Goals

Kianoosh, Chris, Molly and me freezing our patooties off in California

Yesterday I went to the (ice) rink and worked on novice moves. No, silly, the NEW novice moves. That's right! The new novice moves that will take effect a year from this fall. That's just in time for me to test them after my two surgeries and rehabilitations are over. No more nasty spirals, which with my hips are really impossible, and the loops and twizzles are oodles of fun. I am working on the entire test now on the rare days I actually skate. And yes, I am serious, now that the spirals are gone my goal is to test them post surgery. Having a goal like that will help get me back out there, and the timing of the changes to the test structure seem about right for my recovery, if all goes well.

The forward loops took a bit of practice and a lesson from coach R, since they are on half circles and not full circles, but since I passed my 3rd test back when dinosaurs roamed the earth they came back pretty quickly. I'm pretty good at counters although they hurt my hips right now, but I'm hoping post surgery/rehab that won't be an issue. The new twizzle move is just plain fun because thankfully twizzles are the only thing on ice that has ever come easily to me. Stepping forward after the BI twizzles to a FI edge is challenging for someone with no turnout, but I can do it in a squeaky way. {Judges, Beware! Read this blog no further; ISU has come out with a new communique! Run, don't walk, to ISU's web site and disregard the rest of this paragraph!!} With practice I think I can find a sneaky way to do the step forward so that judges don't notice I'm cheating. Well, because I cheat most everything and so far I have two gold medals to show for a lifetime of hip-induced nasty faux skating trickery. So there.

{Welcome back judges!} In other news, the surgeon's office has told me they are not scheduling July at all due to a personal issue for the doctor. I can understand that, but still, I had my entire life focused on July. I am now focusing on August or later. This messes up my fall judging schedule and things at work, not to mention the planned post-surgery vacation that Perry and I are looking forward to. I so want this over with so that I can stop worrying and get back to my life. After all, I have a novice moves test to pass.

Dating Dilemma

Yesterday we closed on our house re-finance. This means we took a bunch of equity out of our house in order to pay for my two surgeries. We also got a hell of a nice interest rate on our mortgage (4.75%, yippee), so we feel pretty good about that part of it. Not so good about having to raid essentially all of my non-retirement life savings in order to pay for surgery, of course.

Since I’m now funded, in case Aetna doesn’t want to play nice, I talked to the surgeon’s office today about getting an exact date in July. If I get the date I want (July 1), that’s only a bit over 8 weeks away, and there is so much to do between now and then.

They replied that they are “not ready” to schedule July because they are “not sure what they are doing quite yet.” Huh? Does that mean they may or may not be around in July? I want to have confidence in the people who will be cutting my pelvis apart and screwing it back together. I don’t have high confidence in people who are “not sure what they are doing.”

This answer also ticks me off. Do they not realize that I need to schedule time off work (and frankly, it’s not going to be easy for those at my office when I’m gone), file papers for STD and FMLA, get a bye on my coveted downtown parking spot, order a hospital bed for my home, order other post-surgical necessities, get a hotel room in Tacoma for the night before surgery, donate blood for myself (twice), get an appointment for a pre-surgery physical with my GP (who normally has a THREE MONTH lead time), etc., etc., etc. These are just the things I can think of off the top of my head.

I know doctors put a premium on nobody’s time but their own (no offense intended, any MDs that are reading this, but you know I’m right). That is why you can wait an hour and a half to see a doctor for 20 minutes, and there is no guilt or remorse shown by the doc or the staff. So perhaps this surgery scheduling is done last minute, so that I can scramble to get everything done, because the surgeon doesn’t believe that I have a life outside of their operating table to deal with beforehand.

Yes, I am feeling pissy. I have been recently promoted at work, and so I’m working a lot of hours and taking on a lot of new responsibility, all of which will be put on hold somehow for 6 – 8 weeks starting in July, which is just around the corner. I have to get everything in order with my staff and projects before then. I am doing some traveling to judge and for vacation, so I’m not going to be at anyone’s beck and call to just run on down to the blood donation center. I have scheduled a week-long visit from my stepdaughter, who I haven’t seen in a couple of years. My stepson is graduating from high school, and we are having a party. And on, and on, and on, the same list of real-life things to do that any of my hip sisters probably had before their surgeries as well. I will be putting most of my life on hold post-surgery, as will my husband, and my mother, who has promised to stay with me during the day while my husband is at work. Other family members and friends have been equally generous with their future time.

I am a project manager by trade and temperament. I need a time line. I need a countdown. I am at odds with nothing to plan toward except a vague “July.” I need a surgery date.