"Christine Burel" wrote in message

Hi Yowie,
How's your knee? Purrs it's improving by now. I can only guess at
how colorful it must be. Hope you're getting around okay and your
family's taking care of you ;o)

The knee now looks like a sick purple & yellow grapefruit rather than a
black, blue & purple soccerball. There's a little movement in it, better in
the mornings than at night when the swelling is less (as I can't keep it
'up' all day), and I can bear my whole weight on it without a problem. I
just can't *bend* it so I can walk properly nor can I abide by anything
touching it so I cant sleep on my side as I'd prefer to.

Ironically, the back, right knee and right hip are far more painful. Because
I have to walk with my damaged knee straight, and can't bend the knees to
bend over, my back is taking alot of strain, and the right knee & hip have
started to complain because they have to do all the work themselves rather
than sharing the load with the left side. The back always been a bit dodgy,
and at the start of these holidays I did something nasty to it whilst I was
picking up the 25kg Yowlet. With many trips to the Steve-the-physio (he's
fantastic, not only a good physio but a good headologist as well) I thought
we'd just about got it fixed - maybe one or two more sessions (who knew
being put on the rack and being stretched was an incredibly *pleasurable*
thing?). But the back is now out of whack again and I can't go for
treatments because it involves bending my knees.

The truly ironic thing is that the doc gave me a little pill to 'ease the
swelling'. I don't think its done any good for the knee whatsoever, but when
I take one, the back improves dramatically.

The hardest part of daily life is going to the toilet. I am thankful that
iI'm tall because I can just about grab at the door fram and haul myself up
from there. Any shorter and I'd have to yellf or Joel to pull me off the loo
each time I went.

We went to see 'Aliens versus Monsters' last night and having ditched the
crutches (they just seemed to get inthe way) I deeply regretted it whilst
trying to navgate the steps they had *without a handrail*. I also was dying
for the loo as soon as we got out (why o why do I drink those jumbo sodas
whilst at the cinema?) but had to wait till we got home because that cinema
doesn't have a disabled toiled and Joel couldn't come rescue me from the
ladies.

I've also come to the conclusion that a) the disabled get a raw deal in our
town and b) that even though the facilites for disabled people are woefully
lacking, I still think there should be such a thing as a *temporary*
disability pass - I can't walk very far and really want a parking spot close
to the place I need to be (i'm just grateful I can drive at all - if it was
the other knee we'd be stuck as Joel doesn't have licence), I find it
incredibly difficult to navigate steps and need the extra bars in the loo to
get up, but all these 'disabled' facilites are unavailable to me because I
don't have the official 'disabled' sticker, pass and key (the disabled
public toilets are kept locked because people were using the extra space in
them for rather more nefarous purposes, and there's a special universal key
giving to the disabled that are formally recognised as such). I wouldn't
need to be considered 'disabled' forever and I acknowledge that in my
current state I am still more 'abled' than some offically recognised as
disabled folks, but at the moment, my 'ableness' is about the equivalent as
anyone else with an immovable knee, whether that be a permanant condition or
not. I thought pretty much the same thing when I was in my ninth month of
pregnancy, but it can take up to *two years* of beauracracy to get that
stupid sticker and key, and apprantly the disability needs to be permanant
to qualify. What a strange world.

Yowie
--
If you're paddling upstream in a canoe and a wheel falls off, how many
pancakes can you fit in a doghouse? None, icecream doesn't have bones.