BUTTERNUT KNEE SOUP

Today is the first day of Fall and Kansas City has done what it does for every season. It flips some ginormous switch to the name of the season and the weather behaves accordingly. The switch has been flipped to Fall, so now it is a cool crisp temperature outside. Whoever is in charge of this switch has yet to figure out how to coordinate the temperatures with the colors yet, because the trees are still green (mostly). Mums and pumpkins have been available at all markets now for weeks and at least two houses on my street have their Halloween decorations up and ready. This is lovely and a nice change of scenery and all, but I am never ready for the cooler temperatures. Nor am I ready for the end of this month, but here we are rolling right on into butternut squash season.

Most people are all gagga for pumpkin spice. I have no feelings. I just know that I get more butternut squash recipe ideas this time of year and Michael is not a fan.

Next week, I go back to the doctor to discuss my options in regards to my knee. I had the MRI on Monday and as soon as I got to work, I loaded those images into our image processing software and made 3D views of them. We’ve all defied some HEPA laws geeking out over the inside of my knee at work because this is what scientists with random MRI data do. Except we are all cell biologists or physicists and don’t really know anything other than basic human anatomy. I’ve scrolled through my knee pictures with the group looking over my shoulder, all of us saying things like “ooooh” and “wooooaaa” without being able to point to any real problem. The nurse on the phone with me this morning told me that I have a torn ACL, so of course the first thing we did was revisit those pictures to look for anything ‘torn’.

When I got the news about my knee, I had a serious moment of pulling myself together. All I wanted to do was lay my head on my desk and cry. I didn’t want to talk about it. When I did talk about it, everyone was surprised because I’m moving around so well. It’s true. I’m not in any real pain unless I try to pull my heel to my rear end, which I think is normal for a lot of people. Josephine and I are walking every morning and I’m walking at work. I’m teaching yoga and with the exception of some minor adjustments, it’s going well. The nurse encouraged me to continue doing those things. No sudden twists from the knee or side to side basketball moves. No jumping. Probably no roller skating. I didn’t ask that one on purpose for fear of a ‘no roller skating’ order. It’s my options that range from physical therapy to surgery that have me near tears.

Maybe I can put surgery off until Christmas break?

Seriously, all I can think about is how to live my daily life while recovering from knee surgery. I am calculating in my head that if I take a week at Christmas, I would be more mobile by the New Year and I could teach yoga on crutches. That’s also a whole week where I won’t need to be driven to work or have to do the grocery shopping. I can throw our dirty clothes into the basement and then sit on my butt and scoot down the basement stairs to the laundry. It is possible that I could also reverse this scooting action while dragging a laundry basket of clothes up the stairs with me. Rosie the robot does all of the vacuuming now, so there’s that. Really if I think about it and plan correctly, I can teach just about all yoga poses from a chair. The weather will be too cold for dog walks or scooter rides by then. Hell, maybe we will even have a new couch for me to lounge on.

I am very very very aware that things could be so much worse for me right now.