Jury Duty

I had Jury Duty this month. It had been several years since I last served on a Jury. The court house is about 13 miles from my house. I normally don't really mind it. Often its just one day, than you are done. One of the hardest things is finding parking. It is amazing how bad it can be. Now that almost every step I take hurts badly, I circled a lot trying to find something fairly close. Sometimes I was successful, sometimes not.

Last week I got a temporary handi-cap card. My first ever. It did not even occur to me when the last hip got bad, until the week before I had it replaced. This time a co-worker hearing me complain about having to park about 3 blocks from work now, has been urging me to get one. I resisted. I am not handi-capped. It just temporally hurts like hell to do so. It won't always be that way. But I thought, well maybe just for work until I have surgery. I did use it at the court house once. The other times I was desperate enough, the close handi-capped were full also.

I like that after the first day, it starts a little later than my work does. I like having a good excuse to sit and read while I am waiting. I like that its something different from work. I like the nice long lunches. The 3 criminal cases I had been on before were pretty interesting. When I heard this one would be a civil case lasting about 6 days I was not so interested. Turns out it was much shorter, and more interesting than I thought.

But I feel bad about the way it ended, and kinda bad about myself, and bad for the plaintiff. Unlike the unanimous verdict we had to reach on the other 3, civil only needs 9 people to agree. The plaintiff had made some big mistakes, so I did not think she should get much money. However, I felt the defendant had made some mistakes also, so she (plaintiff LK) should have gotten a little. Another juror felt like me. But after 3 days of trial, the rest of the jurors made up their mind in less than 5 minutes (if not sooner), and did not want to really listen to me and the other dissenter. It was pretty much, OK, we disagree, but we have 10 people of one opinion, yours does not make any difference. We are done. So we were out really early. We were to be prepared in case either side wanted to poll the jurors, and I was kind of hoping LK would, so she could see I was not in agreement, but she did not choose to. I could not even look at her, I felt so bad. This was not such a bad thing it will ruin her life or anything, but the rushed, arrogant oral surgeon should have had to pay a little bit to remind him, patients can make mistakes. Its up to you to take 5 minutes to make certain they are really saying what they want, not confused cause they are so nervous about the surgery or what ever. I can't help thinking what if that had been me. So Lisa, I am sorry. and Dr. M. it would not kill you to take 5 minutes more of care and compassion to double check first.

I was back at work before lunch. That was less than great also. I was only gone 1 vacation day and 3 Jury days and they changed a lot about what I do already. They are even less organized than I was last week, and now they want me to do things that way. I am organized, and it bothers me to have to tell people all day long "I don't know where it is", when I used to know when I had my system. Now the system I am told to use for a lot of things, is to throw them in a pile and they are some body else's problem now. I hate it.

Guess I have not written since I visited the Otho surgeon. I was pretty sure he would say that yes, I do need a hip replacement. But now it is official. I said I was thinking of around June 1, is that too soon? His answer was "well, the hip joint is worn out, but if its just a minor inconvenience, then you can wait. If it is substantially impacting your life, you should probably do it". Minor inconvenience! Well at least a dozen times a day it feels like I am being jabbed with an ice pick. I am way worse than a year ago, and probably will be worse by June. I guess I will be doing it around June 1 give or take a couple weeks. YIIKES!!!.