I am terrified of the total knee replacement, both the operation, the post-op pain and the pain of rehab, but I can’t go on like this, unable to walk, unable to garden any longer, unable to do most of the activities I enjoy most, except writing.  I’m not anticipating much of that for the next month,I don’t care about the holidays and while I enjoy some aspects of them very much – parties, lights, friends, gifts – I can do without all of it to take my mobility back. They have, of course, absolutely no religious or spiritual meaning for me, only a secular good time, usually.  It’s always a lot of work too.  We are not going to hold our annual solstice party this year, since I won’t be able to do the work.I went into Beth Israel-Deaconess on Tuesday.  I was supposed to meet with one doctor, but when I arrived, I had been moved to another.  We were very worried what this might mean.  But the new doctor, Dr. Davis, was warm and brisk and listened to me.  When I said I didn’t care about the holidays, he said, well what about next Monday or the one after?  I think I can squeeze you in.So I was fast=tracked and very happy at the same time that I am frankly scared and full of anxiety.  I can think about nothing else.  Tuesday while I’m in the hospital a chair/bed is coming.  It’s for the office downstairs. We’ll get rid of the lousy bed down there finally and redo the room.  We’ve been talking about doing that for two years.  If I find it difficult to keep going upstairs and downstairs, I can stay there, but I intend if I can to go upstairs where my office and bed are.  It’s all up in the air. I am hoping the surgeon will decide I can go home Thursday and not into an inpatient rehab facility.  Woody is very nervous.  This morning he is off in Hyannis buying crutches.  I’m supposed to come into the hospital with a walker – which I borrowed from the Senior Center here in Wellfleet – and a cane that I own alrady, which I’ve had to use for a couple of months now to hobble around.  But I am five feet one only and all the crutches the Senior Ctr had were too tall for me.I researched on the internet and found a place in Hyannis that sells crutches. I have to pack a bag. They say to bring nothing you can’t stay to lose. Apparently hospitals are great places for theft. I have a brand new Macair I was planning to play with while I’m bed-ridden, but it seems I can’t do that. Can’t even bring my droid.  Books are okay.  Hardly anybody reads them any longer, so who would steal my books?  We get up @ 3:30 again Monday to drive in through a storm.My assistant Melenie and her boyfriend Jay are coming over today to help us redo the office downstairs.  Then we’ll all have supper. Since we had Thanksgiving at a friend’s house, we had no leftover turkey and Woody has been craving it.  So it’s turkey tonight, potiron tout rond, probably beans with mushrooms.  Woody is buying dessert since I won’t have time to make a pie today.  Right after this, I go back to prep.  I’m trying to make the house okay for me if I’m on a walker or crutches, as they say I will be for a week or two or three….It’s possible I’ll write a blog next Saturday but probable I’ll skip a week. I worry about Woody who has so much driving to do back and forth to Boston and I worry about the cats, although Melenie and Naomi from the library will take good care of them.