It’s been a month since the dingo stole my kidney. Lots of people have been asking how my recovery’s going, so here’s the sitch: I go back and forth between optimism and the blues. I’m still in a lot of pain and I’m still having difficulty walking, sitting, or standing for more than a few minutes. (Laying down’s not so bad.) But, I am better. A little. So that’s progress.

Next week I begin physical therapy on my back and legs. Think of it like this. For the last 12 months I’ve felt like there was a knife stuck in my abdomen all the way through to my lower back. It caused the muscles there to contract so tightly that, according to one doctor’s theory, they’ve wrapped around a nerve. Removing the kidney is the equivolent of pulling out the knife, but now we’ve got to fix the muscle problem.

I’m actually excited to start the physical therapy because I think it will really help. In the meantime, I still have three more weeks before I can go back to work. That’s frustrating, because I’d like to feel like a real, live, contributing member of society again, and three weeks seems like an awful long time to wait.

On the other hand, it’s great being home with Ethan and Penny all day. So there is a silver lining.