Not Having a Good Week

When people ask me how my knees are doing, I usually start off by shrugging and saying, "There are good days and there are bad days." I forget to write it down when I'm having good days, but I actually had about two and a half consecutive weeks of good days, days when I could get around fine, do all my chores around the apartment, even occasionally walk to the store and back, with only a low-grade ache in the knees and very infrequent sharp twinges.

All of which ended last Friday. What with the funeral, then taking the bus down to the polymunch to save money so I can funnel more to the family that lost everything, then deciding to take the bus through the snow to see a movie Sunday, I was on my feet way, way too much. So since Monday morning, the pain has been agonizing. I've been taking OTC anti-inflammatories and trying to stay off of my feet as much as possible to give my knees time to heal. It's not working. The pain has escalated past the point where I can just tough it out, to the point of inducing nausea ... two days before Conflation. Two days to do all the stuff I was in too much pain to do since Friday: three loads of laundry (down two stories to the laundry room and back), iron my good kilt, hike to the barbershop and back (I look like hell), a trip to the costume shop tonight to pick up some costume pieces for a Friday night theatrical bit that I have to provide my own costume for, oh, and ideally a grocery run. Plus somehow pull together my attention, through the nausea, to put in a couple of hours' of internet research for a friend who literally saved my life once, who needs it by Friday.

This is not a good week. By Conflation, my so-called "relaxa-con," I'll be exhausted, crippled, and wracked with guilt for whatever doesn't get done between now and then. It's taking me an ongoing act of will not to blow the whole thing off.