Faithfully Mundane

The past few weeks have been filled with the mundane of daily tasks, including nagging the teen about his homework assignments, keeping up with the plethora of work e-mail and assorted responsibilities that I can’t pass off to others, and various appointments. While none of this is exciting or particularly blog-worthy, this is where we live — right here in a mundane existence. This is not a bad thing, as Tracy points out in this post.

I hope you click on that link before you get back to nagging reminding your teen about doing homework or cleaning up the pet vomit or dealing with Mt. Washmore (a.k.a., Mt. Neverrest) or washing those dirty dishes.

Thank God for dirty dishes
they have a tale to tell:
while others may go hungry,
we’re eating very well.
For home and health and happiness
I wouldn’t want to fuss
for by the stack of evidence
God has been good to us.

The above poem hung in my husband’s grandmother’s kitchen. My SIL cross-stitched it and framed it for me as a gift many years ago, and it has been in my own kitchen ever since. It really does keep me from grumbling too much about those dirty dishes. 

January highlights

Little Foot at age 6 weeks

• Two weeks ago, my sweet SIL and her middle son came to visit, and of course we drove the 160 miles (’round trip) to see the newest family member. I am so in love with this little boy.
• Once I could put weight on my booted foot, I worked up to being able to hobble to the van, balance while folding up the walker and stashing it by the back seat, and getting myself into the driver’s seat — and then reversing the process. Ah, the freedom of driving oneself! Obviously, all of this had to be done without pain medications. The physical therapist uses a combination of ice and heat at the same time at the end of our twice-a-week sessions, and I’ve been doing this at home as well. It keeps me from freezing the internal hardware while still relieving pain.
• I’ve gone from hopping with the assistance of a walker to actually walking with a walker; a few times, I’ve even forgotten to use the walker and taken steps without it! All of this while wearing a walking boot, of course. I am not yet allowed to put any weight on my left foot without being strapped into the boot.
•  It’s been over two months since I had surgery for my trimalleolar fracture. Some things I can do on my own now, but I continue to need assistance getting safely into the shower chair and working in the kitchen is challenging.  Still, I plan to transition back to work in the next week or so.
• The teenager is taking one of his classes online and my laptop is the only computer in the house that has the necessary voice capabilities for his Spanish homework. This has meant that my evening and weekend time online is sporadic.

Here’s a little something extra for you: “January” by Elton John.

Be Softer

“be softer with you
you are a breathing thing
a memory to someone
a home to a life”
– Nayyirah Waheed

Today’s musing was inspired by two posts from Hands Free Mama.

Attitude? I have a few of those…

1. For my 50th birthday, I got up early, had fresh x-rays taken of my ankle and then went to visit the surgeon. The news was good: everything lined up with surgical repairs has stayed lined up and is healing. He and SuperDad were nearly giddy with relief over it, being the medically-minded people they are and knowing all of the potential pitfalls and poor outcomes we avoided. I was too emotionally spent to react with anything other than tears (which I avoided… barely) as I was clawing my way out of 24 hours of quicksand-like depression. Some people are hounded by the Black Dog; I flounder in quicksand. The doctor wondered why I wasn’t smiling, but since he had proven to be a rather single-minded orthopaedic surgeon, I didn’t bother explaining.  Talking would have brought on the tears, and I didn’t need a lecture about why I should be happy.
   

   The day did indeed improve. Some very good friends brought a dinner party to my house that evening, complete with entertainment and tiramisu. I was beyond blessed.

2. With my surgeon’s approval, I’ve been putting weight on my securely booted foot for a week now. Of course, I do this using my walker, and it’s probably only about 15% of the normal amount of weight one would use, but this is progress. It’s been nine weeks since I broke my ankle and 7 weeks since I had surgery. I honestly didn’t expect to be at this point already. The doctor had been purposefully vague about a timeline during the immediate post-surgery recovery period, and even prior to surgery. All I really knew was that his other patient with such a bad/complicated break had gone back to work after 4 months of recovery. (That patient had a job requiring standing.)
3. I don’t feel like I have 4 months to wait. It’s already been 2 months and I’ve been working from home as much as possible. For the first month, I didn’t even have a replacement at work; now I do, but it is the busiest time of the year with annual reports (one is financial which goes to individuals, per IRS regulations; one is comprehensive and built from multiple sources of input.. now if only those multiple sources will all turn in their individual reports in a timely manner) and this is on top of the regular monthly reports which are due at the same time. My sub is awesome; she’s organized and loves the work. (I see vacations in my future!) I’ve gone into work for a few hours the past 2 days, but having my foot down for more than an hour or two causes painful swelling. So I don’t really know when I can fully return to my part-time job. 
4. I’m currently on a twice-a-week schedule for physical therapy. After Monday’s session and a short shopping trip, we pulled into the garage and I shuffled to the back of the house to remove my CAM boot and elevate my foot for a few hours. This was my first real PT session, and it only took a couple of hours before the pain hit. Luckily, Wednesday’s session was not as bad, or perhaps it is because I kept up on the ibuprofen and acetaminophen dosages.  I’ve been off “the good stuff” (or bad stuff, as I think of Dilaudid) for a week now. For several nights before and several nights afterward, sleep was elusive and getting comfortable was equally difficult; if my foot wasn’t spasming to try to relieve pain, the weight of the blankets was too much to bear. SuperDad solved this  by building a blanket cradle. He misses the weight of the blankets on his feet, but my ankle in its soft boot for sleeping (a.k.a., a Dorsiwedge™ boot without the wedge because I still can’t really get to a neutral position) is very happy to not have the extra weight.
5. After Monday’s PT session, I accompanied SuperDad to Costco; he pushed the cart while I wheeled myself through the store in a wheelchair. He only picked up about a dozen items, one of which was a packet of photos that I could reach but not see if it was mine from my seated position. I’m seeing life through very different eyes these days. The world is not, for the most part, wheelchair friendly:  poorly maintained sidewalks and ramps, handicapped-accessible parking areas not de-iced or salted on freezing days,  heavy doors that close quickly –these are all things that I’m noticing in my slower-paced world. I had hoped to get one of those knee scooters, but the doctor has told me to get up and walking with my walker. On the plus side, as long as I can safely get myself in and out of the vehicle without help (this includes folding and unfolding the walker from the back seat), I have a little freedom: I’m now allowed to drive!  Whoohoo! 

TBT:  Here is The Engineer as a 14-month-old, playing at “driving” our parked minivan. I don’t display that kind of joy behind the wheel.

Amaryllis

shades of peppermint
unfurling in the light
a candied flower

 

The best gift of Christmas

Christmas included many hours of snuggles with him.

 

Cold

Photo taken by SuperDad who can walk around outside (unlike yours truly)

Although we’ve had snow on the ground for several weeks, it feels colder these days — or perhaps that is simply because there is no longer a baby here with whom to snuggle.  At our house, we’ve shrunk back to four humans (plus the dog and cat) from the eight of us who were living here for nearly two weeks.  Gone are the sounds of Little Foot as he protests having his diaper changed; gone are the voices of brothers playing games together; also gone is the need to text the college student to tell him to turn off the music and go to bed.

I miss my sweet snuggler (and his parents).

The dinner conversations have devolved as well. What starts out as intelligent conversation, centered upon lab results in the genomics studies course taken by the teenager, ends abruptly on this sub-freezing evening by a simple statement from The Barefooter:

I saw some insects today — outside. I ate two of them.

I stop and stare… and hope desperately that no one observed this occurrence (for employment purposes if nothing else). In his defense, he claims that the bugs were quite small and he scooped them up with snow, which he also ate.  Whether or not this happened on his lunch break, I do not know.

I’ve been avoiding snow and ice, but not for the reasons one would think, given my injured ankle; I can’t walk, so going outside is a moot point. But I did discover last week that it is a Very Bad Idea to ice my ankle, regardless of swelling. Applying a cold pack to an ankle that has the equivalent of a hardware store section attached inside causes the person who just had surgery 6 weeks prior to actually feel each piece of hardware in that ankle.  I thought I was imagining it, but my feeling (I was especially feeling that bowed plate on the left) was corroborated by a nurse and several friends with metal hardware in their limbs.
Lesson learned! I plan to keep my ankle away from extreme cold.

Later this week I will get to see an updated X-ray and hopefully it will show some positive progress toward healing.

Sparkling and New

It’s a shiny new year, filled with possibilities. What will you do with it?