Brrr!

It's 2 degrees outside right now. It reached all of about 11 today. I am certainly unimpressed.

There will be a pretty substantial update at some point tomorrow. Right now, I'm sleepy from the chicken and rice soup we made from our leftover chicken. It's very happy: brown sugar rotesserie chicken, baby carrots, pearl onions, rice, and tarragon. Very yummy. I'm also sore and aggravated from school. Like I said, heap big update tomorrow.

I remember when LJ was down for days, way back in '05...

( I promise I'll update later. Really. )

Promised Update

So really, there are three parts to this update: the school part, the knee part, and the fish part.

Part I - In Which I Discover Higher Education is Full of Idiots

I think most people who read here know, I have been having some problems with Bridgewater. Right around Thanksgiving, I received a letter telling me that I needed to get several vaccines before I can register for classes. Most people who read here also know that I am allergic to latex, as well as a bunch of other things. This means no vaccines unless my life depends on it because of how they're manufactured, how they're stored, etc. I get a note from my doctor, which of course takes forever, but I get it it around the second week of December, when classes end/finals are.

Bridgewater dicks around and the hold doesn't get taken off until about the 6th. So yay, I go to register and find out that now, I must consult with my advisor before I can register. Great. The problem is, I have no idea who my advisor is. I make many more calls and eventually find out. I email her and wait more. After not getting a response from her by last Thursday, I call, bitch, and email the department chair, who gets the woman to respond to me. She wants me to come in randomly, I explain there's no way I can do this, since I'm on crutches and I had no car at that point. I suggest the next day, but she is allegedly going away for a few days. I reiterate that I need to get registered, I have a list of everything I need for the rest of my time at Bridgewater, etc. She insists we meet and suggests Monday, the holiday. I tell her fine, but I cannot get to her office (3rd floor, no elevator). She says she'll call and everything will be ok.

Cool. I email her the classes I want for this semester and wait for a call. The call never happens, so I figure she must have emailed me. She didn't do that either. I check the site to try and register and I still am blocked. That means when classes start Tuesday, I will not be able to attend because there's no where for me to go, nor can I just run around campus, randomly, trying to track people down.

Yesterday, I called the dean and bitched. They told me they weren't going to get involved, since it was only the first day of classes and I should call my department and leave a message. I do this. They never call back. I've called again today; no calls back. I have the feeling I'm going to miss the rest of this week. The only good thing is that I can call the dean Monday and then get them involved.

Part II - In Which My Knee Falls Apart

Yesterday afternoon, I went to the orthopaedist again for my knee. They had already bumped me up a couple weeks, so I had the feeling that things would be not so good. Anyhow, I spent the beginning of the visit telling him about the physical therapy, which I was very unimpressed about.

Within the first five minutes of being back there, the therapist had started talking about how nice I smelled, what kind of perfume did I wear, etc. I don't know if he meant to seem like he was hitting on me, but that's the impression I got. I'm there to get better, not to find a date. Worse yet was that I'd sit there and fiddle with my ring, hoping he'd get the hint. When he was talking about goals for therapy, I said I'd like to have full use of my knee back and be generally painfree. He countered with shouldn't I add personal care, like shaving my legs, as one of my top goals. Um, no?

The guy started pulling and twisting my knee, stretching it, and generally making it hurt, even though I told him I was not comfortable. After, when he decided to ice it, he put a bolster under my ankle and a 5lb ice pack on my knee to "force it straight". I was supposed to be there for ultrasonic therapy to reduce swelling.

You may wonder, then, why he was doing all this on the first day. Well, that's because he decided that the doctor's diagnosis wasn't good enough. He felt that my problem was not so much plica syndrome as subluxation of the kneecap and that he was going to treat it accordingly. Hence why I had all the massive pain and swelling, post-therapy. He was treating it the wrong way.

The doctor was pissed, to say the least. My knee is now in worse shape than it was before the therapy. More of the plica has slid out from under my knee and there's a lot more fluid/swelling of the joint. He made a last suggestion if I wanted a cortisone shot (no) and started talking about surgery to fix things. I will most likely be going in around the first week of March. It'll be done as outpatient surgery and I'll be home by the end of the day. I will be first on the list, as well, because of my latex allergy.

This is what I know so far. I will know more in the coming weeks. For now, here is some information on Plica Syndrome and arthroscopic surgery.

Part III - In Which the Day Just Gets Worse

We found Godzilla, our baby mollie, dead last night. We've had him since he was born in the tank, 5 months ago. It sort of ruined the rest of the night for both of us after we had to skim him out and flush him. All and all, it's been a crappy couple of days.