And weekend knitting

 I dug out the "Ruggles Reversible Scarf" (this is an old, old pattern, from the old Woolworks site, in the late 1990s). The yarn is an odd Mandala Tweed blend called White Elephant (maybe: colors no one but me likes?)

It's a knit/purl pattern that makes almost like little pennant shapes

And yeah, all these photos are taken on my lap rather than staged better, I'm still not fully mobile. I made the possibly ill-advised choice to try to dig up the soil for the soil invertebrates lab on Wednesday. (There's really no one I could ask, the soil comes from my backyard so I can't ask a student to go out and do it, and my friend Dana is currently under the weather). I will say while I was tired afterward, it didn't HURT to do it. I hope I don't regret that later.

My doctor did message me back - I had sent her a message basically saying "time for Physical Therapy referral :) ?" but she STILL wants me to see an orthopedist and have an MRI and I am trying but mostly failing not to freak out that this will mean knee surgery. 

I mean - knee replacement is basically what stole my dad's mobility the last 10 or so years of his life (it went badly) and while this wouldn't be that, it still scares me. And surgery in general scares me. And who would take care of me? I have no one and if I cant' even get up the steps into my house how will I even go home? How will I get food? We don't have Door Dash here. I'd have to ask to go to a rehab center and I DON'T have the money for that!

I've tried to be very careful. I thought I was doing better today after deciding to stop totally "babying" the leg, on the grounds that doing that seemed to be making it stiff and weaker - like sleeping with it up on pillows at night. But by the end of the day, my leg was tired and the muscles kind of burned.

I have some pain in the front and side  of the kneecap but not instability, and I don't really feel much swelling. So I don't know. I keep thinking "I should go buy an NSAID and try what it does" but then I think about how they made my stomach feel the last time I used them.....

I've been alternating ice (when I first get home and the leg is tired and hurting) and mild heat (when I get chilled from the ice. But I don't know. I made the mistake of reading how they "fix" a damaged ligament surgically and it's gruesome and I can't imagine that the recovery is pleasant - I don't know WHEN I could get it done - I don't have a TA to cover the labs and while I could teach lectures online over Zoom, I am BAD at that. 

I feel very much that since 2020 it's like the universe has just conspired to make me teach worse and worse and not get research done, and it would be a fine mess if I lost my job less than a decade from retirement, because I got so bad at it. But maybe that's my fate? 

Yeah, I know I'm worrying excessively but also I have no one here to distract or reassure me an my mind goes to upsetting places. 

I don't know. I really hope the doctor goes "oh this is tendinitis, go do some stretching and keep putting ice on it" but I fear he'll find a snapped ligament and I just can't with that. 

I'm trying really hard NOT to think about it, but of course it's now the elephant in the room. 

 

I did get my valentine's day present to myself today; I ordered this knowing no one will send me a valentine at all. I had seen a plush maned wolf and wanted one (they are leggy creatures) and the best one I saw available was the "symbolic adoption" through World Wildlife Fund. So they're an expensive critter but oh well. (Ordered before I thought I might be facing an MRI and maybe surgery; I wouldn't have otherwise). 

No name or gender given as yet. These are South American creatures so I'm thinking a name that reflects that.