Being broken really sucks...

**Warning** The first part of this is a rant about my knee issues, but then there's more fun stuff after that. :)

Not broke, although that sucks too, but brokEN. As in mind or body or even spirit, I guess. But in this situation, I'm talking body. For the past couple of months I have been dealing with some kind of injury to my left leg. It started at work when I got up from my desk one day to go to the printer and felt sharp pain in my knee. Holy moly did it hurt! But being the type of person that I am, I ignored it and hoped it would go away. The pain, that is, not my knee. hahaha. But it didn't go away. In fact, the pain gradually got worse. I went to an Urgent Care facility, but my blood pressure was real high and so all the PA cared about was me going to the ER to have it looked into. I don't have high blood pressure so I blew it off and went home. And still the pain continued. So I went to a different Urgent Care place and while my BP was still elevated, they weren't all fire and brimstone like the first place and ordered x-rays and gave me a prescription for Vicodin as well as a shot for pain...which did absolutely nothing for the pain. In the meantime, the pain had gone from the knee to a more traveling kind. In the morning it would start in my shin and by mid-morning it would be in my knee. By the end of the day it was in my hip and thigh area. It was terrible and I was taking more and more pain meds to alleviate it, which caused my BP to go up. Well, around about the time I went to the 2nd urgent care place, I started to get sick and that's how I ended up in the ER that day. I had been on my way to work, but I couldn't breathe because I was so congested and I couldn't walk because my knee hurt so much so I stopped at the ER in hopes of getting a breathing treatment or something. My BP was really high so they wouldn't let me go home. I have since seen a new Primary Care Doctor, who ordered x-rays of my knee and now I'm waiting to hear the results. I have access to my medical records online, but the x-rays haven't shown up yet and I'm beginning to think they're not going to. Next week I have a follow-up appointment so I may not know until then, which sucks.

And now we get to the point of this blog post. During this time, the annual Arabian show came to town. I took a day off from work so I could go, but I ended up having to "cancel" (I wasn't going with anyone) because it was a bad knee day. This past Saturday there was a Dressage festival in town. Yay! An opportunity to photograph a horse that wasn't Arabian or stock-type. But guess what? My knee hurt. Oh, and by now I'd progressed to using a cane to help me walk and when I go to the grocery store I use an electric scooter. Because of my weight I've never been super duper active or athletic, but certainly a lot more than what I've been reduced to now! The doctor suggested a pain medicine "schedule"...take certain drugs at certain times of the day...so as to stay ahead of the pain rather than wait for it to hit. I've been using it off and on and it does help some, but not always. Sometimes it just depends on how active I am during the day at work. When I have to move around a lot (getting up and down from my desk), the pain meds wear off quicker. At least the traveling pain has stopped and it's now just mostly in my knee and hip/thigh area, but I'm just so ready for this pain to be gone, you know? I had to miss an important meeting thing at work yesterday that we're all required to attend, but there would've been no way I could've walked from my work area to the conference room where it was, even with the help of a cane. So I went to my supervisor and explained to him the issue and he said I could reschedule it or look into doing a webinar, if that's available. He didn't seem too concerned about my not being able to attend, which is good.

So, this past Friday was my birthday. The big 46. Woohoo! hahahah. I took a couple of days off from work. On Friday I just hung out at home. We cooked a Ribeye Roast, which was totally nummy. I am easy to please. One day a year I require Prime Rib and that is on my birthday. Usually we go get something from Outback Steakhouse, but this past Christmas we'd made a real nice roast in the over for a fraction of the cost of the 3 of us eating out so that's what we did. We actually made 2 roasts because my brother wanted to use some of the left-overs for tacos and I wanted to make sure we had regular left-overs. Other than that, the day was nothing special. On Saturday was laundry and Sunday was our weekly grocery shopping. Monday, though, Monday was my day and I spent it out looking for wild horses. And boy howdy did I find some, including a rare treat. I finally saw my little mare Scarlett again for the first time in more than a year. The last time I saw her she was with Marty and Orion, but then she was pilched by another band stallion, who impregnated her, but somehow Orion got her back and now they have a cute little family of three. I don't know where Marty is, but I imagine he's running with another bachelor herd. I feel kind of bad for him since Scarlett was originally "his" and now his second in command has her. Oh well. That's how it works with wild horses. Anyway, I was driving along the road to the recreation site I used to see the Bachelor 4 + 1 all the time and I looked to my left and almost slammed on my breaks. I was so excited to see them. I'm a little bummed that Scarlett didn't seem to recognize me or wasn't curious about me like she has been in the past, but that's probably a good thing. It keeps her safer. Needless to say, I took a bunch of pictures. Most of them are on my big camera, but I took a couple with my cell phone.

Scarlett is the grey in the back and her colt, whom I'm calling Khasper for now, is in the foreground.  I'm surprised he still has so much of his winter coat considering how warm it's been.

After leaving there I went out of the area to do some other things, but then came back for another drive-through.  All of the horses that had been there before were now gone, which was a bummer.  I'd hoped to see Scarlett again, but I'm glad I saw her Monday.

They are doing road work on Bush Highway as well as resurfacing it so in one part, there's only one lane of traffic going through so you have to sit there and wait for your turn.  What a pain in the arse that is, but sometimes it's a little interesting.  Like them allowing a few cars to pass to our right at the Saguaro Lake turn-off. 

The box on my dashboard is my scanner.  Because the area is kind of canyon-ish, I don't always pick up transmissions in this area, but there was a cell phone tower at the marina so I got the best cell phone reception.  hahaha.  After the fiasco with the dead battery a few weeks ago I've thought about going to a regular carrier (I have Cricket right now) in hopes that I would get better reception at the recreation sites, but I don't know if I would or not.  It's not like I can get a phone then take it out to where I go and see if there's reception then bring it back if it's not good enough.  So I'm hesitant to change providers. 

A horse trailer passed to the left

The last time I was out here a trailer passed by and a horse had his head stuck out the window.  I was so mad to see that.  People can be real stupid.  Do they not realize something could injure his eye?  There wasn't even a fly mask on to help protect his eyes.  Aaaaargh.  Idiot.

So then I went back to Butcher Jones (I'd been there earlier in the morning) and as soon as I got closer to the beach area, I saw some horses near the water so I pulled over to the loading area and started snapping away.  Then, as I was leaving, some of them had moved to the inner part of the site so I had to stop and take more pictures

Again, most of my pictures were taken with my good camera and these are just cell phone shots.  A couple of the foals kept playing around, but then Diamond decided he'd had enough and stuck by Mom, but the other foal kept racing around.  I was worried he'd get hit by a car, but he stayed within the dirt area.  He kept kicking up his heals and having  a grand ol time.  It was cute to watch.

Well, on Friday my unit moves across the street so our work area is full of big, yellow totes to pack our desks into.  I haven't even started yet.  hahaha.  I might put a few things in today, though.  We'll see.

I guess that's it for now.