It's The Great Pumpkin, And Other Developments

I got my pumpkin carved on Friday.

When I picked it up and set it on the table, I was surprised. "Oh my gosh, this thing is huge!"  Much bigger than it seemed in the pumpkin patch. Of course Tom was the one who picked it up and carried it then.

Suddenly carving it seemed a bit daunting, but I had plenty of time, came up with a design, and plunged in. The Charlie Brown Great Pumpkin Special always comes to mind when I make the first stab. "I didn't know you were going to kill it."

It was thick but soft enough that it was easy to cut, just big!

My Jack-o-lanterns are always happy. None of those gory monsters for me.

There have been some medical developments this week as I continue to deal with my "skeletal" issues. As a result of meeting with my Physical Therapist Erica on Tuesday we have decided to back off on almost all of the PT exercises for two week and then assess. Since I am hurting more, we might be doing more harm than good.

Erica watched me walk, saw be lurch to the side, and saw what I didn't know, that my right knee had done a sideways "buckle". It just sort of came out of joint. She showed me on a model. We knew it was now in the severe stage of arthritic damage, but it hardly hurts, so I have been letting it go. Anyway, my left, other, hip is first in line for fixing. 

I had a phone appointment set up with my Orthopedic Dr for that afternoon so Erica had me ask about an "unloader brace". When I did, Dr. Chen was a bit confused. He thought we were dealing with my left hip. Well, when I told him my right knee was also "severe", he laughed. "You are going to set a record for the most metal by the time we're through," he said.

Yep. So I have an appointment with him on Monday, and an appointment pending with the sports med Doc to get a hip injection in my "fixed" right hip to calm down the  inflammation before I have surgery on the left hip. I am on the list for that sometime after the first of the year.

Yes, I'm complicated. 

Meanwhile, life goes on. On Sunday we will hold our 25th annual Norquist Family Cider Bee. This is 25 years in the 2nd G of cider bees. The original ones were held by my Mom and Dad on the farm where I grew up. We returned there each September with our growing families, our kids younger then than their kids are now. Now I'm the oldest sibling left and the oldest grannie. 

And life goes on. 

Happy Halloween!