The Very Lonely Linguine -- Fallon, Nevada

I'm starting this post from the Daily Grind Cafe in Fallon, Nevada. Boy sits to my left, reading "Man's Search for Meaning," solemnly sipping his americano and not eating nearly enough of the huge chunk of chocolate sitting on top of his "Wine Folly" book. 

Chocolate I've eaten far too much of. 

The cafe is mostly empty. Except for a group of middle-aged people in the corner to my right, saying things like, "GAW-AD, the roof has been leaking for years! The roof's started to do this droop number, right above the bar! I ain't gettin' up there to fix it. I weigh 200 pounds! after all the years of that water drippin' up there... GAW-AD..."

There's a young woman with a yellow sharpie, concentrating fiercely on her textbooks, deliberately blocking out the drama of her neighbor's ceiling. 

It's good to be in a new place. 

My last day of work was on Monday the 23rd. 

"I'M UNEMPLOYED!" I crowed in ecstasy. 

We packed up our belongings and vacated our home on Sunday the 29th. 

"I'M HOMELESS AGAIN!" I jumped up and down in delight. 

Some good friends put us up in their apartment Sunday night (due to aforementioned homelessness). They made us stir fry, shared a hard apple cider and even gifted me with a new pair of very needed Chacos for my journey. 

And there was bacon in the morning. 

What a fabulous beginning to this adventure. 

We went out for a quick final coffee at Main Street Bagels -- 

-- and then hit the road.

As the Geo (aka, Cummerbund) is a stick, and I have been relentless in expressing my dislike and fear of all vehicles not automatic, Boy drove.

When most people go on road trips, they bring books to read, audiobooks to listen to, or playlists to awkward seat dance to. But when Boy and I take Cummerbund out and about, none of these methods of diversion are available to us.

Cummerbund has a lot to say. When Cummerbund travels at below 35 miles per hour, he squeaks (loudly and consistently) his disdain. When Cummerbund goes above 70 miles per hour, he rumbles in protest. When Cummerbund's driver side window isn't rolled up absolutely perfectly, he shrieks at us both so hideously that I'm afraid the window (or my eardrums) will burst into a thousand pieces.

When it's over 60 degrees outside, Boy begins to sweat. Profusely. Boy is a very impressive sweater. But Cummerbund has no air conditioning, so Boy rolls down the windows as we rumble down the highway.

So we don't listen to audiobooks. We occasionally venture to yell, "I LIKE YOU!" over the cacophony of Cummerbund, but that's about it.

Yesterday's drive was fascinatingly empty. We spent most of the journey on Highway 50, the self-proclaimed "Loneliest Road in America." The lonely road kept disappearing into the horizon in a straight line -- like the roads this Colorado girl sketched in dimension art classes, and always thought were absolute bullshit.

Roads don't disappear like that... they don't stretch out into the distance like an unending, uncooked linguine. Roads bend like rivers and ribbon. 

But they do. They do disappear into the distance like an unending, uncooked, and very lonely linguine.

With no other distractions (except Cummerbund), I notice the nature.

Flowers. Only red and yellow decorate the dry land, peppering the mellow green sage with spicy color.

Where have all the other colors gone? 

I'm so used to the yellow and red, that I nearly jump out of my seat when I glimpse a sea of purple mist. Soft, small flowers that sway with even the most delicate breeze.

I'm grateful for the cloud cover in these treeless, arid flats and hills. So is Boy. Out of the corner of my eye, I notice his hand reaching towards me, and I move to reach back. But then I realize that he's stopped halfway and is letting his fingers feel the air of the vent. Which isn't blowing cool air by any stretch of the imagination, but is, at the very least, blowing.

Golden brown haystacks from last year's harvest seem like mountains when surrounded by the diminutive sagebrush.

Tufts of yellow-green grasses nestle into rocky cliffs.

White tipped blue mountains casting shadows on the never-ending shrubbery.

So. Much. Shrubbery. 

Clouds like cotton balls stretched too thin.. criss-crossed with jet trails.

Towns are small. Dirty. Gas stations, churches, liquor stores.

We arrived at our campsite at a little after six.

Hickison Petroglyph Recreation Area is spectacular. The camping is limited, but totally free. No running water, but plenty of outhouses. Fire pits. Views. Perfect temperature this time of year.

We quickly set up Mrs. Peterson (feeling very accomplished) and then had a picnic.

And even though we could finally hear each other, we didn't say a lot.

This is so perfect...

Ellie and Mrs. Peterson

We went for a post sunset stroll.

I felt grateful for legs that support me. My right knee is healing surprisingly quickly, and I feel gratitude in every step.

We listened to a podcast in Mrs. Peterson before drifting off to sleep, the wind brushing branches up against the tent, snuggled up in our sleeping bags as the night's chill set in.

The next morning, we quickly packed up our things and then walked to a place with a view for our picnic.

"I think we should adopt Tessa's rule," I told Boy. "Never have a picnic without a view."

So we found a view.

Although the breakfast picnic was fabulous (both the yogurt and the view), these newly homeless, unemployed vagabonds still required coffee. The nearest town was Austin.

We searched for coffee.

And found... Serbian Christmas?

There was no coffee in Austin. Only judgement of hippies.

So we left. I brushed the dirt off of my new chacos before clamoring into Cummerbund.

We have six more hours of driving before we reach the city of Monterey and Boy's Persian friends, Mo and Mori. Thus far, Cummerbund has made it (grudgingly) up all the hills and sped down all the linguines. During the eleven hours of driving, we have only nearly died once (that I know of) when a driver going the opposite direction merged into our lane to pass a truck and trailer. Boy had to slam on the brakes and the other driver snuck back behind the truck and trailer in the nick of time.

My heart pumped violently in my chest.

"Hey," Boy smiled. "I just saved your life."

Surgery -- Grand Junction, CO

Lighting flashes in the not so distant distance, briefly illuminating the large elm trees that line our downtown street. Thunder rumbles and leaves rustle as the wind animates the sleeping elms, gently lifting, playfully fluttering and then passionately tossing about the leaves and branches in a full crescendo of invisible energy.

Somewhere downtown, a car alarm is blaring.

Somewhere downtown, a pedestrian is crossing Grand Avenue. DING-ding, DING-ding, DING-ding, sounds the traffic light, alerting the blind that it's time to venture out.

Boy unlatched the window before he left for work (and by unlatch, I mean he removed the hairband that holds the window closed. Latches that work are an anomaly in this hundred year old home). He loves the smell of rain nearly as much as the taste of dry red wine nearly as much as he loves his broken, black umbrella named Madeline.

Our room smells like rain. Rain mixed with asphalt and the dead leaves left over from last fall.

Wind for me, rain for boy. If only my leg felt strong enough to go walking. If only I were the pedestrian crossing Grand Avenue. If only that DING-ding, DING-ding, DING-ding was for me. 

"Keep fighting," Boy's friend smiled encouragingly as we parted ways yesterday afternoon.

"Yeah," my curt response.

I haven't conquered this injury. I haven't beaten anything. I haven't risen above. I've just... given in to my suffocating feeling of brokenness. 

Back in my theatre days, Professor Ivanov tried to teach us college teenagers how to realistically portray an old person.

"Each step," Ivanov stared at us poor sophomores with all the intensity a life devoted to theater could muster, "each step could be your last. You fall and break your hip? You're finished. Your body does not bounce back. I want you to walk across the stage as if each step could kill you."

This is how I feel. Walking up the stairs gives me anxiety. Worrying about blood clots in my calf makes it difficult to fall asleep. And the anxiety isn't confined to my leg... it's poisoned the rest of my life. Experiencing my world fall apart in three seconds has revealed the power of three seconds. And it terrifies me. My unflappable attitude about adventure and travel and trying new things has... errr... become quite flappable. 

This injury didn't just break my body. It drained me of courage, confidence, carefreeness.

"Is there anything I can do to help? Drive you to appointments?" my friend Cathy had asked after reading one of my recent blogs.

"Well... I just... I had such a hard time right after the injury because my home isn't very crutch friendly. It's a challenge for me to shower here because of how tall the bathtub is and how there's nothing to hold on to... and there are stairs everywhere... can I live with you for a little while after my surgery?

My operation was just a little over two weeks ago. I'd moved in with Cathy the day before, and Cathy introduced me to her ice machine and let me know that between her and John (and their twelve knee surgeries), they would have everything I needed in order to deal with post-operation blues.

If I have to struggle through a knee surgery, this is the way to do it...

I didn't sleep that night. Regardless of how comfortable Cathy's bed felt and how drearily tired I was. It's hard to sleep when every cell in your body feels supersaturated with anxiety. I was nervous about not being able to walk again -- not being able to carry my coffee mug -- being entirely reliant on others until I could bear weight. I was also a tad timid about being put under. My little chemist brother had been kind enough to inform me of just how many people had died during anesthesia.  And the form I'd signed during my pre-op contained a section that said something akin to, "consequences of anesthesia may include death."

I know they're just covering their asses and that death isn't normally the side-effect, but still...

"As long as you told them the right weight, it should be fine," my friend Sandra had tried to comfort me during our themed dinner party.

But... I haven't practiced yoga in a month and a half. I can't still be the same weight...can I? what if I was wrong? Will I wake up during the middle of the surgery? Will I NOT wake up at the end of the surgery? Gosh. I used to take absolutely bonkers crazy risks and think, "if it's my time, it's my time." Like when I rode on the backseat of Patrick's old motorcycle and he blazed in between two semi trucks going in opposite directions on a narrow mountain road. I thought to myself, "if this is it, this is it..." and held on tight. Now? 

Now I understand how much I don't want now to be my time. I don't know if I've ever understood that before. Why didn't I understand that? I've always had plenty of good to live for, fight for, not die for... so why was I so nonplussed about taking radical risks? Was it just ignorance? Was it naivety? Was it an invincibility complex? Was it total lack of self-worth that caused me not to question my insane choices? Was I trying so hard to be open that I forgot about being safe? 

Was power taken away from me so many times that I lived under the false belief that my choices didn't even matter? 

I'm not sure what it was. But as the pages of my life continue to turn and the clock of my life continues to tick, I become more and more aware that my book is a melodrama and the hands of my clock are more similar to a pendulum, wildly swinging from side to side, never finding any sense of calm or stability.

The only balance is in my momentum. 

My pendulum is currently swinging away from, "TAKE ALL THE RISKS ALWAYS," towards, "NEVER TAKE ANY RISKS AGAIN EVER."

Troy drove me to Grand Valley Surgery at 8:00 on a Thursday morning. I filled out the paperwork (again, signing my name to a paper that said I could possibly end up dead). I was lead back through a maze of cubicles, given a funny hat and a gown to wear and then clamored onto my hospital bed.

Then my mother arrived with her iPhone camera.

A student nurse proceeded to poke an IV into my arm.

"No, not there," an actual nurse corrected her. "You always start at the hand and make your way towards the elbow if the hand doesn't work."

She doesn't know what she's doing? WHAT? She's inserting a needle into my body and doesn't know what she's doing?!?

The student nurse proceeded to poke an IV into the top of my hand.

Is it supposed to bleed that much? 

Red drops dripped all over the blanket covering my belly and legs.

Gosh. I do not feel good about this...

"What's the purpose of the IV?" I asked the actual nurse.

"It's kind of like our lifeline to you during surgery," she responded with startling nonchalance.

AND... I'm not feeling any better...

After about two hours of prep work (during which the lush hair adorning my right knee was callously shaved), I was wheeled into the operating room, introduced to my anesthesiologist and then introduced to a mask that introduced me to nothing.

This nurse was from Mexico. While she shaved my leg (which... err... didn't take a short amount of time), we talked about molé and tlayudas

More paperwork I had to sign, acknowledging the fact that I could die. 

My anesthesiologist 

Why is there cotton in my brain? was my first thought upon waking. Followed in short order by, where am I? What happened? Why does 0% of me want to move? ALSO... why does 100% of me want to vomit? 

I was given some anti-nausea medication by a nurse who's face was fuzzy, then fell right back asleep. For two more hours.

When I woke again, I was asked to try to sit up, then wheeled out to the parking lot and helped into a car of some kind. Then driven back to a home of some kind. Where I believe I slept in a bed, but I can't be entirely sure.

Regardless of how much Diladud, Alieve and Tylenol I relentlessly pumped through my poor, throttled body, the pain in my right leg became absolutely unbearable by Friday afternoon. I cried. I grit my teeth. I iced and elevated my swollen balloon of an appendage like a boss.

I found no relief.

The pain intensified Saturday morning. Boy texted my anesthesiologist to ask about the nerve block pumping numbing liquid into my right leg. Which, according to the instructions, should have been nearly empty by now, but still appeared to be nearly full.

"Well... I could meet you at the hospital," the anesthesiologist said reluctantly, "but then we'd have to fill out all that paperwork. Can I just come to your house?"

"That would be amazing!" my voice was frantic with pain.

"Okay, text me the address. I'll be there in about twenty minutes."

And he was. He flushed out the tubes of the nerve block, adjusted the settings, and headed back to his son's lacrosse game.

"This is the first house call I've ever done..." he said on his way out.

The pain was tolerable for the rest of the night. So tolerable that I wheeled myself into the rest of the house to enjoy Jessie's birthday party. Which was heaps of fun and slightly awkward because the theme way, "Grownup". Hence, every attendee had to dress like what they wanted to be when they grew up.

My friend Arlo must have wanted to be an epic hippie with a majestic beard. Grand dreams for a small child. 

"Did you want to be in a wheelchair when you grew up?"one guest asked me.

"I hope that's just a costume," another commented.

"Nope. I had ACL reconstructive surgery on Thursday."

The pain was fairly under control on Sunday. I spent the entire day sleeping and watching BBC animal documentaries on Netflix. The small excursion was a trip to a friend's house for "church with food." During which I was so delirious that I cried into my yogurt. Because I was sick and tired and nauseous and yogurt was the only thing in the whole wide world that tasted good and... yogurt.

By Monday, my pain killers stopped working almost entirely. I would pop two Diladud  every four hours, and felt absolutely no effect. I cried, moaned, sweat, pleaded and then drank an entire bottle of champagne.

After which I napped.

By Wednesday, my knee started feeling better, but my rear end started hurting. A week of being in the same position with my right leg elevated had given me a horribly painful case of sciatica from my right glute to my right knee.

I can't get comfortable. There is nothing I can do to not feel pain. No position that helps. No pain pills for relief. I feel so helpless. And time... time moves so slowly... I would give anything to not be in my body right now...why do I have a body that insists on feeling EVERYTHING? 

For the next week, I slept maybe an hour or two a night. Troy slept maybe a little bit more than that. The pain was so severe that I had to wake him up two or three times a night to massage my throbbing derriere.

I went for my post-op a week and a half after my surgery.

"Your physical therapist says you're doing well except for a pain in your butt? What's that about?"

"No idea. But I haven't been able to sleep because of it."

"I can prescribe you some Flexuril -- it's a muscle relaxant that should also make you drowsy. Take one before you go to bed until the pain goes away. I'm guessing that as you start walking around more, you should feel better."

"What about going back to work?"

"What about it?"

"Can I?"

"What do you need to be able to do?"

"Drive."

"You think you can drive?"

"Yeah," I moved my right foot about in a tap dance that sort of resembled pressing the gas and brakes, but more resembled a crab scurrying along the beach.

"Okay," the doctor laughed. "Back to work, no restrictions. But don't drive with the crutch in your car."

"Will do."

I popped a Flexuril before bedtime, ecstatic at the idea of incapacitating drowsiness.

But nothing happened. My stubborn body refused to be even mildly effected.

Poop. 

It was nearly two and a half weeks after my surgery until I had a day without pain. Until I slept a full night. Until I stopped wanting to be outside of my body.

Knowing that my body doesn't respond well to drugs scares me... a lot. What if I injure myself again? What if I get a horribly painful disease? Will my body make me feel it all?