ISO: Mulligan required. Please fax.

Today as I was getting back to my car, I saw a penny on the ground.  I bent to pick it up and realized it wasn't a penny.  It was just a wad of gum.  And that is the perfect metaphor for my day.  

I need a mulligan, that golfing do-over that causal golfers get when they have hit a shot that sucks.  This day sucked and I want my mulligan.

Mr Needles is back in the hospital with another infection in his knee.  As we speak, while I sit here and cry into my glass of Jamaican Ginger Beer, Mr. Needles is getting his knee joint opened up and cleaned out.  According to the doctors, it isn't a real surgery, they are just cleaning it out, and yet, for Mr. Needles, each one of the previous two surgeries, have been very very hard.  The first was hard, but he came back to almost full strength in about 8 weeks.  First surgery in November and golfing at the end of February/ first week of March.  

The second was a lot harder to get back from.  His surgery happened about 4 days earlier in November and he was barely able to go golfing with his buddies in February. He did go, but he took it easy at the end of the long courses and took one entire day off to rest.  He lost so much muscle mass last time, and lost it so quickly.  His buttock muscles almost disappeared and nothing in his closet fit for a very long time.  His poor legs.  Sigh.  His leg took twice as long to regain any real strength and he never quite made it back to his pre surgery self. After the first surgery, summer was his season of getting stronger.  

That isn't going to happen this year.  Neither is our camping vacation, or the fishing trip with his dad or chasing after Sweet Thing as she takes her first steps in the grass.  

I have no idea how I am going to manage the garden and the yard here.  It's so blessedly hilly and the self propelled lawnmower is heavy and awkward to handle on some of the steep patches of grass here.

It is getting late and I haven't had anything to eat yet today, but for some tea and a cheese bun this morning. Low blood sugar just exacerbates everything.

A pity party never really accomplishes anything.  It just saps energy and makes the sorrow of the day seem worse.  It is indulgent and such a waste, particularly when I am not the guy who is hurting.  

Pity parties are always best short and put to bed early.  And that is what I am going to do.

He will be fine.(Crossing eyes, crossing fingers, crossing toes),  the doctors are very confident and they are very very good. I trust them. He is surrounded by nurses who remember him from last time, and we are all used to the way this is going to pan out.  We are even getting really used to the drive and parking lot drill.  (We are also thrilled that the elevators have been repaired at the hospital. Tickled pink by that.)  We just have to be patient and let it pan out.  But if you have a few minutes for a wee kind thought, I am sure such good thought would not go astray.