On Friday night, I was going to put my dishes in the dishwasher and head to bed. I stepped from the carpet of the living room onto the tile of the kitchen floor and the next thing I knew, I was on the floor on my ass with a broken glass in my hand. I sat there in total shock and pain as my husband cleaned up the broken glass and asked me if I was okay. I ended up hobbling to bed. He brought me ice and I put a compression sock on, thinking I'd probably sprained my ankle and would deal with it in the morning. It didn't hurt that bad at the time. I fell asleep with the ice on my leg.

The next morning, I could feel the weight of the blanket as I lay in bed. I really had to pee. I could tell none of the next steps were going to go well. I couldn't put any weight at all on my leg, so I hopped to the bathroom, took care of business, brushed my teeth, put on deoderant and some sweats and took the stairs on my butt, toddler-style. Then I called for my husband to drive me to urgent care. As we were trying to get in the car, he wanted me to lean on him but that hurt too bad. As we drove, he said if it was just a sprain, leaning on him wouldn't have been an issue. I started to get worried.

At urgent care they took some X-rays and told me I'd broken my fibula. They gave me a splint and some crutches and told me to make an appointment with an ortho doc. Today I went to a walk-in ortho clinic and got a stress X-ray, which is when the doctor grabs your broken bones and yanks your foot toward your ankle to see how big the separation between the bones is. The first time didn't work, but the second time I felt something go POP. It is sort of befuddling to me how I didn't scream when this happened because when I got the initial X-rays on Saturday morning, I was weeping like a baby every time the slightest bit of muscle would slide over the bone where it was broken. All day Saturday and Sunday I felt like I had severe menstrual cramps in my calf bones and popped hydrocodone every six hours like a boss. This morning, though, I woke up, felt okay, took two Advil and didn't kill the doctor when she grabbed my broken bone and squeezed. Funny how the human body works, eh?

She came back and drew a picture on the paper of the table and showed me if you break your leg HERE, everything's hunky-dory, and if you break your leg HERE, you definitely need surgery, but if you break your leg HERE (where I broke my leg), well, it's debatable. Then she told me after the bone-popping thing she'd be shocked if I didn't need surgery, here's my partner's card.

I have an appointment with the surgeon next Thursday, on New Year's Eve. The anticipated recovery time from surgery is three months. It's my driving leg, and my husband is supposed to be traveling for work almost 100% in the month of January, and who knows how much in February and March, when I may or may not be able to drive.

A lot has happened since Friday.

Part of me is absolutely terrified because one way I manage my anxiety is to exercise. Another part of me is terrified I'll gain a bunch of weight and trigger my eating disorder. Still another part of me is already feeling claustrophobic because I can't drive anywhere by myself or run out for milk or take my daughter to school. A fourth Type A part of me is annoyed because I'm the one who constantly picks up the piles around the house and I can't carry so much as a coffee cup and if this house turns into a set from Hoarder's I'm going to open a can of whoop-ass. But then another part of me knows I can't because my husband and daughter have to take care of me for who knows how long and that is a pain in the ass no matter how well-meaning you are.

So there's all that.

Then on the way out of the doctor's office we came upon a little old lady with a portable oxygen tank. She asked if we could please drive her to her car because she'd gone Christmas shopping that day and her husband passed a way a year and a half ago and she'd tired herself out. Of course we drove her to her car and my husband walked her to the door and I stuffed my broken leg and my crutches in the car and gave myself another firm lecture in perspective.

And yes, this isn't the Crisis Olympics, but I know quite a few people who have to have surgery in the next few weeks, so I'm definitely not alone in that. We all have our shit.

I'm going to try to view this as an opportunity to not freak out and prove to myself things can go wrong without my carefully constructed world going to hell in a hand basket. But it's hard.

Like really hard.

I found myself being super happy I went to the gym on Friday because it's going to be who knows how long before I can walk again. Life changes, just like that.

Well, a year and a half after I wrote Help, My Cat Can't Pee on BlogHer, my sweet little black cat, Kizzy, almost died again from a total urinary blockage. Thankfully, before he blocked completely, we'd already decided to take the rather dramatic step of perineal urethrostomy surgery.

Cats become candidates for this crazy surgery after they've been blocked three or more times, according to my vet. A year ago, we thought we'd never do it. The surgery is drastic: The vet cuts off the cat's penis and tacks the sides of the urethra open wider with sutures. After those sutures dissolve, your cat has a nice wide urine highway right underneath his anus. (He's still a "he," technically, albeit a "he" with no penis.) (Genitals don't equal gender, anyway. Kizzy would like you all to know he is indeed, still a mancat.)

Kizzy went in for his third catheterization several weeks ago, and I talked to my husband before I took him about the threshold for surgery. Primarily we wanted to weigh how likely Kizzy was to face problems later in life, like incontinence or pain. Secondarily, we wanted to know how much the surgery would cost. We were already shelling out hundreds of dollars every time he was hospitalized for a blockage, so our tolerance for vet bills is high, but we weren't going to bankrupt my daughter's college fund or anything. Finally, we wanted to know if it would actually work.

I, of course, asked Dr. Google, and that's why I decided to write this post. I did see a lot of message boards, but I didn't find many blog posts that detailed someone's personal experience from beginning to end, and that's really what I wished for when I went looking.

After we agreed to the surgery (which in the Kansas City area cost around $1,200), Kizzy was scheduled for the next day. (He was already catheterized and they needed to let that flush out and make sure he was okay before they proceeded.)

The surgery itself was done by a vet who had done them before and had no real complications from any of her patients. She told me after the surgery that Kizzy had developed scar tissue again immediately after his catheter was removed for surgery prep, and she actually had to amputate the tip of his penis in order to insert the surgery catheter. So, in other words, he was 100% blocked and would've definitely died if we hadn't had the surgery. This removed any doubt I had about whether or not the risk was too great in retrospect.

Read the rest over at BlogHer!

Hi everyone - it's time again to pull out your red shoes (or, if you're like me, share the news about rocking red shoes because you don't own any) and use fashion to raise awareness for how much HIV/AIDS is still disproportionately affecting women of color. (And women in general, but really, really affecting women of color.)

Some Facts

• There are approximately 1.1 million people living with HIV/AIDS in the U.S. and almost 280,000 are women.
• 1 in 139 women will be diagnosed with HIV/AIDS at some point within their lives.
• Among those who are HIV positive, 35% of women were tested for HIV late in their illness (diagnosed with AIDS within one year of testing positive).
• HIV/AIDS is the 5th leading cause of death in women in the United States, ages 25-44.
• High-risk heterosexual contact is the source of 80% of these newly diagnosed infections in women.
• HIV/AIDS disproportionately affects minority women in the United States. According to the 2005 census, black and Latina women represent 24% of all US women combined, but accounted for 82% of the estimated total of AIDS diagnoses for women in 2005.
• HIV is the leading cause of death for black women aged 25–34 years. The only diseases causing more deaths of women are cancer and heart disease.
• The rate of AIDS diagnosis for black women was approximately 23 times the rate for white women and 4 times the rate for Latina women.
• Teen girls represent 39% of AIDS cases reported among 13–19-year-olds. Black teens represented 69% of cases reported among 13–19 year-olds; Latino teens represented 19%.

How to Rock The Red Pump

• Share the hotness by uploading your pics on March 10 to your favorite spot (Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, your blog, etc.) and tag them with #RockTheRedPump.
• Sign up to blog about #RockTheRedPump.
• Read 5 Easy Ways to Rock the Red Pump
• Get tested. Here's a tool to help you find a testing center in your area.
• Educate yourself and your extended family about sexual health and disease transmission.
• Retweet, share and support your red-pump-wearing friends.

Idaho Representative Vito Barbieri asks if a camera women can swallow to show the state of their colons after colonoscopy could be used to prevent abortion.

Apparently, he does not understand the differences between the digestive system and the reproductive system.

YOU'RE FIRED, VITO.

Kizzy didn't pee last night. About an hour after I wrote my last post, though, his painkillers kicked in and he stopped his frantic litterbox laps and settled down. This morning, there was still nothing in his box, but he seemed cheerful, so we all went to work and school.

Around ten, I went to pick him up and he made a mournful noise. I called Beloved and he picked up the little angel and I honestly thought that was that, but when we got to the vet, Kizzy had a 180-degree personality change and started trotting around the place like a show horse.

He's not blocked. He just hadn't peed.

So then the vet tells us the bladder can get stretched out (much like Buttonsworth's megacolon) after a cat is blocked and so it takes the medicine he's on to snap everything back together. We blinked at each other and collected our little black cat and came home.

So now I think we are in the tunnel that connects a health crisis to the safety zone. Kizzy passed through this tunnel last year, and I'm praying he can do it again. It's a pretty scary tunnel, and I've been through it with people and with animals, and it never gets any more fun.

But he's still here, and I'm very very thankful for that.

Onward.

It's been a year and two weeks since the last time our little black cat had a health crisis. He had a urinary blockage last January with two rounds of hospitalization. Then we had a good year in which we fell in love with him even more.

On Friday night, he started acting frantic around the litter box. We took him to the normal vet, where they said his bladder was small so they gave him steroids and antibiotics. We took him home.

On Saturday morning, he was crying in pain. He'd vomited all over the basement in the night. We took him to the emergency vet, where he got a catheter and he stayed overnight. The bill equaled almost exactly our mortgage payment.

We brought him home this morning, and he slept on my stomach for two blissful hours during which I tried to memorize the soft feel of his fur on my skin.

About three hours ago, he started straining on the litter box again.

We called the vet. They said he might be reblocking. After we underwent several rounds of unfruitful hospitalization with Sir Charles Buttonsworth, the Manx we adopted at the same time as Kizzy, we promised ourselves we wouldn't keep throwing ourselves at chronic problems if we weren't willing to take the radical next step. In the case of urinary blockage, the radical next step is a surgery that essentially removes the cat's penis and turns him into a girl cat with a wider urethra. I won't judge anyone that would undertake that step, but we can't afford it, not if we want to be fiscally responsible and stay on track to free ourselves from the mountain of debt we built getting out of This Old House and into Chateau Travolta. One four-figure vet bill per year. We promised ourselves.

We've had the four-figure vet bill. Kizzy is currently straining on the box.

Beloved and the little angel think he just needs to drink more water, but I have watched this cat every day since the last blockage. I know the ins and outs of his litter box behavior.

This isn't going to go away.

I sit in the office, typing this post, and my human family sits in the living room, halfheartedly watching the Oscars, and my cat sits in the basement, frantic.

I told my family I won't wait for him to scream in pain. I won't let him spend another awful night vomiting and straining in the basement. I can't stand it.

I thought, this time ... this cat was so young and super-human. This cat walks on a leash and can leap to the top of the refrigerator.

I can't believe this is happening again.

I swear, after the old age death, we've had the acute kidney failure then the diabetes crisis then the megacolon and now the urinary obstruction. The vets must think we have pet Manchausen by proxy. We feed them all expensive prescription food. We scoop their poop every day, two litter boxes per cat. We filter their water and we do everything.

And they. keep. dying.

I don't know what to say.

But I have to say something, because I have to do something, because there is another half hour before I have to go feel Kizzy's bladder and figure out what to do.

Oh my God, I love this little black cat so much.

This week, BlogHer's parent company, SheKnows Media, partnered with Public Radio International on the #womenslives media initiative. Basically, we want people talking about women.

We need to do this because only about 24% of all news subjects talk about women in any way, and only six percent of news stories highlight gender in/equality.

So, basically, we're ignoring half the population of the earth. Daily.

You can take a step toward changing that. We're going to talk about gender and womanhood and equality and inequality and stigma and women's health using the #womenslives hashtag.

Did you know JLaw got the paycheck shaft on American Hustle compared to her male co-stars?

Did you know heart disease is the number one killer of women and the symptoms can be different for women?

Did you know young women are harassed online three times as much as young men?

Did you know that people used to believe only boys were dyslexic because only boys were studied?

Would you stay in an abusive relationship? Why this blogger did.

That there are so many posts about surviving and witnessing domestic violence is heartbreaking, such as this one from Beauty School Scarlet, this one from Brown Girl From Boston, this one from Living Off Love and Coffee, this one from Loving Ryan (her mother's boyfriend starting their acquaintance by killing her kitten), this one from Heart of Michelle, this one from Not a Stepford Life, and this one from Transparency.

That Super Bowl domestic violence ad was a real 911 call.

I'm a feminist, and I catch myself accepting inequality all the time because it's always been that way. The whole women's paycheck thing hasn't changed, it hasn't changed! Women get charged more for everything from hair products to shoes even though that paycheck thing exists. We still don't have a female president. Women hold 4.6% of CEO positions at Fortune 500 companies despite the fact more women than men graduate from college.

Change takes more than just conversation, but it gets harder to ignore or cover up things people are talking about. If you're the Facebook type, please join our Facebook group, where we'll be sharing information and talking about #womenslives every week.  Because all you need to do is believe in yourself. Like a girl.

No, like a woman.

Never give up. 

That is my philosophy. In writing and, it seems, in running.

I'm querying THE BIRTHRIGHT OF PARKER CLEAVES and BELLA EATS THE MONSTERS.

I just signed up for the Kansas City Marathon's Half-Marathon. It is in OCTOBER.

That should be warmer, right? 

If I just keep trying, I will eventually succeed. Because that is how it works.

OMG, it was so cold. Our car thermometer read 27 degrees when Beloved and the little angel dropped me off. I made my way down to the corrals, where we had to wait an extra 15 minutes or so because the traffic jam coming into the single entry-point was backed waaaay up. I was not happy with the delay, as that meant I spent my time stamping my feet and jumping up and down, wasting valuable energy.

I had some layer issues. When I did my shake-out run the day before, it was 18 degrees and windy, and one pair of running tights just wasn't enough. So to this half-marathon, I wore:

• 2 pair of socks (one compression, one wool)
• 1 pair of compression shorts
• 2 pair of running tights (one normal, one fleecy)
• 1 running tank bra
• 2 wicking long-sleeved shirts, one with a hood
• 1 long-sleeved tee
• 1 thin waterproof windbreaker for when it started snowing
• 1 neck gaiter
• 1 hat
• 1 pair of thick running gloves
• 1 water bottle (I always carry my own water)

I was okay except for my feet in the corrals. My right foot toes started to go numb before they released us, which was troubling. Then FINALLY we started. As we were taking off out of that single entry point, I saw swarms of unhappy runners walking in from the line of cars still waiting to turn in. I don't know if those guys went ahead and ran or not, but they probably did because a) it was a chip race, so the only thing that mattered was when your chip crossed the lines and b) I saw some incredibly fit-looking people finishing a half hour after I did. As I ran, I felt happy I was not one of those late people.

About two miles in, there was a steep hill. They had a start and finish line for the King and Queen of the Mountain. I saw some people really going for it, and I thought they were crazy to blow so much energy so early in the race. I, of course, also started out too fast, but at that point, I was so cold I had to move as fast as I could to avoid freezing solid to the highway.

When I got up the hill and then down the hill, I noticed something. I was ACTUALLY OVERHEATING. I felt awful. I stopped to try to get my neck gaiter off, and it got tangled up in my headphones and then they popped out of my ears and the little special ear thingies that keep the headphones in my ears fell off. I started cursing a blue streak as my cold fingers struggled to get the ear thingies back on and the headphones back in my ears. I ditched the gaiter and took off my hat and gloves. I have no idea how long that all took, but long enough. I was PISSED. 

After about three miles with no hat (my hair, oh my bedheaded, sweaty hair! so sexy) and no gloves, I started to feel better. And then I had to pee. Not terribly, but the way you have to pee when it is 27 degrees and you have been running for an hour. A port-a-potty appeared, and I remember how bad it was in my last half when I had to pee at the end of the race, so I sacrificed another 90 seconds or so to peel down four layers of bottoms and do the business.

Wearing more clothes than Shakira owns and really, this is so not flattering.

I actually felt more gross at this point than I expected to. I think the overheating thing was not good, especially in the face of it being below freezing. I was still pretty hot, so I stopped again to remove my armband/phone, take off my windbreaker, tie it around my waist and put my armband thing back on. I was chewing two sports beans about every 10-15 minutes at this point, because any time I run for more than an hour I start to feel dizzy if I don't get some nutrients. I fought off side stitches for probably the middle 5-6 miles, but thankfully they never went full-blown.

Despite all these issues, I really enjoyed the course. I saw a few hawks and falcons and the water and woods were pretty. I have biked around this area plenty of times. It's nice and flat for much of the course with some very slight rolling hills. The area around my house where I train is hillier than this pretty course was.

At the 10-mile mark, there was another hill, and I decided to walk through the water station and up most of the hill. My theory was that I would gun it down after and not stop again until the finish (hubris). I saw a sign that said, "Mom, Run faster, I'm cold." I thought that was really sweet. I was almost on top of MY OWN DAUGHTER HOLDING THE SIGN when I realized Beloved and the little angel were watching me walk my ass up the hill. I was so embarrassed. But the sign was awesome.

I rallied after seeing them and slogged my way through until mile 11, when my feet went completely numb. It is hard to run with numb feet. I was seriously concerned about turning an ankle and being left for dead on the highway. A few times I had to stop and stamp my feet to try to get some feeling back in them. All around me, people seemed floating along effortlessly. This hurt. I trained my ASS off for this race. I have never worked so hard. But the end result felt the same. I was dying, and mile 12 was way more walking than I wanted it to be. I kept willing myself to run faster and more, but my brain totally checked out when my feet went numb. I wish I could write a glowing review of my performance, but really I was pretty embarrassed and sad that I didn't beat the time from my first race. It was the EXACT SAME TIME. How does that even happen? But it was.

After I finished, I had to find Beloved and the little angel, who had abandoned the car and were walking toward me from where they had to park out past the 8-mile mark (the course doubled back on itself). I almost started crying when I realized my phone was dying and I didn't know where my family was and I was so, so cold and soaked in sweat and wrapped in a piece of mylar. The feet I still could not feel were attached to legs that could only hobble, and y'all, I felt forty in every bit of my bones.

But then! I saw them! Beloved gave me the outer shell of his ski coat and the little angel asked me why I was wrapped in a balloon and we walked for twenty minutes to get back to the car. At the side of the car, I took off the windbreaker and the long-sleeved cotton tee and the two long-sleeved wicking tees and it seriously felt warmer standing there in a tank top that was not wet. We climbed in the car and the heat was on and it was the best moment of my life when the heat hit my cold fingers.

Then the little angel asked to see my medal and Beloved said he was proud of me and then later Pa said he wished he had the gumption to do something like that and I remembered it's not about whether I'm getting faster or whether I look cute in my running clothes.

It is about staying in the game of life for as long as I can, as strong as I can. And I finished. Thanks to everyone who offered encouragement here and in social media and on Runkeeper. It really does help.