So I’m resorting to reposting vox.com Question of the Day answers here –
::What’s your favorite thing about being sick?
Uhm, getting better? Not dying? Sleeping through the worst of it, if at all possible? Not feeling so bad I feel compelled to blog it, just in case, you know, I do die?
Pick one.(For the record, I’m feeling better. The crud has passed. My expensive knee is angry with me, but it’s fine… just being a curmudgeon.)
This isn’t exactly an elated celebratory post, but it’s in the right direction. Justin and I headed out for my first bike ride since I was 4 months pregnant with Sara (and that was a low heart rate ride in a paved neighborhood, because my OB didn’t really want me on my mountain bike and I didn’t own a road bike yet.) Not only was this my first time on a bike in over a year, it’s my first time on a ROAD BIKE since I was about 13 years old.
With an 80% chance of thunderstorms and flash flooding, Justin’s weekly group 40- to 50-mile road bike ride was cancelled this morning. When no such storms materialized by 10 AM, Justin suggested a walk at a nearby park I had yet to check out (Stone Oak Park on Stone Oak Parkway.) We walked 2.07 miles in 37 minutes 55 seconds and got to check out the two cave entrances in the park. (Never fear — one cave is grated shut, so all I did was stand on the edge of the grate and peer in; the other cave entrance is larger and has trees growing in it, so I just wandered around the stonework wall that protects it.)
Joy #8211 of being self-employed: I got to spend the entire day gardening, and I didn’t have to feel guilty about it. 
The first order of things this morning was to rake our front yard again. I did this no less than two weeks ago, and damned if our live oaks (Quercus virginiana) didn’t have a whole ‘nother yard’s worth of leaves to shed. I swear I looked up and surveyed the trees before killing my shoulders and wrists with the raking two weeks ago. A couple hours and five full trash bags later, I could again see our sad excuse for a front lawn. It’s trying to be green, but after all, “It’s not that easy being green.” Right now, our lawn’s just doing a really good impression of h-a-y.
As of today, I am one year post-op ACL reconstruction, partial meniscectomy, and meniscus repair.
That is all!
(TOLD you it was anti-climactic! ;))
Addendum: Justin and I hiked 4.6 miles at Government Canyon State Natural Area. We were going to ride 8-10 miles, but my ongoing wrist/arm/shoulder pain made that prospect less-than-appealing. The route we hiked (Lytle’s Loop) will be terrific on our bikes, though!
No photos for this trip. I left the camera gear at home, since carrying 19lbs. of camera gear would have really killed my arm, and Justin left his gear in solidarity. Knee feels terrific post-hike; what a difference a year makes!
Shortly after the first of the year, we got a bill from the ambulatory surgical center where my knee surgery was performed in Feburary 2005. We both ignored the bill for awhile, not prepared to deal with it. You see, we’ve been down this road before (it was apparently so unpleasant I neglected to blog it! ;)) Anyway, a couple weeks ago I finally contacted Humana about it, and this week I got a reply. A reply that indicates despite having paid $1,400 out of pocket the morning of my surgery to the aforementioned surgical center, we somehow still owe them $895.18. WTF? To add insult to injury, that is I believe the exact amount we were credited in late summer 2005 after having Humana (acting as our proxy) fight with the billing department, which had overcharged us on the day of surgery by, you guessed it, almost $900.
