Blagh

My mixed episode dramatically changed from being primarily agitated to being very depressed in the last 48 hours or so.  I went from sleeping less than usual to wanting to do nothing but sleep.  I'm even falling asleep before midnight and taking naps.  Those things never happen.  Tomorrow I increase my gabapentin which we hope helps and doesn't snow me.  I've been on 400 mgs of gabapentin for quite a while now without major problems but in the past 600 mgs was enough to knock me out and make me completely incapable of doing things like writing emails (I actually sent emails that read sdkjflasjdfoiajr and not to the person I intended to get that priceless message) so we don't know for sure what 500 mgs will do.  I hope help me feel better fast.  I suppose I probably could start my light therapy now but I want to see how things progress for a few more days before risking increasing the mania.  It's so hard to believe it is there, even my PT noticed today that I wasn't myself (ok, I've been going there 2-3 times per week for 2 months, probably it's not that surprising that they notice; the whole staff notices when I'm using the treadmill instead of the easier recombinant stepper) but still I usually can hide this for 45 minutes.  Not today.  If it doesn't work I have no idea what will happen because as far as I know the only remaining options are to add older, often nastier anti-psychotics at a low dose and hope for the best.  Because of my history of movement disorders that has to be done very carefully and we've tried to avoid it.  I also don't want to have to take meds 3x/day.  I'm just getting back on my morning meds, which often are forgotten when I have an episode.  Since one is thyroid it is probably part of why I feel so crappy but I can only do the best I can.  I'd go back to just taking it at night but I need to take nexium twice a day with this much Seroquel so I have to remember the AM meds anyway.    Even then I break the rules. I somehow didn't know synthroid had to be taken on an empty stomach and never did it that way so my dosing has always reflected taking it not quite right.  Not changing that now.

I realized today that it is going to be five years in a couple of days since my first hospitalization and starting Emsam.  That is one med decision I am absolutely glad I made.  Emsam and Serqouel XR made a huge difference in my life and even though they don't work as well now as they used to they probably keep me from feeling much worse than I typically do.  I was so afraid and the whole thing was ok.  I just remember how much of that depression I wore on my face and hate knowing that any part of this one is also visible.

At least tomorrow I'll be back at my house in my bed with my poor cats.  I've been dog-sitting for 2 days and the timing just couldn't have been worse.  I'm also mad because somehow nobody asked me to do this and I found out at the last minute when I had planned a med change already.  I need so badly to just be able to sleep as much as I want to for a couple of days.  If I cancel Dr. Mind which I might I don't have anything until Wednesday which would let me get some rest and adjust to my new dose of gabapentin.  I'll figure out Dr Mind this weekend.

Otherwise not sure what to say.  All I want to do is sleep for as long as I can and with the dogs that won't happen.  Hopefully they'll let me go back to sleep in the morning like they did today.  Also hopefully my mom will be home earlier than I really expect her to be to take over.

And I just realized that I have only a week and then time change rears its' ugly head and will mess with me even more.  That is really not good.  Hope I get through a lot of this in the next few days......But in reality things just are going to be kind of rough for a while.  Lots of tough changes happening any time now.  Holidays.  Potentially the first holidays with things vey different than ever before and they will be very different no matter what.

Anyway, I have nothing interesting to say.

Silence

This is the least I've posted in any month ever.  It's been a hard month to come up with things to say because usually I am writing about what I am thinking about.  This month I've been running from my thoughts.  Partly this is a mixed episode that started longer ago than I realized and I just haven't been in the mood to write.  There has been a lot of grieving over my brother and I don't want to write much about that on here.  But there's also been an issue with Dr. Mind being sick and he has missed some appointments and when he is there he is kind of out of it and so while he at least made sure I got the mixed episode treated medically last week (sort of; read on) counseling isn't the support it usually is and that's making me avoid my racing thoughts in every way I can.  That's been even more true as I've been pretty paranoid this time around and it's better to not let your mind and words run free while paranoid. 

Dr. Mind being sick has been really hard.  I don't know what to say beyond that aside from I miss him and I feel so bad because he truly has been suffering terribly, but this is showing me how grateful I should be that he isn't leaving.  To be honest I'm sad for him that he isn't doing that, he really wanted to and it was his dream for many years and it is so hard to have a decision made by your health.  But I know now how much I miss him when I'm seeing him every week so I can't image having to say good-bye.

Along with those things my life is just busy now.  I am only doing PT 2 times per week now instead of 3 but I usually spend around 2 hours a day working on it at home on non-PT, non-painful days.  (Sometimes I overdo and pay for several days).  On painful days I do a lot of stretching.  Last week my mom was out of town and I thought I was going to have a very quiet week but right before she left a golden retriever mix showed up.  We did everything to find his owners and nobody responded or contacted the pound.  So I went to get tags for him and the pound lady remembered him from him being in there the week before after running away from home.  I told her to call the owner (he was legally mine) and arranged to have him picked up. Then I cried all day.  He had been neglected and had no socialization with humans or other animals and he is the smartest, sweetest boy ever.  I wanted to keep him so badly.  Giving him back was going to be awful.  But she actually asked if I wanted him while I was working up the courage to ask if she wanted to give him up and so we gained a dog.  He's really my mom's, I can't have a dog with my cats in this tiny space but I spent all of last week with him helping him to adjust.

I had a med change ordered (increased gabapentin) but we agreed I should wait until my mom was home to do it because I had trouble being very out of it on a higher dose of gabapentin in the past and we've kept it low to avoid that possibility.  I wasn't very aware that I was out of it the last time so I wanted my mom to tell me if I was out of it and unsafe to drive.  I arranged PT so that I'd have several days to adjust and then found out that my mom was going to be out of town with my sister and nieces for a few days this week and I'm dog-sitting and somehow they forgot to ask me.  My mom feels really bad about it but I'm not going to get to start the med change until Friday night now.  I'm just not going to worry much about missing counseling Monday.  It's not going very well anyway and this is a dreaded 5 weeks between social security checks month so missing a counseling session helps my budget greatly.  I just hope that it works.  I'm tired of feeling bad and I really need this drug to help because the options are quite limited.  Dr. Brain has a few people on more Seroquel than I am taking, however it doesn't seem likely that I could handle that because I am having a very difficult time peeing on this dose.  And once you are on so much there isn't a small boost that is going to do anything anymore; 50 mg is such a tiny percent of my dose that it isn't going to be more than a drop in the bucket.  I had a panic attack that was really bad a week and a half ago and I absolutely couldn't pee until it settled down because I have to focus on relaxing to go and mid-panic attack (it lasted a couple hours) I can't do that.

I can't even remember what else has been going on.  My keyboard wasn't working for quite a while and that was making typing a blog post pretty difficult.  My Anna cat seemed near the end for a while but I took her in and begged for an antibiotic shot to see if it helped her because she seemed to be at the end for days and that turned into a couple weeks and nothing was happening, so I talked to the vet about hospice and she can have unlimited antibiotics until they don't work anymore, and she has been doing great for the last few weeks.  I cut back her nausea med to once a day and she is actually eating cat food again and eating a much larger volume than before.  Hopefully she doesn't get puke-y again. 

I spent quite a bit of time with my brother last week and we talked and laughed and I honestly felt good being with him.  It was a good thing and very much needed.  I hope that I can maintain something like this until things change again.  That could be about any time now.  It could be months more but it is nearing the average wait time.

otherwise I need to empty the kitty litter.  I really meant to do that earlier but I fell asleep.  I bought some of that new lightweight stuff and maybe it is ok for cats who aren't in renal failure but for my cat who pees gallons it sucks.  So I have to totally empty the thing and start over.  I'll wind up with a smelly trash can all night because i'm not going out in the cold to the trash bin but it's better than a smelly bedroom.  I want my Anna to be here as long as she has a happy life but I absolutely will not miss the kitty litter in my bedroom.

I am so tired.  Maybe I'll get to sleep early tonight.  It would be great since I have to sleep at my mom's the next 2 nights.  Ugh. 

Or can I just fall asleep with icky litter one night??????  I think we shall see.  Tomorrow is so much easier to manage all that.  Or not.  Guess it depends on falling asleep.

Placeholder

I am still here.  It's been a crazy few weeks.  My laptop keyboard settings were messed up by my cat walking on the keyboard one night when I fell asleep without closing my computer.  There have been trips to the vet, a very dramatic story involving adopting a stray dog while my mom is on vacation (he'll be hers), there is PT and this week was my first day with both Dr. Mind and Dr. Brain in the same day (which works out to a very, very long day), sleep deprivation, a mixed episode, a few days of being really paranoid, some changes in how I am seeing my brother (again and this is partly why I'm not writing; I can't explain it well without saying more than I want to at this point) and more. I'll catch up soon but probably not until my mom is back and I'm not watching the new dog constantly.  He's a very good Houdini so I can't just let him into the dog yard until we know for sure he cant jump the fence.  I even spent a long time today with a drill, spare boards and zip ties sealing off an opening so he cannot possibly get out that way. 

I'll be back soon.

Two shoes!

I haven't been feeling very good the last few days (stomach issues and now a migraine would like to start along with that which is directly from a very long day going to see the orthopedist with the largest possible number of bad drivers each way).  So I'm going to keep this short but it's a big day, so here goes:  I am weaning out of my boot and into a shoe.  I took my first steps unsupported at his office and then at home I wore a shoe for a couple of hours until it was really making my incision sore.  I'm going to have to wrap that for a while until it toughens up.  There are places that the incision goes over these bone anchor things whichare little pins things that will eventually be absorbed into the bone.  They stick out a little and rub the healing tendons and irritate the skin as well.  I can't do scar massage yet because of them. And they seem to be getting pressure from the shoe as well.  I have a brace to wear when I'm in the shoe for the next 3 months.  Since I won't have that or the shoe on at night I guess I'll be using crutches at night until I can walk barefoot safely.  I am retiring the night splint though.  Free sleep!  Bliss!

He confirmed everything has healed well.  I've been having some concentrated soreness and he was able to get my repaired tendons to come in and out of their groove a little bit but not like they were before and not in a way that is bad, just something they are doing enough to get sore while healing.  I don't know if that will stop when they aren't inflamed anymore.  That would have been a good thing to ask.  If they are a problem I know there is a procedure to widen the groove they rest in; I'm not sure why I didn't have it with the other if there is an issue but as long as it is harmless I do not care at all.  The ankle is welcome to click away.

And now I'm going to try to figure out whether my tummy or my head needs help more.  I so much want to go to sleep but if I do I will wake up at 11 and be up until 6 and that would be bad.  Big day showing off in PT tomorrow.

I thought I had one more thing to say here but my tummy is making it hard to focus and get through thoughts.  So another time I guess.

I go back New Year's Eve and that will be my final visit and should be the end of the brace as well.  At that point I will be 6.5 months out so it will be about time.  I never dreamed it would take so long.

ankle

I will start this by admitting that I am obsessing.  For most of the time I've been recovering I've known what day I was on.  In the last few weeks I lst track of the week.  I figured that out today and now it makes sense again that I thought I was walking at 4 months, not the 14 weeks I seem to have gotten my brain stuck on.  It actually IS 4 months. 

I am so afraid that he'll see something wrong.  I know in my mind that it is great but my perspective is weird when I look at it and the swelling that has built up in the last week or so makes it look really weird.  It's probably also weird because I don't have normal anatomy but I don't know that yet.  I am sore in a different place, a place with puffiness and it feels like something is rubbing on something else.  Realistically a tendon is rubbing on a bone anchor, which is going to resolve itself as the anchor is absorbed into the bone.  But it feels strange.  Not strange bad necessarily, just strange. 

I am so proud of my ROM and that I even have some strength in all planes.  Dorsiflexion I even have fairly reasonable strength, I think a 3/5, maybe 3+ if he was generous.  I have been stretching a lot on my wobble board (a circle that has a round base so that it tips in all directions.  At first I practiced control of movements with it, now I use it to stretch at home and we use weights on it at therapy.  I can move it more than I thought I would be able to by this point when I got the last cast off.  I even can alternate feet on the stairs if there is a rail and the steps are deep enough.  I won't be able to do that without the boot for some time but I can do it now.

I think I'm just conditioned to getting bad news about this ankle.  All the times I've heard that I need surgery, the injuries, the inability to treat my sprains because the damage was already done.  And now I have to learn to trust it.  That's not easy.  It's especially not easy when things are different.  

My foot is still returning to foot shape.  Scar tissue has altered it's shape quite a bit.  One of my exercises really pulls on that and I do the exercise many, many times per day to help with that.  Once before I was doing that and felt scar tissue tear and a nerve came loose from the scar tissue, causing some weird nerve sensations and burning for 5 minutes or so.  I think I am on the verge of having more tearing and probably more nerve release as I feel what I was feeling just before that happened.

I am scared of what he'll say about the popping on the inside (all surgery was in the joint or outsde).  I know that in reality he'll probably say that I still had a lot of swelling in the joint on that side when I was last x-rayed and that it is irritating a tendon or ligament. 

It's all stuff I can answer myself but it's hard to not worry.  After 4 months you want to hear that things are perfect in the healing process.  Honestly they probably are although I may have more irritation on the outside of the ankle than normal; that has just flared up the last few days. 

Whatever.  It is still several days away.  It's a combination of excitement and terror that are hard to explain but which make it hard to wait and hard to not worry.

Maybe I should sleep some......another busy week is about to start.

Oh mother

Today we were watching my nieces play.  Anne tends to get a little rough with Geraldine and gets right up in her face.  Geraldine usually goes along but gets tired of it eventually and moves away.

Anne has certain behaviors and characteristics that are very reminiscent of a little me.  Nobody is about to diagnose bipolar anytime for a many years but I think that at some point it will at least be considered.  Right now she has sensory issues and I think my sister is going to start working on getting her some treatment for that.  She is an extreme sensory seeker, which is partly how she winds up getting to be too much for her sister.

When we were watching them today I commented on the sensory thing and my mom asked if I thought that this could be what messed up my relationship with my sister.  Apparently I was just like Anne and eventually my sister started not wanting to play near me much because I was too much for her.

I didn't know this.  It hurt me so much.  I do not think that it is the biggest problem my sister and I have.  The biggest problem we have is the dynamics of several abusive relationships that put enormous pressure on us and we coped differently.  But my mother now has made me feel like this is my own fault.  I know it isn't.  But that hurt.

I also think that mostly what happens there is normal.  Maybe it's a little excessive but a 4 year old and a 1 year old play very differently.  And they are siblings and they are competing for attention when they are with grandma and Aunt Jen.

Just more confusion.

I think

OK everyone, I'm going to lay this out on the line.  Several hard things are pending in my life as you know if you've been reading.  Thankfully Dr. Mind is not leaving at this time so one of the worst is gone.  But oddly the others are so huge that I haven't felt the relief I thought I would.

I am very concerned that the time I have with my Anna cat is drawing to an end.  Monday night she was horribly, terribly, painfully ill, vomiting a huge amount of food (I messed up and gave her something with grain in it that I thought was grain-free; her body can't handle grain anymore) and then she had intestinal cramps so severely that I could SEE them.  I was up most of the night with her and knew that it was likely that we would make that awful last visit to the vet on Tuesday.  But around 5 AM she settled into bed and woke up without cramps or vomiting.  Time beaten that day.

But since then she hasn't eaten much at all.  Today is the first day I've seen her eat much and that much is relative; she's had maybe 2 tablespoons of food at best.  She isn't even asking for food very often, in contrast to asking for food 17 times a day before.  She is drinking a lot and still urinating normally.  She has confused periods that are worse than ever before.  And I believe her body is retaining fluids although that is hard to determine. 

All I can do is keep offering a lot of different foods and water.  I may take her to the vet to be tested for a UTI but there aren't many symptoms of that so I'm not sure.  It's hard because I'm afraid the trip would make her feel bad and a bladder tap is definitely not painless (although apparently it's not so bad they tell me) but I don't want to have this happen over something treatable.  So probably we'll go in unless she is all better tomorrow.  Which she has done before.

But realistically I think my time with her is just drawing to a close.  The confusion being this bad is not good (earlier I found her lost in the basement) and she is having trouble doing things that haven't been problematic before now (I have an old entertainment center by my bed that she uses to get up and down; today managing that was hard).  She will cuddle and purr if I pick her up but it seems to be uncomfortable to be lifted up. 

I've known for a long time that I wouldn't have her forever.  She is 19 after all.  So for years I've known she was very old.  And she's had renal failure longer than she should possibly have survived.  There have been other times that the end seemed near and then it wasn't.  So hopefully that is true again.  But it would not be smart to assume that was true. 

I think that I am going to be facing on of the hardest losses of my life soon.  And I have no idea how I will survive.  I know that some of you are thinking "it's just a cat".  And I know she is a cat.  She also has been with me longer than every person in my life who is not related to me except for one.  Well, 2 if you count a facebook friend. She is intricately woven into my bipolar disorder; when I cry she comes and I cry onto her soft fur.  When I need to just scream she waits me out and then comforts me.  When I have panic attacks she is always immediately there and soothing.  Even these days when I hold her and talk to her about telling me when it is time to say good-bye and make a point of telling her every day, often a few times in the day, how much I love her and will miss her, when I get teary she snuggles in and purrs, as if she is comforting me when it is her who is sick.

She doesn't do many of the things she once did.  It used to be that she helped me wake up from the grogginess of the meds.  When the alarm went off she would cuddle up close to my face and keep me awake until it was time to really get up.  She was trained early on (on purpose) to meet me when I walk in the door and she doesn't do that now.  Mostly she is too soundly asleep to notice what I do.  She always fought medication but now she just gives me a dirty look when I dab her ear with the transdermal med that keeps her from vomiting day in and day out (that's not working as well lately either).  She is slipping away and all I can do is watch.

There is a very weird part of the grieving that is for the loss of expectations.  I had decided long ago that when she was gone and I was ready I would get a kitten.  But now I will be taking my brother's cats so I won't even have the comfort of a little fluff ball reminding me of Anna's kittenhood.

It's just so sad.

So be ready.  One day, I have a bad feeling soon, there is going to be a very painful post here. 

Impatient

My boot will begin to come off Wednesday.  I think I've been pretty patient for the last 14 weeks but I am really fighting to stay patient for this next few days.  I'm moving around so well and having so little pain as long as I do my exercises (I do them a LOT and get really stretched out every day) and I am just ready for the next part of the process.  I think the thing is weaned off gradually and I'll probably wear a light brace for a while (I plan to pack several braces so that if I have one that is acceptable I don't have to buy another orthotic device; I've bought at least 3 or 4 this year not to mention all the casts).  Even my PTs are feeling like we're in a holding pattern and ready for the exciting part to begin.

I don't know why waiting another 5 days is so hard but I think I've just reached the end of my patience with having to plan every movement.  Last night I stepped on something and cut my foot.  I thought I had stopped the bleeding but when I got off the toilet I discovered it had actually bled quite a bit on the floor.  So I cleaned it up and then had to be extremely careful to not put my crutches down near the wet spot. Tonight I was watching a movie and hit eject accidentally on the remote when I leaned over to do an exercise.  I had no crutches and putting my boot on and off in 2 minutes is a huge ordeal.  So I was going to finish exercises without distraction but somehow found a way to trick the tv into restarting the DVD eventually.  But it was so frustrating; the tv is like 5 steps away and I can't do that.  And it has been 14 weeks.  Nearly 4 months.  Somehow that seems like forever right now.

I'm emotional anyway.  My cat isn't doing well.  She was extremely sick a few nights ago and I was  up all night and prepared to say good-bye that morning but she rallied.  Since then she's really not eating much.  Even things she usually likes she is mostly ignoring.  So I am worried.  The worst thing the vet could have done was what she did back in June--she was trying to be honest that Anna wasn't going to live for a very long time but she made it sound more dire than it has been. But because of what she said every time Anna isn't feeling good I am afraid.  I know perfectly well she won't be here forever and I knew that before the vet.  She is 19.  Cats don't often live that long.  All time now is bonus time.  But what I didn't need was the list of things that could happen any time she was unwell.  We've done this before and chances are good she'll eat in a day or two.  It may be that I need to try another food option and that the one that was her choice for the last months isn't now.  Or she needs tuna.  I went for chicken instead and she isn't thrilled with it although she drinks the juice.  Time will tell.  She seems to be feeling ok, just not eating much.  It's hard.

My emotions are out of control.  I can't begin to tell you the things I've cried over in the last few days.  It's probably SAD in part but I'm too agitated to start using my light.  This happens nearly every year. 

I'm also anxious about the ankle.  Can I really walk in a shoe?  It is so much better but it still is not close to 100%.  I'm afraid of hurting it again.  Perfectly reasonable but still hard to cope with.  It also feels very different because it is reconstructed and not like an anatomically normal ankle and so I have to get used to the feeling.  Thus far what I've experienced of that is weird.  It's still swelling in one area and I have some places with decreased sensation.  Normal but weird.  I also have a loud popping on the inside of the ankle that concerns me.  I think I know what it is but not why it is there.  Everything was done in the joint or on the outside.  And this popping is really loud.  It's probably fine but I have 5 years of training in "the ankle is bad".

Tomorrow is time with my sister and nieces.  So excited for that.  I love those little girls so much.  I can't imagine life without them.

And on a happy note we'll stop.

Brain on bipolar

I've been pretty stable for quite a few months, actually an extemely long time for me.  Vicodin is stabilizing for me so taking it quite a bit for the early part of the summer was probably good. Sleep has sucked but I can't use my weighted blanket because it is too heavy and I could hurt myself kicking it and I'm not willing to take anything more sedating for fear of falling so that is really on me.  There are solutions and I am too afraid to try them.  Perhaps when I get a brace next week I can manage to sleep in it and a slipper of some kind and get up and walk as needed, once I reach that point.  But for now it's out of the question.

My mood has been drifting.  It's probably partly SAD but as often happens with SAD for me the depression triggers everything else and so I am mixed which means it's not a good time to start using my light.  Increasing the activation is not good.  Usually I don't get the light going until about November because of exactly this situation.

I'm really struggling with things.  I thought yesterday was going to be the day I euthanized my cat.  I was pretty sure for a number of hours during the night because she was suffering.  But then she turned it around, again.  How many times she'll do that is unknown; at 19 she is living on borrowed time no matter what. But losing her is going to hurt so much.  She's been my best friend for half my life.  Nobody else has let me cry on them hundreds of times, ignored me when I was sceaming or sat on my lap and purred through the entire writing and revision of a thesis.  Nobody else has moved to Michigan and back to Ohio and then several times around Ohio with me.  Nobody else has the ability to sense when I am losing it and no matter how old and sick they are come to comfort me.  Her loss will be huge.

My brother's situation is getting to me.  I am so angry at him and yet anger at him is pointless.  Because of his Asperger's he simply doesn't get it.  I did not know this until this week but I don't think I have ever once just had a real fight with him because it is pointless.  He doesn't see other sides to any situation.  Never has, never will.  We all adapted to that.  It's like my mom and I were talking about today, he is so hyperfocused on things that don't matter that I timed him at 7 minutes talking about something that was so egotistical that it was only funny because it was so pointless and another probably 5 on something involving the word "grammarian".  He has this egotistical laugh when he gets going with this stuff. He gets so focused on one thing that he doesn't change what he is doing.  For example instead of filling out food stamps application yesterday he spent an entire day crushing cans.  Most people would intermittently do that while doing other things.  He crushed something like 15 bags of them in a day.  His hyperfocus led to so much of this.  He has ALWAYS had a "thing"-dinosaurs, comic books, Mash, rocks (I swear this is true: he has boxes of rocks from all over the country.  They are just rocks, not anything special.  He can pick up a piece of sandstone and tell you where it came from---state, location, which trip he was on and what campground they stayed at.  And those rocks have been moved with him since he collected them from age maybe 8 on.  He's almost 50.)  So his hyperfocus just changed to things that were criminal and also to alcoholism.  It's like his motto is "do everything to extremes".  In 2011 on vacation I noticed how much he was drinking and talked to my mom about it.  She thought I was miscalculating but by the end of the trip it was hard to deny how much beer had been consumed and how much of it was the cheap stuff he brought in a huge box and then re-stocked.  In 2012 I went outside at night for a minute and on the way out found him in the basement den on his phone with 7 bottles of beer in front of him.  My room was above the trash cans and later that night I heard him take them out.  I mentioned this to my mom who said no way, she'd cleaned up 7 bottles in that room in the morning.  He had just handily covered up the fact he'd had 14 bottles of beer after everyone went to bed about 9 or 10 and he'd had one in hand all day.  Now it's easy to see.  Then it was easy to make excuses.  But the truth is confronting him about it wouldn't have worked.  Nothing like that ever has with him.

I get that this is out of his control (the Asperger's).  But I also believe that you work with what you have and that you are responsible for yourself. At some point you have to look at your life and see that what others are saying has value.  My mom is having to treat him like a small child. 

I don't know what else to say.  I just feel like there is so much I need to feel and think and say and I can't say it to the person who should hear it.  I'm scared of how this will go.  I made it through the beginning of this part of my life mainly because of shock.  But this time there won't be shock and I'm scared that it will be like the last time things happened in my life that I didn't know how to handle and I'll wind up in the hospital. 

I just want to know how to feel and act.  And nobody writes guidebooks for this.  And if they do I don't want to read it because I don't want to read someone telling me how to feel when I don't really know myself.

I hate this.

want to know a secret?

I am less than a week away from starting to walk with a shoe on my post-operative foot.  I am walking all over with the boot now without problems, even alternating feet on the stairs sometimes and handling our uneven, gravel driveway easily enough.

I bought a lot of shoes.  Different sizes, different styles to make sure that I had shoes that were right to re-learn walking in.  I have been wearing extremely supportive shoes for years and those didn't seem like the right idea because I think I need to be able to feel the surface I'm walking on more than I can in those shoes.  So I got a variety of flexibility in the soles.

Tonight I tried on a pair and just messing around in sitting could tell this was the pair that I will want.  I stood up in them with some weight on my foot and it still felt good.  So using my crutches for most of my weight I took 3 steps with the shoes on.  It wasn't allowed but I'm so close and was so careful to keep the weight very limited that I wasn't concerned.  It feels incredibly strange to do that after nearly 14 weeks.  But it didn't hurt and the shoe definitely lets me have feedback that I'm going to want.  They are also very well-padded which is important with an incision that gets sore when it swells which still happen sometimes and probably will for another 6-8 months. 

So we're not admitting this to anyone but I have taken my first baby steps.  Sort of.  Not really since there was so little weight involved.  But kind of.

Shhhhh.....