Don't fear folks ...

Everyday you wake up, behold there is something more to come.

Today I am reeling with the million dollar effect ...no, I do not "technically" have a million dollars in my pocket ... but I am feeling like it !

That's how quickly your life can change

THe return to work people are apprehensively waiting for the shoe to drop, so far this is all about the stars aligning ...and they have aligned just right for me.

Wow.

March is a Larch .. so far

Happy March 1st.

Today I can barely walk.

Yesterday was going down hill.

But I somehow still managed.

Today so far, every step is on the excrutiatory side of normal.

It takes 10 steps to even get me to be able to set this foot down, until it feels barely OK.

I fear calling the Lego-Man's office ... for a couple of reasons ... ONE .. he is not there, he is in Brazil. TWO ... I think he has someone on back-up, except I cringe at that thought considering that my very own Lego-Man has had quite a time figuring this out. And now he knows me, IF I go in ... the back-up person might destroy what little part of this socket that I have any comfort left.

I think my leg suddenly changed since last week, hence all this horrible-ness. The only way to describe this is to take your hand, place it on your other hand, over top of your blood vessels and tendons, then press down REALLY HARD, like put all your body weight into it, and rub it back and forth. It's a pleasant feeling no .. ? Your hand starts to ache, and your fingers tingle ... and all kinds of sensations start shooting along your hand ... no wonder this leg feels so shitty ...

Sigh.

I might need to traverse with the walker while this gets sorted out ... he's back on Tuesday .. SIX more days ... can I tough this out ... ? I'm not really sure ...

Another sigh.

And I only have a single leg to deal with ... there are some that have to deal with both legs missing, so I have it good ... I have it very good in fact.

Spirit me this ....

I went to spirit church the other night. I was not expecting anything, apparently I was glowing, with spirits. I think it had more to do with my bright pink polar fleece jacket with my very light grey/silver vest to go with it. I wasn't going to argue the fact, since I was spirit church and all.

The spirit church leader that night did point out an interesting piece, to which I have been greatly thinking about not just today, but in the weeks that have now since passed. One comment was the glowing feature, well cool, then she said I was working hard, but going in two different directions, and yet either direction wasn't necessarily the wrong direction .. and then she said to keep writing. OK, so here I am writing ... however; as much as I have thought about writing, I have been thinking lots about drawing. So I also grabbed a little TINY sketch pad, and have been drawing some random tidbits of objects & images that come to mind.

I was inspired a bit mind you, as I saw on good ole' Facebook that there was an autistic man that could draw landscapes from memory, like YUGE landscapes .... I immediately was drawn to his images as they were not by any means perfect, but what they did do was get your eye to see, and your brain just fills in the missing details.

So I picked up my little notebook and have started just filling it up, and to boot, I am using a crappy pencil. I think I will find a sharpener eventually, or even matter so, go and find the drawing pencils that I know I have around here ...

In other things far less exciting ... I am sorta getting a bit tired of this whole leg not working thing I have to deal with. Everyday I wake up and it's a balancing act as to what I wish I can do, what I can potentially do, and what I can actually do. That said, I can manage a great amount, until I can't do anything, any longer. It's sorta on the "obnoxious" side.... my lovely Lego-Man says I just love that word. And when referring to my leg any longer, the word just sorta fits... unlike the leg. He is on vacation right now. I very much think that vacations are obnoxious, especially when I am NOT the person on the vacation, and specifically when the person that you want to see is the vacationer. Next week I will go see him, I am certain that I will be perfectly pissed at how this leg is treating me by then, as if I am not already at odds with it at the moment.

All the above nattering aside, I am grateful and thankful for the continuous attempts that this guy has tried to master for me. This hasn't been easy, this hasn't been straightforward, and this road has long yet been traveled. AS always, I recognize this is only a single leg I am missing, and despite being sometimes temporarily enraged, I send good intentions to the universe to have this swing positively in my direction.

If I am talking with the spirits .. then hopefully my gang of followers will see to it that this comes to fruition.

June filled days

Wow. What a year.

This time last year, all things bad were coming to a head. Well, the volcano had already started erupting a number of months prior, however; at this point last year the writing was already on the wall.

Cancer was busily trying to take me down ... And it became evident that the cure measures had turned drastic. The long days from June, all the way to the very end of July were excruciating. A year later, and I am happy to let that horrific memory fade into oblivion.

Fast forward to this week. I was "promised" I could bring my prosthetic home LAST week, like the week before last. That didn't happen. I was probably slightly disappointed ... Given what I had gone through I said to myself ... Good gawd ... Did I shed a tear when I had to have my leg amputated ... Uhm no ... I certainly wasn't going to shed a tear when I couldn't have a leg when it was "slightly" promised to me ... And even at that ... I wasn't really allowed to do more than simply wear it while "sitting" ... So I wasn't that far ahead.

So this week coming up .. June 15th actually I think I am going to be "allowed" to have this leg "at home" with me ... So this is very exciting news .. Way more exciting than the abysmal news that I had  lived with this time last year.

Just to be clear ... Walking is hard .... It's very hard !! I am not complaining, nor whining, just an observation.

This leg continues to be a bit of a make work project ... I have a kneecap that is way out of kilter, I have to put on my leg that is not the normal way of putting it on, the muscles in the leg are developed in a different way than my left leg, numbness overcomes the leg when it stands in a dependent position, and the fact that it turns ice cold at the base of the leg. So, it has it's challenges, which makes the natural walking stride not so natural feeling. I think this is definitely all something that will definitely happen in time & familiarity, with more "wear" time.

In things full of comedy ... I got an X-ray yesterday .. Of this limb .. (To figure out what this leg is up to ... So the physio, Doc & LegoMan can sort things out ... They have determined they haven't ever encountered something like "this" leg, not sure how this is, but that's how it is) ... Anyways ... Because I actually "had" the leg on, the X-ray techs moved the wheelchair, and then the walker, and then said to me .. "Oh, just go over here" ... I had to say to them 3-4-5 separate times ... "So I know I have two legs  .. But I can't actually walk .. " Which is kinda funny to me .. Not sure how !

So happy to be here, on this June filled day. 

This guy ... Forever smiling .... He's just a character to the tenth degree !!

And this months love affair ... Brought to you by Rice Krispies, bananas, almond milk & chocolate syrup !!!

Amputee Advice Case file # 865

Today in amputee life of major proportions of frustration:

It seems that driving is a task beyond the horizon. Just a process of hurdles and hurdles. I would like it better if the process would just simply work. But it doesn't. I can't get someone to sign a form, with them not seeing me. It's a pain the ass. They don't need to see me. They fill in answers on a form, and then they sign it. What I want is some ink from their pen. I am not actually going to see my GP anyways ... I get to see a complete stranger, and she gets to sign off on me. How nice. A make work project.

Of course then there is the process of getting a bone scan. Of course the surgeons office secretary would have to fax a piece of paper from her office, to the hospital to get the bone scan scheduled. I have waited a week to hear from "someone", OF COURSE relying on the process that this would be the case .. .that the system would work. But it doesn't. Nobody knows that I am needing a bone scan. So I called the surgeons office back, to talk to an answering machine, and hope that the secretary did in fact fax the info. Most annoying ... After a week worth of waiting.

The LARGER process here is ... That I require somebody to DRIVE me .... See paragraph ONE.

Feel my frustration. Now times that by 1942. That is how I'm feeling right about now.

In things that are not so useless feeling ... I started a new wash clothe pattern ... It seems adequate .... So that is a good thing. Oh, and I am getting my hair coloured Wednesday ... To give it that boring brown but slightly natural but not natural look back!!

And in things that are causing confusion:

The band wants the boy to come back. Of course they do. They have good feelings that things are going to happen. Of course they do. Are they going to happen ... ? Right ... I seemed to have lost my crystal ball ... And just at a crucial time in life ... Again!  

Moments of what ifs:

There generally comes a day when life slows down to the grinding halt of nothingness. Absolute nothingness. Any reasonable human can seriously ask the question .. You can't be for real?

And yet, I am.

Seven months of hopping around, it begins to take it's toll.

Not in a way that brings about sadness, or in a way of regret, but one of "let's go already."

I have come up upon challenges that are not challenges, but are in fact speed bumps presenting as hurdles. My mindset is still focused on that I can definitely overcome these speed bumps, I just have to stop envisioning them as hurdles.

My hip is tired. Very tired. I begin any task of the day, and I am sorta just worn out faster because this leg is tired of working for two. I have to remind it to be kind to me, and hang on, it won't be long now before it gets to share the work. I have to remember to be gentle to it as well. Which in actuality means that all the tasks that I do, I must simplify, and ease this legs burden.
I need my G.P. To sign a form, which she is impossible to get into.
I have to ensure any appointment I try to make with the G.P. That I actually have a way of getting to the location to see her.
I am anxious to have this V.A.C. Removed to begin my world of rehab. A place where my lovely runner sits quietly on a shelf, waiting for it to begin it's adventures with it's twin! I am certain how I can hear it bellowing .. "Hurry the FRUITBALLS UP you moron!!"
Now I have to go for a Bone Scan, which in my opinion is a waste of time. But that's what I have to do.
I have to start doing my exercises again, which will happen tomorrow, once I get this V.A.C. Off.
I am dealing with the guilt of not exercising this leg, which for me everyday not exercising it, has huge implications when I return to walking in the next number of weeks.
Now I will have to deal with learning to drive with my left foot. I am going to genuinely assume that this will just become habit, and my love to drive will be free to me once again.

This isn't really a list of horrible items, but these are the things that are on my mind, constantly.

Getting my life back into functioning order. This is what I am waiting for. It's only been seven months as a one legged version, but it's been going on FOUR YEARS in the process.

Amputee Advice take 495

Well here we are ... Almost 7 months after this leg is chopped off ... And I now have a little VAC attached to me. This is good. We are on the upswing. We have caught this rather minute little wound making attempts to heal up, and disappear into the land of mysteries.

I would enjoy some rationalization as to why this has taken exactly this long ... Not the VAC, but the process. I want some reasoning behind the purpose as to why this has played out for as long as it has. There has to be a reason why things have just taken this long. AND I am not talking about the human biological process ... In the world according to the universe, there is a larger reason as to howcome this process has continued for so long.

Except I am not partial to that answer.

Is it self-discovery, or one of saving myself, a lesson learned in patience, or the universe just messing with me that I wasn't to be free in this world sporting a way more functional leg, and independent of all things that regular joes can do?

Again, these questions remained unanswered.

I just wrote to a friend ... And thought I would make the timely purchase of the Dr Suess Classic .. "Oh the places you will go" ... Because NOW, today, with this LAST LEG of the race so close .. I feel I have finally reached the finish line, and can embark on my untimely pilgrimage ..... I am ready.... Except I just need a couple centimetres of tissue growth to fill the gap .. Then I am ready.

In other things ...

So the antibiotics almost finished me off. Holy smokes ... They were a bad scene ... Although NOW that I am finished them after a quick four day course, as opposed to the original 14 days I was going to have to suffer from ... They are done, and I hope they remain done.

I did some invigorating chair yoga today ... I think over time I will get better at it ... Currently I just start to laugh. I am not sure why ... I just start laughing ... I think it's the NON quietness of my brain that starts talking to me, not allowing myself to find that claiming spirit or whatever it is. But, I think it's there .. Again ... More time to digest finding the strength to be still and quiet ... When all I think about is being up and at it, and movable and functional. At this moment in time, I come from a place of stillness and quiet ... And when it's "time" to be still and quiet I am having a hard time. Oh well, my very kind of insightful physio said this isn't a race. Which was a really good thing to say ... For me.

Well, the driving situation is about to become real ... Just a number hoops to jump before I begin that process, and then I will be good to go ... Functional driving assessments, people deciding whether you are capable, a doctors visit, money to change hands, then back to other people as to whether or not I can drive, then a phone call to the gadget guy .. And then I don't know .. Driving lessons, and then a road test ... It just goes on and on ... I wish now I would never had said anything ... And carried on like before ... Nobody would be the wiser ...

BUT for now ... Me and this little V.A.C. Will bubble about the home for the next number of days.

Today finally arrived.

This day took forever to get here.

I am fascinated that TODAY ... Arrived on the same day that a loved one had passed. I can't help but think of the reason for that ... !! I think that spirit father of mine had something to do with it.

My mom was fascinated with the spirit church thingy-majig. One day I will take her.

SO ... Today ... TODAY I got to stand on my lovely fake leg. It was so lovely to stand on that leg. Unbelievable beautiful actually.

My best best moment was The Lego Man ... Just sitting back, and giving me that moment of standing on that leg ... Letting me feel intact and whole again,... Letting me feel BETTER than I felt in so many months that have turned into years ... He just backed up, and let me have that moment of feeling like the person I once was, before this "thing" took over.

For comfort and safety sake .. I wore my green comfy vest ... What an unbelievable high.

Prosthetics ... What a pretty cool profession ... I certainly couldn't do it ... But GLAD somebody can!

Today WAS the day!!!

So today was the day it all starts ....

I start with the construction of a LEG!!!

I'm gonna get a leg.

A leg up.
A leg apart.
A leg down.
A leg worth of race.
My leg of this race ... Has arrived!

It is finally here ... Today was the day ...

BUT ....  Here's the funny part ...

I am only getting a leg, cause this has taken so long .... Not really because it's a real leg that I will be boomeranging around with any day soon.

It's a leg to appease my brain actually. A little snippet of reality of what is supposed to be really happening .... However ... It's not a real leg that can be justifiable HERE IT IS.

It doesn't make sense does it .... But that is the reality ... I am getting a leg, so I can just get going ... Get going on something .. And "on something" I will take.

So unbelievably excited .... FINALLY .... This woman is moving on! Just in time .. I got new runners too!