I'm back at work today (expecting results on Friday). I'm still a little fuzzy-headed so it's a good thing that a keyboard is the only machinery I have to operate. Things seemed to go fairly well. At least, I had no problems with the anesthesia, including no 'awareness' problems, which I have had while in recovery rooms after surgeries in the past.

However, although the surgical staff was apparently mindful of my neck, I feel like they tried to use my legs as a Thanksgiving wishbone. All the progress I've made toward gently extending my range of motion through months of physical therapy seems to have been undone in one short unconscious moment. I once read somewhere of a patient advocate program in which someone designated to speak for the patient accompanies her into the operating room. I'd like to participate in a program like that. It would have been nice if someone had said, "Hey, take it easy with that hip joint, would ya?" Until we have such a program, I think I'll mark instructions all over my body before the next surgery so that I go in looking like Guy Pearce in Memento.

Obviously I haven't done any writing during my stay on the Padded and Flounced Island, as I'd expected to, but I read a lot. I finally got through the bulk of Middlesex. I'm now down to the last few pages, the dénouement, and I hate for it to be over. It's been a really good read and I'm so glad Jolie sent it. She'd also sent a care package that included some mindless trashy mags. But it was Eugenides' fascinating novel that really got me through, even as it resurrected deeply buried memories from my own painful adolescence.

* Ouch! bad image.