A shot and a beer

I grabbed a 7:15 a.m. appointment on Thursday with the orthopedist. The last (and first) time I had gone to the orthopedist, I had a 1:30 appointment and sat in the crowded waiting room for more than 2 hours before being led to an examining room where I waited another 20 minutes. Their office is so busy that it's like being at an airport gate and waiting for your group to be called for boarding. Even at 7:15 in the morning, it was busy and I waited a half an hour. When I had seen the orthopedist the first time, it was the day before my first chemo session. He confided in me then that "if you want to make a lot of money in orthopedics, give a lot of cortisone shots." An honest man. But he went on to tell me that since I was already on steroids for the chemo, the drugs were already accomplishing the same thing that the cortisone would do. Unfortunately, it was for a short period of time.

I'd never had a cortisone shot in my life, but I knew that my upcoming trip to Florida meant two things: 1) From 6 a.m. to 1 p.m. I'd either be sitting at an airport gate or sitting in one of two airplanes and 2) returning from Florida, I'd be sitting behind the wheel of a car for 1400 miles (I was driving one of Jeff's customer's car back from Ft. Myers to Chicago, while Jeff, at the same time, was driving another customer's car back from Phoenix). With my aching knees bent for that long of a time, I'd be one miserable old lady.

I'd also heard that the shots hurt. I didn't care. No pain, no gain. How bad could it be? I asked the doc if he had a bullet I could bite down on. I should have insisted. Holy cow, did it smart! And, once the first knee was shot up, I tensed up because I knew what was coming for the second knee. If it wasn't early in the morning, and if I was a drinking gal, I'd have asked for a shot of something else -- like whiskey (which I hate). Whew! But, if these shots worked like everyone said they did, I'd be a new woman by the weekend.

I was kind of hoping that new woman would look like Sandy Bullock (without the cheating husband), but truthfully I'd settle for the old pre-chemo, pre-painful knees me. That would be good enough.