that, lemmetellya), but just to be sure I needed to go to the hospital to have it x-rayed. After the x-ray, we arrived back at the doctor’s office, and he told us I wouldn’t need a cortisone shot after all. I had a tumor on my knee. The orthopedist who found the tumor was partially retired, so he referred me to the best Orthopedic Surgeon in the area. After more x-rays, it was determined that the tumor – which had been developing for a year or more – had begun eating away at the bone directly under my knee. After what seemed like months and months of x-rays and consultations and more x-rays and more meetings, they operated on my knee. They wouldn’t know until they operated to remove the tumor whether it was cancerous. If it was cancerous, though I didn’t realize it at the time, they may have had to amputate my leg. So while they were removing the tumor and removing bone from my hipbones to pack in the space where the tumor had eaten away, people in the lab were testing tissue from the tumor and determining that it was non-cancerous. Can you see how this whole situation is one I consider lucky? Despite the pain I was in after the operation (they had this fucking NASTY-looking drain on one of my hips, and every time the surgeon or his partner came to check on me, I asked when they were going to take it out. Actually, I asked them as soon as they got there and again before they left. I wanted that motherfucker GONE), I was lucky that the tumor turned out to be noncancerous. I could have had cancer, fought it for months or years, and died. But I was lucky. Other lucky instances in my life: I got pregnant with the spud when I was 19. Instead of running for the hills, her father married me, and to this day continues to send child support. Sadly, it seems in these days that a father actually financially supporting his child is more the exception than the rule. I had the spud at the tender age of 20, and I knew nothing about kids. I lucked out, though – she was a great baby, and she’s a great kid. She did everything exactly when she was supposed to. The instant she turned 6 weeks, she slept through the night. At 6 months, she happily ate solid foods. She walked at 15 months, she talked when she was supposed to, and though she gets attitudinous occasionally, she’s still eager to please instead of a sullen, pouty brat (though I realize that’s yet to come). See? Lucky. What else? Well, I met a man online and after knowing him online and talking to him constantly on the phone, I met him in a hotel in Pennsylvania. In a hotel in Pennsylvania. He could’ve been a psycho, he could’ve raped and killed me. Instead, he turned out to be a normal guy (okay, that’s debatable) and the love of my life. Not to mention pretty freakin’ successful at what he does, and now he’s pulling down the big bucks, wooHOO! How the hell did I get so lucky? Did I have a really bad time of it in a previous life, and this is my payback? Or are the really bad things yet to come? Will I come home one day and find that the spud’s a pot-smoking high school dropout who’s selling drugs out of the basement with her tattooed pimp boyfriend? Will I find Fred in bed with a skanky stripper and a goat who are leaving nasty things all over my nice clean carpet? Will a crack develop in the pool, sending chlorinated water all over the lawn on the hottest day of the year, boiling the grass to a nasty dead brown color? Will the kitten run off with the little black cat who skulks through our front yard from time to time, leaving me with no one to lay across my head at night? Will Tubby sit on Spanky and Mr. Fancypants, leaving Spot to wander the house in solitude, uttering his weird squeaky meows? Maybe I should just shut up and be glad for the lucky life I’ve had, ya think? ]]>
06/17/2000