a quick change – still hot all day Saturday but rain overnight, and then more rain and getting colder and mixed with snow Sunday. Making me grumpy. Plus I think I must’ve been having some post menopause weird hormonal surges, because my gums were bleeding and I’m pissed off at everyone.

Speaking of Saturday, our first film fest movie was Saturday – Showing Up. I wasn’t sure how we were going to get there – it was at Union South which is too close to drive by my lights and limited parking, but too far for me to crutch. The interactive parking page on the UW website said no spots at Union South but hundreds at the engineering ramp so Mark dropped me off, and I queued up to get in ahead of everyone else with my crutches. Because I always walk or bike, I don’t know how to drive anywhere, so I thought it’d be a lot more complicated to get dropped off. I’ve spent years laughing at the able-bodied people who try to drive to campus and then can’t park. I guess the universe is trying to tell me I’ve been being mean. Ableist.

And speaking of cooking – less than usual this week. There was last Friday when we had 12 for Passover. I made the matzoh-meal-dredged skinless boneless chicken piece I’ve made for years (but haven’t for awhile. Told you about the desserts last post, rhubarb strawberry matzoh meal crumble, flourless chocolate cake that did not come out quite right and the ever popular matzoh butter crunch or mazel toffee, like the Waisman’s call it. I made a spinach kugel using approximately the recipe from the old Enchanted Broccoli Forest, before Mollie Katzen lightened it and took out the cream cheese. I only made a single batch of charoset and it got devoured; I’m sure if I did a double there would’ve been gobs leftover. Waisman’s brought the soup and salmon gefilte fish. Andy & Deena brought a bunch of berries that we used to cover up the burned spots on the cake. And Jane brought non-kosher-for-Passover gougère that were very delicious.

But the rest of the week has been leftovers and eating out.

Monday I went in and worked at the book sale, then attended one online meeting and came home. To find my sunroom ripped up – the contractor and the electrician were trying to find all the outlets that are connected to the old knob & tube. I had been storing about 20 years of old papers in wicker baskets and stacks on a Crate & Barrel shelf that is anchored to the wall with one big screw on a middle shelf. There is one outlet behind it that they could’ve found by removing one of the wicker baskets, or following the cord of my floor lamp, but they must’ve been trying to move the shelf out from the wall and thought they needed to make to lighter, so moved all the papers and ended up ripping it off the wall anyways. I kind of left everything sitting and cleaned up Saturday. It is one of my retirement projects to organize stuff but I was not going to start with the sunroom. And not till late June.

Cleaning up all the papers while it was still hot Saturday was kind of a miserable job, dusty and hot. I found this funny old birthday card that John gave me probably in the early aughts, and inside he says he’ll try to be nicer to me. The picture on the outside reminded me of this sculpture that’s at Art Expo right now that Megan says was John’s favorite piece.

I didn’t take care of Jasper Tuesday because his cousins who he’d been with on Monday had stomach flu and we didn’t want it to spread. So, Al and Jasper stopped by Saturday afternoon to hang out, a nice treat after the papers sorting. He likes sitting propped up on the couch nowadays.

Thursday we saw Asleep at the Wheel in Stoughton and had dinner there beforehand, at a place called Wendigo. We’d grabbed pre-show dinner there before and it seemed to be fine, but this time things were a bit slow – we got our vegetable tempura-ish appetizer right away but then waited and waited for entrees, and either Mark was worried about getting there or else he was thinking I would take a long time on the crutches. He got a bit testy with the waitress. But we got there on time and it was a fun show. One original band member, Ray Benson, who wore a Nudie suit, plus two pedal steel players – and three pedal steel guitars in stage – and two fiddles. And some younger country stars on tour with them – one of the fiddle players was a guy named Josh Hedley who reminded me of Al – lots of tattoos. And Brennen Leigh.

Friday we went to Chicago for what was supposed to be a Finnish-slanted program, Hillary Hahn playing Rautavaara, conducted by Mikko Franck, with Sibelius in the first half. But taking a page from my book, Franck had to withdraw because of a knee injury, and another conductor, Thomas Ades, took over. And just because we’ve been watching Daisy Jones, Hillary wore a very Stevie Nicks caped dress.

And Saturday before it want back to winter, John and Megan got out their bikes to do a brewery tour.

And even I crutch-ed around the first out door Farmers Market, Jasper’s first.

Sunday morning I tried a different blueberry muffin, America’s Test Kitchen, where the recommended technique was to cook down half the blueberries into a sort of quick jam and swirl that into the top of the muffins. They’re good but I didn’t get swirls, more like blobs. I’ve been having trouble swirling stuff – the meringue topping of the Passover cake was supposed to swirl and that didn’t work either.