The Joke's On Me

• It's been a quiet week in Lake Woebegone.  Here in Denver, however, a few events are worth reporting.
• Do you ever find THE answer to your questions, needs and dilemmas, and then turn around to find that it has bitten you in the ass?  And the joke's on you.
• The Dandy Girl has for years had trouble with urinary incontinence.
• So doc said- hmm, maybe constipation.  Let's get an X-ray.
• X-ray revealed that indeed, constipation.  So very treatable.
• Also revealed that both the urinary incontinence and the constipation are probably due to that dark anomaly on one of her vertebrae.  ha ha! Joke's on her.
• So the Dandy Girl now has an upcoming MRI to confirm the neuro-surgeon's suspicions about a tethered spinal cord.  While the spinal cord should hang loosely and slide freely through the vertebrae, in some cases there is tissue which connects it.  With growth and aging, this results in stretching and thinning of the nerves, I guess, which leads to weakness, unreliable motor control, and even paralysis.
• Apparently it's great news to find it during childhood, as it is surgically correctable.
• Bah.  It's very hard to consider it "great news," but I am very aware of everything that Rose has been spared, and I try to be thankful.
• So I have been taking a new anti-depressant.
• Presented at a state science conference yesterday and in a quieter moment, marveled to see that I was on a hugging basis with at least 8 people there, including the science director of the Colorado Department of Education.  Odd.  
• This new drug does seem to have helped- the fog has cleared away enough for me to realize that...
• ... there WAS fog, tremendously thick fog, and I guess my judgment has been impaired for close to a year.  
• I am not suggesting that becoming a part of the state and regional science circle represents impaired judgment, but if you know me well, you'll see why I think it's, well, odd.
• So, new drug.  I was delighted to report to the counselor that I hadn't cried in 5 days, and
• ...she looked at me with some indication of pity, and gently said,
• "That's great.  Not crying for 5 days is much, much better.  But you still have a lot to work on."
• huh. Joke's on me.
• And clearing the fog seems to have kick-started my art.  I have 4 pieces hanging in one of the front offices at school, where they give me pleasure.  
• Reports from friends indicate they give others pleasure too.
• Rose and I moved in to a new art studio today.
• I transposed two digits on the alarm code, which was not an auspicious beginning, but I did succeed in canceling the alarm and fielding the phone call from the security company.  No cruisers arrived, thankfully.  Poor Rosie was concerned we would have to go to jail.
• So last weekend I went to art club and STARTED AND FINISHED a piece that inaugurates a series.  I do love it so.
• But after the four hours of really intense, focused work sitting down, I stood up and something in my knee went, "ka-twang!" and really, really hurt.
• So I was limping for several days, and then realized that the other knee was hurting as well, probably from trying to compensate for the twanged left one.
• So then I realized I was walking like a 91 year old, 
• and needed to hold on to things, 
• and strangers were offering me chairs, 
• and the pain did not go away with sitting, reclining or even during sleeping, 
• and so it turns out that
• a documented side effect of E!!exor is severe joint pain.
• ha ha ha ha ha!!!! Joke's on me.
• Tune in next time for more comedy.