My apologies to...

Judith Viorst, but I have to steal borrow (and alter) the title of one of my favorite childhood books and say that this is going to be one Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Blog Post. A lot of stuff has been happening around here, and I just couldn't sit myself down to blog about any of it for fear of sounding like a whiny complainer, but now if I don't talk about it, I think my head will explode. The short of it is this: Pain, waiting, more waiting, more pain, no knitting (I know, it's awful!) and the cherry on the top of it all-- a big ol' pile of crap has been dumped on my nieces that makes any and every bad thing I have ever gone through in my life, or ever will go through in my life, look like, well, a fairy tale in comparison. Read on if you dare.

I'll start with the easy stuff. Back in January when Tara had her surgery, I was carrying her around a lot - in and out of the car, up steps, lifting her at the vet's office, etc. I shouldn't have been doing it, since I had spinal fusion surgery in 2005, and still have to be careful, but what are you going to do? You have a sick dog, you do what you have to do to make that dog well again. I was in so much pain that I broke down and went to the doctor, (twice!) and he ordered an MRI. Of course, my medical insurance company questioned the necessity of the test. Come on, people. I have a rod and screws in my back and I'm in terrible pain, afraid that those screws are backing out of my spine and will break through the skin any day now. After yet another call to the company by my doctor, they approved the test.

Of course, then the wait began for the appointment, but that was finally scheduled for last week. Yup, I get there bright and early and am told that due to the "artifacts" in my back, they don't think they can do it. First of all, I told them on the phone when I made the appointment that I had back surgery and metal in my back. Second of all, "artifacts"? They made it sound like I have pottery shards or a scarab or two in there. OK, they get approval to put me on the table, and after a whole lot of bang-bang-banging, some dye injected into one arm, then blowing that vein, and waiting for an RN to stick the dye in my other arm, more bang-bang-banging, and then a week to wait for the results, it turns out there are no results. They said the "hardware" (which I prefer to the term "artifacts") prevented the MRI from taking any good images. Grrrrr.

I would be more worried about the pain in my back if my hand wasn't in such bad shape right now. I fell last week while rushing into the house to let the dogs out, and did something to my hand. (It was a spectacular fall, though. My purse, keys and a portable GPS system all went flying across the yard.) Fortunately it's my left hand, but it's pretty darn hard to knit right now. I probably should have gotten (or maybe should still get) an x-ray, but I've already been shot full of x-rays and a double-shot of dye this week, and I don't really want any more, thank-you-very-much.

All of that stuff is small potatoes, though. Here's the proverbial cherry on the top of the crap sundae. My sister's brother-in-law was diagnosed this week with Frontotemporal Dementia. Never heard of it? Neither had any of us. It's a rare form of dementia, striking people between the ages of 40 and 65. Patients decline rapidly, and there is no cure, and no way to slow the progression. The nieces are 20 and 25, and are not-so-slowly losing their father. My heart breaks for them.