Just a, “howdy,” to tell you all I’m plugging along. I had to call out of work because my knee decided it wanted an unauthorized day off.

Some of you may be unaware that I have osteoarthritis in my right knee. Basically, I have no cartilage left in my knee, it’s bone on bone between the thigh and the calf. It was in the left knee which was why I got it replaced in December 2019. Dr. Ron Hudanich did an amazing job and it’s the happiest, most problem-free part of my body. The OA was in both knees back in 2019, but it was worse in the left one. It’s become worse in the right one and my goal is by February to have it replaced. It would be cool to give myself a new knee on my birthday on February 19, 2024. I might have to wait till late February, though.

Yeah, today (well, it was Thursday morning, Now, it is technically Friday morning), I sat on my bed after my alarms went off and every time I tried to stand, I heard and felt a pop in my knee. Nope, wasn’t going to work. So, I called and got our assistant store manager and I explained the knee needed rest.

Knees going bad are an odd thing. They can work almost fine, with tolerable amounts of discomfort and then suddenly turn on you and scream that they ain’t happy to be up and trying to make you mobile. Then after rest and ice, they can return to giving just tolerable amounts of discomfort. As time goes on, the closer to the knee completely quitting, these unauthorized breaks become more frequent.

The left one got so bad, I felt like I was dragging a log for the last month until the start of my leave of absence from Walmart for my replacement surgery.

I really couldn’t afford to miss Thursday’s short shift of five hours, but I wasn’t going to be very functional. I slept most of the day and that did some good. I’m off until Sunday. Originally, I was going to try and pick up a shift on Friday or Saturday, because my schedule sucks; it’s quite lacking in shifts. However, I really don’t want to break my body. Universe, ya gotta help me out.

It’s 2:23 am Friday 12/8 and I haven’t had my shower. I’m going to be heading that way soon.

Other than the knee issue, I think I’m getting another sinus infection. I’ve been free of those for about 5-6 weeks, giving me a little over five months of sinus infection freedom for the whole year. Lucky me.

Switching to strictly distilled water (I was often using purified water) seems to have helped, but I really need that new CPAP machine. My doctor agrees that the guts of the machine might be contaminated with unsavory bacteria. I’ve been playing phone tag with the CPAP provider, Apria. I need to make sure I call them early today.

Mentally, I’m building a blog post on my plans to deal with my latest life crossroads. Friends I’ve talked to about it have said it sounds like I have some good ideas there. Most of it hinges on getting steady work from home gigs. I don’t care if it’s one company I work steadily at, or multiple side gigs stacked next to each other. I’ll take whatever works, meaning it’s good money and I’m enjoying it. I kind of like the multiple side gigs idea better. I love variety.

Headed to the shower.

This leads to the image-insertion portion of this blog post construction. I wonder if JetPack will insert what I request, or will it be a problem child? Here goes.