Ouch and Randomness

The walker thing is nice, but it also allows me to move more. Which is the goal. Plus I was told to start walking around home without support. Which I did last night.

I didn't honestly think about how much exercise that ankle got yesterday before I worked on walking at home some, and so I woke up aching. The morning is always worst, but today the ankle has hurt all day long, without stopping. And nearly every time it flexes it pops. Loudly and painfully. The PT I work with said that is probably the damaged ligaments rubbing over something and that I've overdone it and need to rest it more. Based on the pain I'm a little concerned that I have a small fracture in one of the bones that is just before your toe starts. But the xray was negative. Thanks to not being able to sit down much at work this is going to be an issue. I'm suddenly realizing that this boot may be part of my work life longer than I want to think, that I may be walking in a shoe outside of work for a while before I'm working with 2 shoes. Then after work I needed to run errands. I couldn't handle all of them, and I wound up using my crutch for the last two, but oh it hurt.

If anyone has used an aircast before, I'm totally confused about how much air to put in. If I put in what feels comfortable, as soon as I change positions it starts feeling like it is pushing the swelling in and hurts. Then I let air out and it's not supportive enough. I know how to use air hand splints, but this is different.

For now I'm sitting with some ice packs, and then I'll be using the immobilizer at least tonight and maybe tomorrow if it still is really sore.

I also accepted today that I am going to be in PT longer than I want. I'd hoped to make it a couple weeks and out, but I'll be surprised if I'm totally unbraced by anything at all in 2 weeks. I don't know if I'll graduate to a different brace, but for now I'm a long way from a work day without support. I was so shocked at how much it hurt today; it hasn't hurt this bad since last Friday.

Hopefully tomorrow I can keep it up and comfortable. I'm resting tomorrow. I want to cut out a pattern that I don't think is hard to cut, and that's about it. Sunday I'm going to go to my mom's and hopefully the grocery.

Signs of the times with the economy? (I live in one of the hardest hit states. When I was unemployed I was one of something like 12% of the population). In this county we have one small mall. It has one tiny version of Borders. That store is going out of business, like much of the rest of the mall. Which means that if you want a book and don't want to order online and it isn't one the grocery or Walmart carry you have to drive an hour to the city. And that's happening as our libraries are being shut down by budget cuts. I'm kind of horrified.

There was a recent story posted listing the top recession-proof jobs. Nursing was first, followed by several seasonal positions and then OT. I'm so thankful that I stumbled into something like this. Otherwise I'm sure I'd still be looking for work and trying to live on whatever tiny amount I got per week on unemployment.

Not a lot else to say. I'm fantasizing about repainting my bedroom, which I want to do this summer. I actually want to re-paint the kitchen, hall, bathroom (which is itty bitty and takes like 30 minutes) and my bedroom this summer. When I bought this house I wanted my room to be a soft peach. That is not the color it wound up. I don't know what color I'm going to go with. Very pale green? Pale blue? I like watercolory colors. I'm not a big pink person but I can see a very pale pink and accents from Target's shabby chic line, which I like. Any suggestions? The bathroom is going to be a light lavendar (already have accessories), the kitchen off-white with multi-color accents (I have a cat collection and will frame cat pictures for the walls). The office and living room are both a greenish-blue that I love. The other room will be grey soon with some calming colors added. The house is a small ranch, so the colors need the flow (another reason I hate the peach. For some reason that I think involved what color I had dark enough to cover the ugly paint that was on the hall when I bought the house it was painted peach as well. It is not a good seque into the green/blue areas.