Panic Attack!

 

Yeah, that was me about a week ago.  Hyperventilating and raging at myself and the rest of the world.

What happened?  Follow me please.

Longtime readers here know that I have had two bad knees for a while now.   A certain candidate for knee replacement on both limbs.  I had made the decision that 2023 would be the year I addressed one of them...in this case, the left.  I did my due diligence and I found a great doctor.  He uses robotics, doesn't use general anesthesia, and promised I would be home the same day.   

Thumbs up.

There are only two friends in the entire world that I would trust to stay with me and see a compromised Len over the first few days of recovery.  I nailed that down.  And, as a season ticket holder,  I scheduled the surgery to coincide with the Dodgers' longest road trip of the year.  

All good and I was booked for May 19.

And I made all of the above plans in January.

So, two weeks ago, a good friend had her left hip replaced.  As she was convalescing at home, I was invited over one afternoon for a movie.  Her surgery had gone smoothly.  She was her two feet and opened the apartment to me.

I looked around the living room.  A cane in the corner.  A walker in the other corner.  Pillows strewn all over the couch.   Compression socks on the floor.  On the coffee table, I spied six pill bottles.

Yikes, Part 1.  Is this my future?

The next day, I got an e-mail from the surgery group with a long attachment to read.

Prior to surgery, don't do this.  Do that.  Do this.  Don't do that.  Expect pain here.  Expect pain there.

Oh, and get these prescriptions filled.  And don't take this supplement and that supplement seven days prior.

With each successive page, I had a little more trouble breathing.  By Document Page 10, I was in full fledged panic mode.   Oh, here's the phone number of the surgical group.  Time to cancel.

Truly, for about ten seconds, I was ready to do so.

That's the thing about elective surgery.   You are in perfectly fine health.  You walk into the hospital in good condition.  Several hours later, you are completely fucked up.  You have traveled in just the opposite direction.   And you did it all yourself.

Realistically, I have no choice but to continue.  Ultimately, under the present conditions, I will be less and less mobile.  Forget the stairs at Dodger Stadium and the Hollywood Bowl.   I will be hard pressed to walk to the kitchen from the living room.

So, I didn't cancel.   But I almost did.

Hopefully, one of those prescribed medications is an anti-anxiety drug.

Dinner last night:  Sandwich.