Another week down on this rotten emotional rollercoaster. It’s gotten old, folks. Just when I feel like things are getting better, I get knocked right back down again. This week was supposed to bring me a lot of hope and optimism. And I did get good news with the surgeon. But I’m ending the week feeling overwhelmingly discouraged.
Monday was a pretty good day. I’m one of those people that LOVES Mondays. Getting back into a routine (i.e. sending everyone back to school and work!), jumping back into my projects, and basically just enjoying some silence after what is always an inevitably long and stressful weekend. I spent the day working and the evening out with my friend Laura. We were going to check out a new restaurant, but I stupidly read the website wrong and it turned out being closed. 🙁 We ended up at a different Mexican restaurant which was delicious too, but I’m anxious to get back to the originally planned place – when it’s open!
I begged Laura to take me to Walmart after we ate. I was so desperate to get to a store without Greg and kids following me around. We spent a really long time strolling all the aisles while I thoroughly enjoyed the chance to pick out food that impulsively sounded good to me. It was great to get out, but it also really whet my appetite for shopping on my own again. I miss it SO MUCH. It’s so hard even to find a time to shop with Greg. We’re so busy during the week, and the stores feel too busy to tackle on the weekend with kids and a scooter. I miss Target. I miss Woodman’s. I miss thrift stores and antique malls and crafty stores. But Walmart was nice. 🙂 I truly appreciate her understanding my need to get out of the house and talk to someone other than my family for a night!
Tuesday was fairly uneventful. I had another physical therapy session that just involved an incision/foot/leg massage and some stretching. I worked the rest of the day. We had an at home date night and I made another batch of curry.
Wednesday was the big day! Six week post op with the surgeon. As we saw on my x-ray, the bones are healing very well. You can just faintly see the lines where the breaks were. The third break was on the other side, but they didn’t put in any kind of hardware for that fix. The doctor also pointed out that little sliver of bone between the ankle and foot bones is a chip from one of the breaks that they failed to remove. It shouldn’t cause any problems, though. Anyway – the good news is that the bones are healed. Now I just need to recover from the sprain. I got the go ahead to start weight bearing. He wasn’t specific about percentages or a timeline, but expects that within 2-4 weeks I should be able to walk without the crutches. That felt really soon! So great news that I SHOULD be able to do it. I just failed to realize at that moment how HARD it’s going to be to get there.
Greg had to go into work after my appointment, so I spent the day with my furry babes. It was National Pet Day, so I stalked them until I could get a cute picture of each of them. I love my pets so much! They all have such different and distinct personalities. Annie is my best companion, Rory is my snuggliest cuddler, and Jack is the one who wants to be by me, but only if I don’t show him too much attention. They all make me so happy.
On Wednesday night, Shepard finally won a battle that involved him buying his own hand saw and leather gloves… Caden’s friend a few houses down recently got his own saw. I haven’t seen it with my own eyes, but apparently it’s quite large and double bladed. Shepard has been DESPERATE to get one for himself. I didn’t realize “we” were seriously contemplating letting a seven year old own a saw, but Greg took him to the hardware store and they came home with this. Apparently this is the wood blade and it comes with a second that will cut through metal… Shepard was quite proud of himself, though I’m hoping the novelty wears off pretty quickly! He can only use it with an adult present and it’s hiding from him the rest of the time. But still. Danger danger!
Thursday was perhaps the biggest of days because I had my first weight bearing physical therapy appointment. Greg had a work event, so my mom brought me and sneakily took a photo. I’m glad I was wearing something nice since I posted this picture all over the place!! 😀 I wasn’t really sure what to expect at my session, but it ended up being pretty intense. I had a different therapist (and the one I’ll see the most often) and she seems much more hardcore than the lady I’ve had the last three times. The first thing she asked me was why I was on my scooter. I was trying to explain that I hadn’t done ANY weight bearing yet, but she didn’t seem to really understand. It was very clear she expected me to be on my crutches at all times. Does she realize how far it is from the door of the hospital all the way back to the physical therapy area?! Anyway, I guess it went fairly well. I did some sort of pedal machine and then was told to just start walking with these handrails. I was putting most of the weight on my wrists when stepping down with my bad foot (which I was also scolded for), but I went back and forth a bunch and then up and down a hallway on my crutches. I learned more ROM exercises and got a brief incision massage. It was rough! I didn’t feel like I was dying, but it really wore me out. And creeped me out to see how much I was swelling before my eyes as she twisted my ankle in every direction at the end. I’m sure having a tough therapist will be good for me in the end. But it was a bit of a shock this first time. I was not prepared.
The boys had an open house and ten year anniversary celebration at their school Thursday night. We met the grandparents at Burger King for a quick dinner and then headed over to school. Caden was excited to show us the sign he made.
Caden at his desk. He’s so good at smiling.
Shepard at his desk. They were both so excited to show everything off to us.
It was a really nice event! I’m so happy that we chose to take the path of this charter school. It ended up fitting the personalities and interests of our kids so perfectly. I’m really sad that in less than two months Caden will be moving on to middle school. (Yes, middle school in fourth grade.) We’ve had nothing but good experiences with DCS.
Friday was a big work day. I finished up these three Mother’s Day dolls and three secret dolls. I decided to have a big of a grand re-opening in tandem with my five year anniversary of doing Heartstring Annie at the beginning of May. My goal is to have quite a stack of new and unique dolls to list on the actual anniversary, May 3rd. But I also want to consistently be putting out pertinent Mother’s Day and teacher gift dolls before that, keeping interest up and sales coming in. I think the next few weeks are going to be jam packed with extra work hours, trying to fit it all in. But I think I’m up for it.
And finally, Friday night and all of today have kind of been back to meltdown city. We’re having our never ending struggles with behavioral issues in a certain child. I’m pretty resolved to the fact that this is just our lives and it’s never, ever going to change. Nine straight years of it is a pretty good indicator this is who he is and the older, stronger, and more vocal he becomes, the worse it’s going to be. I thought we had a bit of a breakthrough last night with actually talking some things out, and then it was a thousand times worse in the morning, as if last night never even happened. It’s so discouraging. And it’s SO hard to deal with on top of everything else going on right now. Child number two has had many extremely difficult days since I broke my ankle too. Though I’m pretty sure that’s a direct correlation to the change in our family dynamic with me not being able to do as much. So hopefully those problems will soon come to the end. The other stuff, though… It feels hopeless.
The promise of being able to walk within 2-4 weeks also feels hopeless. I probably only spent 5-10 minutes actually walking with my crutches yesterday and it hurt SO BAD ALL DAY. I don’t feel like it hurt that much when I was at therapy on Thursday, but maybe because I had an audience and wasn’t as in tune to the pain? Yesterday was awful, though. And I can’t decide if this is normal and I need to push through it, or if I genuinely should not be putting weight on yet. I’m pretty sure the therapist thought I should be using the crutches to partial weight bear at all times now. Which I’m definitely not doing. I couldn’t even work up the energy to try a simple walk until after 11 today. It feels too hard. I don’t think I can do it. I genuinely feel like I’m never going to be able to walk again. And that’s terrifying. I don’t know if I have it in me to do this.
There’s also just this constant frustration with always needing things that are too far away. I need to be wearing my boot if I’m on my crutches – absolutely no weight on it yet without the boot. But I need my boot off multiple times a day to do my ROM exercises. Plus my whole leg is just so much more comfortable without the boot on. I need the crutches whenever I go upstairs, but I can’t carry the crutches with me when I crawl up (and I’m not ready to attempt going up a full flight upright yet). I’m allowed to sleep without my boot, but then when I wake up in the morning and need to go to the bathroom, I can’t put my boot on because the velcro is so loud and will wake everyone up. So I try to quietly hop to the bathroom, but nothing about using crutches or hopping is quiet. I should probably be wearing a shoe to even up my hips a little better when I am walking, but I hate wearing a shoe in the house as much as I hate wearing a boot. And I need to wear a sock with a shoe, but I can’t wear a sock around the house on its own because the floors are too slippery and I risk falling. Meanwhile my knee is rubbed completely raw and shredded from using the scooter and crawling up stairs (and sometimes around the second floor when my crutches aren’t up there). Which is painful, but is also super itchy. But you can’t scratch at already shredded skin. And the biggest obstacle – if I’m on my crutches, I’m still putting most of the weight on my wrists – so I definitely don’t even have a spare finger to try and carry anything. Everything I do on the second floor of the house is on my crutches. Gathering my clothes, trying to put things away, just bringing my phone to my room is a nearly impossible feat. And my wrist pain! I have been prone to severe wrist pain ever since I was a teenager and this is doing nothing to help those problems. It’s all just this CONSTANT string of problems and complications and obstacles and it feels like TOO MUCH. I hate this. All of it!
Anyway, to top all of that off – the weather is horrendous right now. Freezing rain, sleet, awful winds. If I could at least practice my weight bearing on a walk around the block, it would be so much better! But there’s no way I’m risking slipping and breaking another ankle right now! Also, Greg and the boys were supposed to spend the day at Great America tomorrow, but that’s definitely not happening with a high of 36 and snow in the forecast. When is spring going to come?! This is absolutely miserable. I’m so tired of being cold and trapped.
Well, that was my week. Sorry about the big vent at the end. I was just really expecting this to be easier once I could start walking a bit. It’s not. And I don’t know when it will be. But life goes on. I’ll dig deep and get the motivation I need to get through this. Somehow. 🙂
Congratulations on your appointment and everything. I broke my ankle March 3,2018 and I’ve been reading your progress and it has been giving me hope and a positive outlook on everything. Thank you so much for your post and good luck with everything.