So this morning at around 6 AM I get a beep on my phone. Oh boy! A voice mail! Let's check that shit out.

"Oh Miss Patricia do not forget your VERY IMPORTANT APPOINTMENT with a SUPER SPECIAL ORTHOPEDIC DOCTOR in the next town over this morning at 8 AM! You need a copy of your MRI to bring with you!"

Okay so I was never informed of this appointment before now. I knew I had a check up appointment on the 21st but thought it was here in town with my regular doctor.

You know.

Like the appointment card and the nurse practitioner I saw -said-.

But I digress.

So I have to call the hospital where I got the MRI done and was fortunate enough to get a really sweet lady to push my information through (they normally need 24 hours notice and I gave her like an hour and 15 minutes) and get it to me at 7:30.

Also my dad took his truck back to work on it and I was left to drive my Corrola for this adventure. My car is, of course, a manual transmission and OH BOY IS A CLUTCH FUN WHEN YOU CAN BARELY STRAIGHTEN OUT YOUR LEG.

So I make it to the orthopedic surgeon's office, and they take a couple new x-rays and sit me in a room for 45 minutes to wait for the doctor. He gets in and tells me that I actually have a hairline fracture on my tibia from where my lateral collateral ligament pulled hard during my fall. Said that should heal on its own, it wasn't too severe.

Said LCL is also traumatized and torn up a bit. I also tore my meniscus ligament in the fall. Helpful diagram:

http://i40.tinypic.com/2ry3ax5.jpg

(this file is called "knee boo boos")

But anyway so the doctor said "yeah so if you hadn't gotten this checked out any sooner there's a good chance your kneecap might have been permanently traumatized and made all walking painful forever".

Oh. Okay.

So he gives me some exercises to do. He suspects that I actually dislocated my knee cap during or shortly after the fall and that I was lucky enough to have it slide back into place on its own. The exercises are to strengthen the quadriceps of my front thigh - the muscles responsible for holding the knee cap in place - to help stop that from happening again. Oh boy they are painful.

Then he writes me a script to go get a hinged knee brace in the next town over from mine, so off I go on a 30 minute drive only to be told "YOU NEED AN APPOINTMENT COME BACK FRIDAY".

So when I get home, my leg screaming from having to clutch-break-gas-clutch-clutch-CLUTCH, the cats are whining in the garage for more SOMETHING and I limp out there only for Mika - the cat I actually almost hate - barges in past me.

The cats are not allowed in the house after they brought in whatever killed Gypsy and almost got Boodle.

So I close the door behind her so Wolfwood doesn't dart inside and find that the cats have food. And clean water. And a clean litter box. So Mika was just being a little shit. I am annoyed.

I turn to open the door to get back in the house

only to find that it is locked

"no no no nonononoNONONO"

This door is NEVER locked.

So I'm tearing at the doorknob hoping it'll open because I have no shoes on and my phone and keys are inside but to no avail. I am locked out.

So I scream "MOTHERFUCKING CAT" a few times and pound on the door and almost start crying because it would happen now

So I start limping to our neighbor's house. And I have to sit in her porch chair for five minutes or so before she pulls up on her bicycle and invites me in to use her phone. She is a very kind old lady we've known for years and she gives me water and "you poor dear"s until my mom shows up to let me in.

And then as soon as the front door opens

the cat just dashes outside (even though the garage is left permanently cracked open)

:|

I resist the urge to scream again and go inside and pass out until 7PM.

And here we are.