Willo O'Brien

I don’t have to have surgery! WOOHOO!!!

I went & saw the “real” knee doctor this afternoon, and he said he didn’t think I tore my Meniscus at all, but that instead it was just a “MCL strain”

{update: The medial collateral ligament (MCL) connects the thighbone to the shinbone on the inner side of your knee}

And that even if the MCL were “torn”, apparently they don’t do surgery for that anyway. (something like that, I think it’s only if you hurt your ACL along w/ it do they go in for surgery.) So the good news is no surgery… but the bad news is I have to wear a stupid brace for 4-6 weeks.

I know, I know – no big deal, it’ll be a blip of time and it’ll be over – it could be worse, yadda yadda yadda. And one would think positive Willo would be handling this all in stride… thinking glass is 1/2 full, finding ways to make my brace the crafty, coolest one on the block.

But actually, I’m just a big, huge cry baby.

By the end of the appointment, after the doctor had me wait in one of those assless napkins for what felt like 45 minutes, and then finally came in & moved my knee/leg around for maybe 5 minutes – and then the foreign nurse (with the big fat diamond ring) came in to fit me for a big old knee brace…. next thing I know my tear ducts turned on and I couldn’t get em to stop. I know it’s no big deal and that I’m really lucky and all… maybe it was emotional release that I *don’t* have to get surgery – and that this whole ordeal *won’t* cost me a gazillion dollars after all. But it was a sad cry. I’m such a baby!!!

Some more good news is that I thought to ask how much their brace was going to cost me. $200! So, considering I’ll have my fair share of hundreds of dollars here & there w/ physical therapy & what not, I opted out & told em I’d buy my own, elsewhere. Good move on my part cuz I found one at a medical supply store around the corner for $19!! Who knows if it’s the best one – but it’s pretty damn close to the one they fit me for… and even less humongous and akward. Hopefully my Physical Therapist/Chiro will be able to tell me if it’s good enough – and then I have another appt w/ this real doc in early Feb.

So ya…. All this talk of doctors, and buying braces and the parking and limping to and fro – and of course my big fat crocodile “poor me” tears has just worn me out today. I’m ready for a stiff drink.

So I have this Doc appt today… and I just feel like it could go either way. I mean, it’s pretty sensitive, and I’ve been trying to be very careful… but it’s funny because I feel like he’ll either say “Oh, this is nothing… what have you been complaining about you big baby? You don’t need surgery, it’s practically healed all ready!” OR he’ll say “Oh my gawd, you’ve been walking around on this!?! You’ve carried laundry & heavy boxes and walked for blocks at a time!?!? What were you thinking!? This is a major knee injury!”

Ya, it’ll be interesting to see what he says.

It was so fun to be able to see photos posted already from the party, Musical Fantasy Extravaganza, I missed lastnight. (thanks jane!)

I’m especially bummed to have not seen some of the great performances. I myself *WISH* I had a great singing voice (truly, that’s one of my 1st wishes I’d ask for if given 3) so hearing others belt it out is my #1 joy :)

Jonas took the stage twice (love that man!), the first time with You’re the One that I Want from Grease, and a second time at The Mint w/ AH-HA’s Take on Me. (I LOVE THAT SONG!!! Mostly cuz of the awesome illustrated video!)

I am also bummed I missed the sexy sultry voice of my lovergirl, Kat Hunter. She’s a jazz singer you know!! But to this day I am sad to say I haven’t heard her sing! We’ve got to make that happen woman!!! I tried to beg her a couple times in Tahoe, but I have a feeling she either needs to spontaneously serenade me – or we need to get the girl a mic & a stage, like lastnight. She said this photo was for me. HOTT!!!!! :) (Hopefully she didn’t tell anyone else that, cuz I’m spillin it here!)

And last but not least, I’m definitely bummed to have missed the Pop Princess Pinckard herself. It looks like SUCH a fun time was had by all.

I didn’t have much to say today. I could tell you how exciting it was to design my pretty new invoice in Quicken yesterday – but you’ve probably heard enough of me jabbering on about exciting accounting software. :)

Today I just stayed busy working on a web project, entering all their website content into a new content management system (that they chose to switch to). A tad more tedious than Dreamweaver, if you ask me!

Other than that, I just hobbled around cleaning up my house a little, hobbled up & down the stairs to do laundry (sucks, but I was totally out of towels) and iced my knee. Oh, and I made myself a SWEEEEEEEET sandwich for lunch today. My new toaster oven ROCKS!!

Alright. I really don’t have much else to say. I’m feelin kinda down. Not too bad cuz I am being really productive with all my work, actually. But I didn’t go to Jane P’s big birthday party tonite… which I’m bummed about cuz I’ll bet it was off the hook fun.

* Happy Birthday, Jane!! *

I’ve really just been wanting to be home and not have to socialize. Weird and very unlike me… but that’s probably ok sometimes.

Kat said maybe my life was just a little too perfect and nature wanted to slow me down for awhile. Damn, but I like having a perfect life!! ;) ha. Well, it’s not perfect, but it is pretty damn great. And yes, I know this really isn’t that bad. It could be soo much worse – and I know in a couple months, if not weeks or days, I’ll be bounced back to good ol’ me again. But jeesh, right now it sure has put me in my place cuz I’m just sad and limping around like a frickin sad limper! Bah.

On the knee front, I saw my Doc today – and tomorrow I go to see the “real” knee Doctor to find out if I need an MRI and/or surgery. (the MRI I might not need because he might just know right away I need surgery and therefore save me the money.) But shit – at this point I have to shell out $2500 buckaroos anyway :*( ….so what the hell, huh?

Ok. I’m gonna go do more annoying website content entering. Oh, the glamour.

funny email:

Hi Willo,

Th\anks for vgettingv this cdone for us. SWe \appreci\ate \all you cdo!! VGuess I/’cd better he\acd cdoswn to the tech store \ancd buy \a nesw keybo\arcd!!

Love you soooooo much!

momm\a

Ok, so I think someone slipped somethin in my Cafe International coffee this morning, because I’m actually enjoying accounting! AK!!

Here I’m all sad and depressed and crying like a big fat baby, cuz my knee hurts and my insurance sucks and blah, blah, blah… but I truck on… and I sit back down to work, determined to not let it slow me down. (Even though I’m secretly planning to not leave the house for weeks and already boycotting participating in any public activities, but don’t tell anyone… I’m being an ostrich!! You can’t see me!!)

So, today is the day I’m working on the accounting side of my business. But, in trying to implement my new found knowledge of Quickbooks, I realized I can’t use the version I have here after all. (long story, doesn’t matter) So – I went & researched a bit and bought/downloaded Quicken 2004 Premier Home & Business and have been organizing all my personal and business finances. And I’m loving it!!

Now I can track and graph/run reports on all my expenses. Wanna know how much I spent on concert tickets in the last year? $474! And that’s not counting the countless shows I’ve paid cash for. Cool, huh?

Anyway – it’s the little things. So just thought I’d let you all know I’ve actually found myself excited about something today. Who knew it’d be accounting!? ha!

p.s. If any of you use the same program, will you please email me? I have a few questions :)

Of course my stupid insurance policy is A-S-S!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ya see, I work for myself, so I just got myself some kind of basic emergency insurance for if I get hit by a truck or something, right? So it is a nice low monthly fee, not really anything about going to the doctor – it’s really ALL about major emergency coverage. And I have to admit here, insurance is like a foreign language to me, with all it’s stupid little rules and big huge books and pamphlets of words all running together to make sentences that don’t make any sense to me (!)

Anyway, get THIS.

My deductable is $2500. (what was I thinking?) AND every visit to the doctor, no matter how much it is – they only apply $25 towards my deductable!?!? WHAT KIND OF SHIT IS THAT?!?!??!?!?! It gets worse, but I can’t even go on about it.

Bottom line is I dont think I’ll be having surgery… I’ll just have to pay $40 for every single fucking visit to the physical therapist until it’s all better. :*( For the first time in months I’m not liking my life very much. SUCKS. SUCKS. SUCKS!!!!!!!!

UPDATE: The $25/visit deal is ONLY for the Physical Therapist/Chiro visits… but once I get into the big stuff, MRI’s and surgery, all I’ll have to do is flop down the fatty $2500 and that should be it, except for copays after that. (ug, it never ends) But also, just to letcha all know – If they say I need surgery, I’ll totally do it. There’s no way I wouldn’t do it cuz I dont want to have this knee be weak forever. I’ve got more boarding to do, dammit!!

So I took myself to the Doc today…. and honestly, I was REALLY thinking that I was just gonna go in there and he was just going to give me a good “plan” for icing and heating – and tell me that “it coulda been worse and mine is so minor, it’ll heal on it’s own”…. and that all I needed was one visit to him & some ice packs & boom, I’m on the mend!

But unfortunately, his “oh, that’s a good sign” reponses turned to “uh, oh, that’s not a good sign” responses.

See, I can walk (limping a little and going kinda slow- but I can walk!) and really it’s only super hurty when I try to straighten it all the way – or bend it all the way. And then there’s this one other thing – which is when I’m walking or sometimes when I turn slightly – or just not getting into my car carefully enough, and it feels like my lower leg is loose and swings out of socket or something, and all of a sudden I get this *piercing sharp pain* that brings me to tears instantly. It has been this pain that has made me realize I needed to get my butt to the doctor to make sure I was taking care of it correctly.

So what did he say? He said I tore my Meniscus (MCL). Which you can see here and read about here.

I was practically in tears when he told me. And I kept asking him, “are you sure that if I don’t just keep icing it and stay off it – that it won’t heal up fine on it’s own?” But he said that he’s about 85% sure I’ll need to get some kind of surgery. But that most likely it’ll be arthroscopic, which is less intrusive apparently.

I even asked him if I could hit Tahoe in February… but he said probably not… but maybe March (!) WOW, that would be cool.

So really it’s not that bad. I mean, it sucks SUPER BAD. And it’s time (to visit the doc/do rehab) & money that I’m not psyched about having to deal with… but all and all – it could be worse, huh?

p.s. can you all just look down at your healthy working knees and kiss them, thanking them for them being 100%!! I’m jealous. :)

Ok Trillian users – here’s another solution to your Trillian/Yahoo woes. Note that you have to know your username/password to your Trillian install in order to login to their Customer Center & download patches.

Yahoo keeps trying to make it hard for us to use it, but you can’t stop Trillian!! Oh NO you can’t!

Update: Photos posted!

The beautiful view (from Homewood)

Me, lookin tough in my new jacket. Aww yaaa.

more here.