Figuring things out

Terrible Blogger

You know, I maintained a blog on LiveJournal for, gosh, 5 or 6 years. Why I can’t do it now is a mystery to me.

Too much has happened to catch up in only a post or two. Struggling with what amounts to a full-blown (late) mid-life crisis. Even I’m not sure if I would be able to handle all the change I’m dishing out to those around me.

Bottom line is that I’ve realized life is short, I do owe some people a lot, but no one owns my life or my freedom. I can’t change people who will not change. I can surround myself with people who make me happy and if I can’t, I can go looking for them.

Recently visited with my best girlfriend from high school who reminded me that I was never the person I grew up to be – so very correct, orderly, always following every rule to the letter. She helped me remember that I was once much wilder, more accepting, and free.

I’m finding that me again.

Aug 23 2016 – the present

Tomorrow will be almost 5 week follow-up post op. Expecting to get a new cast and excited by the prospect of actually washing my leg between cast off – cast on.  Swelling has been annoying this past week and I expect I’ve been bearing more weight than I should on my left great toe.

The last days of summer are upon us and the world seems divided by people with horrendous deadlines and by others who want to escape and enjoy the last of the month.  I’ve been working hard, but smarter I think.  I’m concentrating my efforts in a 6 hour span each day as by this time in the afternoon, my body objects to anything less than a comfy chair and elevation of my leg.

If bathroom scale is correct, I’m down another 2 lbs from 1 week ago.  This is lending credibility to the FB support group which claims over and over that bone healing burns a huge number of calories.  Add to that the fact that I have virtually no control over what I get to eat and a diet is born.  Hubby is at dentist and I just raided panty, standing perilously perched on one leg, just to get at some chocolate I knew he’d stashed in there.  I am stopping myself from eating all of it, but reality is I have no idea when my next chance to grab it will be.  Injuries and such make us so childlike.

I cannot go outside even if it is sunny and 82 degrees because I would have to figure out how to move the walker from the bedroom to the porch (ok – hopping with it would do), but then there is a dreaded 3 inch “step” which I have not yet managed without human support.  I would seriously hate to slam myself to the floor out of desperation to enjoy some outside time just because no one is home to ensure my safe landing.  Such a tiny pitiful step.

I began watching Mr. Robot this weekend.  A curious study in major mental illness and one which should bring the actor playing Elliot an Emmy.  However tonight I shall insist upon the Vikings as season 3’s finale is brilliant by all accounts.  Can anyone believe that I’ve watched this much television???

Rewind to Dec 13 2015

Dec 13, 2015: I’m back at home following about a week in California (starting to see a trend here).  Hubby was with me for this trip.  Had unpacked and washed clothes and straightened house on Saturday and looked to Sunday to attempt to get all the Christmas stuff down and decorate for the first holiday that 4 of my grandkids would get to spend at my house.

Of course, hubby had reorganized attic – to the point I could find nothing.  Everything I’d carefully put aside the year before was now scattered to the attic winds – and there was no way to find what I wanted without literally taking down every box gathered for 30 years.  I was hot, hubby and I were fighting, and that’s when I spotted it: shiny blue plastic ornaments thrown haphazardly over into the insulation – just ever so slightly out of my reach.  Amazingly when I looked down, some angel had put down a board where once only ceiling drywall was.  It must have happened when the new roof was put on a few months prior I thought.  Of course, I stepped on it, straddling the joists, I-beam, stairwell opening and reaching across a low setting rafter.  It wasn’t even a second before I knew that the “board” was as thin as veneer and useless and I fell with my right leg all the way through – I-beam on my girl parts and face flying forward into the rafter.

I struggled upright confused by the spigot of blood flowing from my face.  I reached up to my nose only to realize something hanging from my face.  Hubby came running.  All I could say was “Give me a clean towel to stop the bleeding and call 911”.  At first he ignored me and tried to climb the attic stairs, but he was quickly and totally covered in blood which was now pouring out the stairwell as I tried to tell him I was seriously hurt.  Blood was pouring down my throat and out my nose.  He called 911.  I held on to the I-beam for dear life and prayed I wouldn’t pass out.

Long story short and 6 medic/firefighters later (including one named Craig who looked 12 but put up with me asking for a CT scan every 5 seconds for 30 min), I came down the stairs under my own power and nearly passed out on the gurney.  Husband looked like something out of a horror movie.  I got Fentanyl in my driveway and was taken as a Level II trauma to the closest facility able to handle the wreck that was my face.

For the record, when you come into the ER like that, you get a LOT of attention.  They x-rayed and CT scanned every inch of me.  Hell, the doc even did a pelvic exam.  I had emergency surgery, re-attaching my nose and fixing 8 bones in my face.  I was lucky.  2mm to the right and I would have lost my right eye.  I survived with post concussive syndrome.  RSD / residual chronic regional pain syndrome in right foot.  An even more unattractive nose.

So why this post so long after?  Well, 6 months later and after a trip to California (dun dun DUN), I manage another possibly more serious injury to my leg.

I am now left contemplating the meaning of it all:  I ask, myself, she who is not particularly accident prone, but is clumsy.  What in the world am I trying to tell myself?  I have suspicions.  More on that later.

Cliff’s notes on July 2016 to date

So…. I made it home from California.  I cried in the plane going home.  I wanted to stay and escape everything.  The only thing that got me on that plane was the promise of a week at the beach a mere 7 days after my return – the opportunity to see both coasts in the same week.

Came home to a husband concerned about my state of mind.  We had some heart-to-heart talks and made promises to make changes.  And that was going to happen – just not how I planned.

I headed south to the beach with 2 kids.  For the 2nd year running I had a beach house for 16 with 3 people in it.  Ok – 4 when hubby came for 3 days of the week.  Fine – I made the most of more time contemplating all the great life-changing things I was going to do.

Life changed the morning I left.  I was up early, before coffee and the sun, to beat the traffic out of this heavily traveled resort area.  Woke the kids, had 99% of the car packed.  Shut off the last landing stairwell light.  One kid behind me – another in front, and I missed the last landing step.  Damned bifocals were exactly level with the edge of my view of the step and I assumed I had arrived at the landing.  I fell, my left foot and leg twisting under me, my head slamming into the wall.  Pain was instant and shocking.  Kids later said they had never seen me cry before that day.  Probably true.

5 minutes of writhing in pain later, I realized I had to make the 3 hour drive home alone.  There was no logic in having anyone come down to get me.  None in going to the local ER for treatment where my insurance would not cover anything.  So the kids bolstered me up, I hopped down the remaining steps.  They locked the beach house.  I drove so they could drop off the keys.  Then off we went, my leg locked in position while I drove first to drop off kid #1 then kid #2 then on to the ER where my limited insurance would provide superior care with the lowest possible out-of-pocket costs.

Called hubby en route.  He met me in the ER – having gotten a ride with a neighbor.  Diagnosis – badly broken ankle and knee.  Too damaged for surgery that day.  Sent home with some narcotics and a plan to see an orthopaedic surgeon on that Monday.  Saw him – he scheduled surgery for Thursday.  Had surgery – sent home same day (more about that later).  I’m now 3 1/2 weeks post op.  I’ve dealt with being totally unable to help myself do anything, including managing the bathroom (all of it) to dressing myself, to getting my own food and drink.  Doing better now with wheelchair, but still totally dependent on husband.  Apparently, this particular knee injury is devastating alone, let alone in conjunction with needing a 8in plate and 12 screws in your leg/ankle.  I’ll be non-weight bearing for 8-10 weeks and then will start learning how to walk on this puppy again.  Total rehab from what I can tell in the online forums is a shocking 4-22 months.  People still have pain and swelling for years afterwards.

How’s that for change?  At this point I’m sick of sitting.  But when I stand, the swelling takes over pretty quickly.  I’ve been back at work for about 2 1/2 weeks (no choice), and sitting all day without elevation is really no good.  Working on fixing that.

Net effect:  More change is coming.  Thinking of selling some of my stake in the company to free myself up and to put the business into a good position for my exit.  If I’m in for a long rehab, I still have a million things on my bucket list.   I’ll share notes from the plane ride back from California soon.

Crazy in California

I suppose it’s apt that this week I decide to begin writing again. The past 10 days have been alternately grueling and sometimes outright bizarre. I am a stone’s throw away from “my people” – the homeless, disenfranchised, lost, seekers, enlightened, and flat out hucksters. In the 5 days I’ve been at this location, I’ve done and seen some weird things. I’ve tried to blend in, but I stand out and as usual, fall back to my typical “fix it” mode in a pinch.

I suppose I’m seeking something like the others. Something lost that I can’t reach no matter how hard I try. Is it age or just the rock hard evidence that time passes, wisdom is acquired, and some people grow up very, very slowly? I want my youth back with the brain and experience I have now. Instead, I’m walking through a world where everyone calls me ma’am and I look so absurdly out of shape and out of touch that it’s really kind of amazing that anyone takes me seriously at all. I am the epitome of everyone’s mother and grandmother. A person you turn to for comfort, affirmation, a boost, a kick in the pants.

Did I really take enough time to be just young? To live without cares or responsibilities? To just do what *I* wanted to do because everyone else could just go to hell? Nope. And now there are regrets and this week an attempt to turn back the clock.

It’s strange really. I know that these young people live basically lonely lives – insecure about themselves and spending a lot of time on their exteriors so that they can be accepted or simply noticed. They hang in packs and communicate in zeros and ones. The media pervades their existence.

On the other hand, I, while living in a much older body, have all the spark of a 25 year old and the wisdom of a person whose next birthday will bring her closer to 60 than 50. Not sure I’m willing to trade much for that. But I can stop looking like everyone’s grandmother. It’s going to take work. That’s OK. I know how to work. Another epiphany of the week.

Young thing here has thrown a number of enlightening comments my way:

1) You get off on getting up at 5am and being a work before everyone else. No one works more than you. No one is better than you (and this proves it in your mind).
2) You always have to be right.
3) Ew (in reference to my appearance while young thing is drunk).
4) You brake check. Fine – you try driving on the LA Freeway and not brake check.
5) You are totally out of touch with sports, media, what’s in, what’s cool – how young people think.

I guess I was more in touch when I was teaching at University. But his candid appraisals of my weaknesses may end up being the things I came here to learn. 3 days left. No doubt more to come.