I'm writing this while the narcotics kick in.

I had to have the surgery, which was this previous Wednesday. It went just fine; I'm put back together with a metal plate and about six screws, or so I'm told. The doctor is great, and I'm glad I ended up with him instead of someone else. He's good at explaining things in a way that isn't overly technical but doesn't condescend. I was absolutely scared shitless, but I think I handled it pretty well. At least the day of, I did, cracking jokes with the nurses and only squealing minimally as the anesthesiologist took 35 minutes prodding the back of my knee to inject the block and waking up in the recovery room to ask for my glasses and put in all my earrings without a mirror, then proceeding to go home and haul my sorry ass upstairs to tear into a chicken caesar wrap. I'm glad for the splint and the Ace bandage covering it all, though, because I nearly faint when I see that five-inch-long incision held together with staples and oozing whatever it is that giant wounds ooze.

Hey, I'm a cook, not a Rotten.com editor. And I'm goofily delighted by the big foam wedge I was given by the hospital. It's enormous and yellow and looks like a piece of radioactive cheese, with a channel cut out for my leg. I like it a lot more than the body pillow I was using to prop up my leg, because my foot doesn't sink into it. I'm also stuck wearing a compression stocking on the good leg for the next two weeks. It's ugly and itchy and I hate the fucking thing, but better that than the possibility of deep-vein thrombosis.

It's now, after the fact, that I'm starting to have the major freak-out. I suppose it's had time to sink in and all that. Every morning I pore over the classified ads in the county newspaper, sift through all the scams on Craigslist, send out e-mail inquiries and record voice tests. Anything to find a job I can do from my bedroom, because bills don't stop coming just because my car's in the junkyard and I can't walk to any of the businesses that would conceivably pay me to do work for them. I know I shouldn't be discouraged, but it's getting frustrating. I don't like being so god damned useless. And I can't do much cooking, either. I have to sit at the kitchen table and have stuff handed to me. Which is better than not being able to hop out to the kitchen at all, I suppose, but when I've dedicated the last two years of my life to this and now suddenly can't stand at the stove daydreaming over beurre blanc if I damned well please, I think it's understandable that I now wish to throw things. I can only get a shower every few days because it's a fairly big undertaking - my mother helps me, and I have gotten over my embarrassment at her seeing me naked for the first time in twenty years because I pretty much have no other choice if I ever want to bathe. So in between I have to make do with hooker baths and no-rinse shampoo, which does a good job, actually. This, however, does hurt my pride because I am one of those people who prefers a nice long hot shower every single evening, and I have a pathological fear of smelling bad.

I don't know what I'd do without my friends - one sent me a care package last week and another wants to send me one too; I've gotten a million texts and e-mails and IMs and phone calls from them. But it's not the same as knowing I could just go drive to someone's house if I felt like it, which I can't, obviously. JD is going to drive up next weekend if I'm up to it, presumably to get me out of the house for a belated birthday celebration. Most of the time, I'm pretty much left to my own devices. I can't really carry stuff unless it fits in the little bag I bought to snap around the hand-grip of my crutch, so my parents pack a little cooler of ice with drinks and food and leave it in my room so I don't hurt myself trying to fix lunch. Even with everyone being so nice - and honestly, I'm fucking floored by the concern I've been shown - it's still a pretty damn lonely existence, and every day I don't have a job is another day to be made acutely aware of it.

The pain itself has gotten worse since surgery. Before, it was more of a general grinding ache, and didn't bother me so much unless I'd been doing a lot of hopping around. Now it's sharp, and acute, and the muscles of my bad leg have atrophied and twitch violently whenever they damn well please and makes me shriek hysterically in pain. I hate when that happens, because the shriek is inevitably followed by crying, which never fails to quickly turn itself into hyperventilating and hysterical sobbing. And it scares me, because I'm wholly unused to losing control of myself like that. Yesterday it took me until dinner time to get me to stop it entirely, and actually I'm grateful to have been left alone for most of the day. I can't stand anyone seeing me a total wreck, even if I write about it publicly.

I don't know if anyone reads this blog, much less cares about some chick they've likely never met and don't give a shit about. But it feels good to write. Writing gives me something to do and takes my mind off how soul-crushingly numb I've become. But then, losing everything you've worked so hard for will do that.