Letting myself get back to the habit of sleeping to few hours isn't great. It's kind of how I live because I am my best at night, but it's not great. Particularly because I have a day job.
But - today I got around pretty well - a little sore from the PT and walking around the school for rehearsal yesterday, but not bad - kept getting up to stretch -
though for a few hours this afternoon, I was antsy at my desk - a little uncomfortable and squirmy. Just wanted to move around and was really sick of sitting at my desk staring at the computer.
Currently with the turnover of new web platform and also the new year of events to be added to the web, it is a goodly bit more chaotic than I prefer. Once I get grooved into the process, I like hte flow of work, but when it is hitchy and jerky (OOPS We found this procedure we need to follow for each website - have to ga back and clean up the 15 sires we have already entered... this nusiness division needs this procedure, but this one doesn't, except when... " new rules to commit to memory, because haivng to look them up in the write-up is fairly miserable and very slow.
Just a time of adjustment, which is made a little more irritating my fatigue and creakiness if I don't get up and MOVE, and frequently.
Came home, had a lovely catch-up chat with my sister Toni on the phone- it looks more and more like she will likely move back to this coast from Colorado. We are happy about that, her three sibling who live here!
Scarfed dinner, realizing at the last minute that I had scheduled a costume fitting with the costumer at 7 - moving up my rehearsal call by half an hour, I was late, but she was very patient.
Rehearsal went well, if a little slowly. Sometimes it is a little like herding cats - but we get it done, and we are beginning to really come together and sound good!
Not bad for a diverse band - 15 year old Tylen on violin, 19-or-20-something Nathan on guitar, grownup Luther on Bass, which he is just now learning, and doing beautifully! - and lil' ol' me on vocals. I've sort of fallen into the sort of Assistant Stage Manager -ish role, since I've done a lot of music/script coordinating, and I can have the script in front of me while they are reading the music and coordinate what will be happening onstage with approximately what our cues will be. I like how we all work together.
I parked a little closer to the theatre than last night, and a walk was a little short into the theatre (Not all the way to the main auditorium), which was nice.
I'm pretty beat - but I am always reminding myself now - a long walk or standing longer than I am used to makes me physically stronger - it doesn't break down or damage anything at all, now that I am repaired! It is such a freeing, strong and healthy mindset!
I feel like my own hero. I was looking back today, thinking about having had to live my life with a walker - having had no choice. I just bit the bullet, sucked it up and went as many paces as I could, socially, to keep from feeling shut out or cut off from my own life and my friends and the theatre. The places I rolled that little thing - it really got me over some serious terrain (Some of which at the time I wasn't sure I'd have chosen had I know what it would be like, but nothin' killed me!).
But looking back, now that I am standing tall (increased from 5' 2 3/4" to 5'3'!), walking pretty steadily - soon to get away from walking with a cane and I cannot wait for the day, whether it is weeks or months away - that I am free from the pain involved in this whole process - from hip to ankle in various and sundry places.. (I even broke one of the welds on it, and repaired it with epoxy and gorilla tape!)
looking back on the days I was living in the world with the walker, I had kind of a back-reaction... almost like a mild PTSD reaction or something!! I never (well ,very rarely) let it hurt my pride or make me feel self-concious or humiliated to simply be in need of assistance to walk around in the world - then.
But today, I was suddenly a little overcome by a feeling of - hmmmm... it's hard to describe - sort of "Good lord. I was hunched over in pain, rolling around the world with a grimace - thank god more people didn't express pity - I might have had to punch someone - or at least cried. And I did plenty of that anyway, but mostly because of pain and frustration or fear.
I'm not sure *what* the feeling was... It may just sort of be delayed shock at realizing how really, REALLY terrible it was before my first surgery. I hear myself telling stories - the one where I was sitting talk to Jt the week before my show, "A Little Princess" - at a professional theatre company, no less - and I realized I had NINE SHOWS to tdo in the next FIVE days... and I just sat and wept. I had NO idea how I was going to get through it, He suggested a cane - I admitted I really should get one... and without looking, he points to his right and follows his hand with his eyes and says, " There's one!" - I keep an umbrella stand full of prop umbrellas, parasols and - Canes! *whew*.
But - I hear myself telling many stories like that, and I just think - that - is HORRIBLE!! but - it as my LIFE.
Perhaps it's because, as much as my friends were careful not to let me see pity, or worry or such, now they are talking about 'Oh my god!! You look SO happy, healthy, and able - look how great you are moving, and how fast you're getting around! After so long being in such pain, you could see how bad it was."
And it points up what a wreck I was and how very nearly I lost this really wonderful life I live.
I know people cope with that all the time - I have more than one friend who lives with this - one of whom just died. But I get to get it back. I remember many, many times over several years, thinking, "I can barely walk from the bed to the bathroom, and it's so painful - how the hell am I going to LAST!? I plan on living a long life - how will I get by, how will I grow old and continue to live my life?!? It haunted me for a long time.
I guess I'm trying to say how grateful I am that they soldiered up and helped me get around - no one ever seemed embarrassed to be with the gimp - and they were all so game to help byt hauling the walker out of the back of the car, drive and drop me at the door where we were going, park and fetch the car; to carry my groceries or mail up the stairs, and the trash down; to take all my laundry and wash it - loads and loads and loads of it! - to run a vacuum for me, and clean and fix things and go to the store for me... all the incredibly kind things they did for me while I was laid so low, and how they lifted my spirits.
And here I am. The rolling walker is still in the back of my Rav, ready to return to the friend I borrowed it from... She had been caring for a friend who had needed it, but had died just a few weeks before I found out I'd need a walker for several months, and she just offered it to me as long as I'd need it. And now I will never need it again.
The tubular walker is folded and parked at the end of my bed - I will put it away over the weekend. Unless I need a revision surgery ( VERY unlikely, but there are the little crevices between my acetabulae and new hip sockets which need to fill in with bone, even with two crews in the left one and three in the right!) I will never need THAT, either!
I am deeply grateful for the progress I am making, incredibly touched and cheered by the support and happy encouragement from dear friends and family.
and I am a tired girl who needs to get to bed in a bit. I'm not sure I made my full point above, but I will probably continue to explore all those feelings as the days progress, and I get better and better!
I'll go watch a few minutes of Jay Leno's last tonight show - frankly I never have liked him as a comic r host of the Tonight show, and will e glad to see him hand it over to Jimmy Fallon - but it's historical.
And then it's off to bed for me.
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