Howdy,
Well, it’s been a week.
And I haven’t been writing. Not a bit.
Or tittle.
Not even a little.
But, on the bright side, I still have both legs.
To speak of, and accounted for.
Why is that even a question, you may ask?
Well, it’s a short story that I’ll try to make longer. (I’m not exactly kicking butt in word count because of it. Though I did pretty much get my rear end kicked and laid out in the last week. No, the story’s not THAT exciting. So, not exciting, but long. Got your interest now?)
Last Saturday night I went into the emergency room after a day of being down with a swollen and painful (immobilizing) knee, which started locking me up Friday night at bedtime. In some freak scratching of a mosquito bite or something (I don’t quite know what for sure) the skin over my knee got infected. Friday night and most of Saturday we thought it was more like bursitis, as I had been doing some work on my knees with applied pressure (my great weight) and we figured that made my right knee swell and accounted for the pain. When the physician’s assistant in the ER said, “It’s probably just he skin, on the surface, but we’ll watch for septic joint, since it’s on the knee, and that’s limb-threatening,” he had my attention.
Like, WHAT?
I only scratched (okay, picked at) a mosquito bite—and I was only even admitting that because I could still see my RN mother-in-the-law shaking her head at me about the whole picking-at-it-thing instead of responsibly applying an appropriate salve as directed. (Thank you, Anita, for all your medical assistance and advice to me and our family; it is very helpful! I’m telling you out there, it’s nice to have a nurse in the family. Except for one thing… next paragraph.)
So the man in the emergency is mouthing the words “limb-threatening” into my fever-induced misery and dulled-sense of life, health, and clear-thinking (at a time when I will probably never, ever feel good, feel right, again), and of course then the nurses in my life or those who have grown up around them, point out: “life-threatening.”
So technical, these practitioners of heath and prophets of doom.
Because you just never know with infection.
I didn’t feel well; I know that, and I didn’t feel like writing or doing much else either. This last week was a few days mostly on my back, a few days getting more adventurous on crutches, and a few days of enjoying the ginger walk of leaving the crutches behind—and the transitions and overlap in-between.
Some days in now with two different antibiotics and a prescription for Ibruprophen like my back is out again I am no longer having 104º fevers, sweats, chills—oh, there’s my phone alarm for taking the four-a-day antibiotic: seriously, be right back—and … malaise, as the PA said in my emergency visit. Good word, malaise. Terrible feeling.
My knee still feels weird: but is much better. The haze of malaise generally lifted from my whole self, which helps with getting back to Reading. Writing. Living.
And, then, can I be honest, as Jon Acuff talks about fear and punching it in the face, as the grip of malaise loosens, fear seeks to settle in … Ah, man, once I start I have to keep going again …
Yes, fear seeks to settle in—like an infection. Punch fear in the face: start.
—Billy
Reading. Writing. Living.
P.S. I may be missing some words, but haven’t lost any legs at last count. For which I am extremely thankful. It’s also nice that food and water taste good again. Crazy little bout. The comeback? Start.
Word Count: 134,833 / On Pace: 145,750 / Year’s Goal: 200,000
Please subscribe to mailing list for the Reading Writing Living journey we’re on and get my newsletter goods. Thank you.