I’m not sure if Karma means a tit-for-tat, eye-for-an-eye type thing, or if it’s more that, in general, goodness rules over bad. So, if I steal a parking spot from someone I know had waited for it, I know that I’m likely to end up parking in whoop-whoop the next time I’m running late and desperate for a space. This is a sliding scale, of course. If I steal a parking spot from an old lady, well, then I’ll never find a parking spot and go around in circles searching  until I have to pee so badly that I have to give up and drive home. The punishment fits the crime.

Karma keeps me honest: Give the parking spot up to the old lady and someday someone will give up theirs for my walking-disabled mom. It’s not exactly a giving philosophy — it’s wildly self-serving. I like to think of it this way: I get out of life what I put into it, and if I can be as good a person as possible, I’m likely to reap that goodness from others. I also believe in the opposite. So, it was no surprise the other day when I suffered from a case of bad karma.

I was hiking with my best friend and talking trash about one of her other friends that I really don’t like. I think this woman is beneath her; worthless and, if I can remember correctly, even called her a “waste of good air.” Oh yeah, I had it coming. My friend mentioned to me that this woman had tripped over a tree stump hiking the other day and broken her arm — I told her it couldn’t happen to a better person.

And then, I fell over a tree stump.

I ended up in the ER with a giant bruiser on my ankle. Crutches, a splint, the whole bit. I didn’t have a single oh crap moment — I knew that I had paid a debt that I owed the House. What’s fair is fair, right?

My foot hurt is still swollen as all getout. It hurts. Again:  punishment fits the crime.

Hobbling around town on crutches last week, people asked me what happened to my foot.

I simply replied: “Karma.”

The knee is so-so, but admittedly better than before in meniscus pain and even some areas of range of motion just four days post-op. This surgery is a six-week setback in recovery. I was set to complete physical therapy by the second week of August, now we’re somewhere in the mid-Fall.

Hard is surgery and knee recovery, but in some ways, the side effects are worse. Sleep is near impossible between pain and the noise from the 24-7 ice machine droning next to my head. Medication makes me tired but not sleepy and sick to my stomach. Somehow I got my sternum bruised or injured during surgery and it hurts like hell. The Spondy I live with normally is on month two of a flare up (imagine constant, non-stop sciatica through the butt and down the legs). There’s the lack of exercise, the inability to be an active mom and, currently, the inability to take a fricking shower without fully wrapping my leg in Press-n-Seal food wrap.

It’s hard to stave off depression. It’s hard to stay Up, happy, interested in the world around me. The kids’ birthdays are next week and I’ve got a deer-in-the-headlights look about me. I’ve got to figure out how to put one foot in front of the other — and soon.

For tonight, pain and exhaustion are overwhelming. Fear of blood clots and chest pain are making it downright scary.

I am having surgery tomorrow morning to remove the torn meniscus.

I am sad.