Working Past It….
Well, I feel good. Today was my first actual day working out again. I felt free, I felt enabled….and most of all, I felt normal again for a moment. Not being able to do some of my daily activities has made me feel as if I was just wasting away. I got to almost 400 push ups. Of course this was over the course of about 15 minutes but hey, it made me feel better. I also got to toss the dumbbells around a bit too.
On a sadder note, upon going outside for my first time in ages to visit my little garden, I found what could likened to the scene of a disregarded and patient occupied assisted living center. All of my plants were on their last leg and had not been cared for for about a week. My plants were on one of the first things I tended to once I got home. They were my calming solution, kind of like my happy place if you will. I think my wife knows how important those plants are to me, but I don’t think she was very concerned with making sure they got water on the daily bases. But then again, I can’t really be mad at her. She did not cause my injury, I did, and I guess I can’t expect her to take care of EVERYTHING. But I have raised all of those plants from simple little seeds and I am not the type of person that you can sit down and talk to and say, “Yep, he’s a plant guy”.
You know maybe it’s mental, but every now and again I really start feeling like the reject in the house now. I feel like the daily chore. I feel like as long as I don’t tumble down the stairs or put up too much of a racket, I could just float on by like a ghost or something. Speaking of floating by, I found out first hand today that there are two inherent dangers to look out for when you are bound to the limpy sticks (crutches). The first obstacle we have to look out for is the unsuspecting bathroom rug. Those things feel really secure under a regular foot, but too much pressure generated in a small area at a slight angle, and you will be doing more tricks and flips with your stick than you would see at a typical martial arts exhibition.
The second boobie trap we need to look out for is wet spots on smooth surfaces. I encountered this happy little heart rate increaser this afternoon while my wife was away and I was, a-roaming. I had just finished working out and I had worked up quite a sweat, so I decided to hobble my way back upstairs to grab a drink. I have linoleum floors with this really odd print on them so seeing a puddle is quite difficult unless you look at it from the right angle and/or you have the right lighting, which apparently I did not have. Now I came to the refrigerator and as I passed the fridge to grab a cup, my life was paused after I felt a slight shift in my foundation. It was almost like when you are driving on a snowy road, and you take a turn and somewhere in that turn u realize that the medium you are traveling on is not asphalt, its ice.
Well now, all though I know I am very lucky I had not leaned my full weight on my crutches and got into my forward swing, but I was still in a pickle. My left stick was starting to slip and I was afraid to put too much weight on my right stick because I did not know rather or not it would hydroplane on me too, and my knee was in the ready to push off position. So, while my life was paused I figured the best thing I could do was to apply pressure on both the right stick, which had not start to slip, so it could assumedly be safe, and apply a little weight to my good foot and lean back slightly so if I fall, it would be straight back on my butt. The right stick worked well, “Yes”, the good foot…did not, “Crap”. So now the good foot with no socks or shoes on is starting to slide a bit and to top it off, the water I stepped in as cold as heck and that shocked me a bit which did not help my stability.
Now that I am at the point to where it’s time to brace for impact, my left stick has slid itself into a dry patch and has enough traction to stop sliding, but I have already went in to damage control mode and I was positioned and bracing for rear impact……hmmm, okay that did not come out right. I was ready to fall on my a$$. But, being the stubborn person that I am, I figured I was not going down without a fight, so with one crooked stick and one straight one, I attempted to balance myself on what support I had to try to regain balance. To my surprise, it worked. I felt like one of those guys in the Olympics doing the ring routine and trying to hold my strenuous position for 10 seconds, while keeping an ear to ear smile the whole time.
Once I recovered I was actually pretty impressed with my performance, but I was about as nervous as a long tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs or a crutch bound man working the fries at McDonalds. I guess I am not as old as I thought because I did not injury anything during the event. But then again, if I did I probably won’t feel it until tomorrow. So until then…..
September 29th, 2008 at 7:01 am
Thank you once again for my lunchtime entertainment.
I had the perfect picture of your potential mishap. The same situation has probably happened to us all at sometime during the early stages. You live to tell the tale, and what a good tale.
Have you decided when to return to work yet? Don’t rush it.
Thanks
Annie
September 29th, 2008 at 8:51 am
hi!
I too had a slipping incident (twice) both in public places. The first was at the local movie theatre. Some idiot that it would look nice if the concrete floors under the seats were painted a nice easily washed high gloss paint. I might as well have been trying to ice skate on my crutches. I almost fell down the stairs!! The second time was in a cosmetics store that had a high gloss slate floor. Caution is all I can say!! It was raining that day and people were tracking the water inside. Dangerous. Anyway, water is the enemy so be as careful as you can. As far as the garden goes, I am a plant lover and have three very large perennial gardens. I ruptured June 8th and blew off the whole summer. I finally got to my gardens two weeks ago at 13 weeks post-op and had to completely gut out the weeds, re-lay the mulch and lighting. What a job. But I feel great having been back in the yard. May all your plants recover!!
September 29th, 2008 at 9:58 am
You once again painted a perfect picture in my mind of your day
Yep, those rugs and water stuff are definitely things I have experienced too….one thing I have always made sure of through this journey is to ALWAYS have a shoe on my good foot so it would be supported because of all the extra weight-bearing it has to handle…..many of us here have experienced pain in our good achilles when not giving it the proper support….just another word of advice…….it is not fun to have two hurting tendons 
Sorry about your plants, but before you know it you’ll be out there giving them your tender, loving care…they’ll survive!
A few weeks back, while I was still on two crutches, I came up with a scary thought and passed it by my husband….”what would I do if I dropped one of my crutches and no one was home to help me out..?” My husband, the practical one, said, “You’d pick it up”… of course I’d pick it up, but how? I couldn’t reach down to the ground– I was having enough trouble trying to stand up straight– but I knew he was right….i would have to pick it up somehow. Well, sure enough, that same day, I was crutching around the bedroom and caught one of my crutches on the corner of the bedspread and down it went. Crap!!!! I have one crutch in my hand and my other is on the floor….I guess I jinxed myself by mentioning the posibility….okay, think…..luckily I was close enough to the corner of the bed that I could hold onto it and lean over, balancing on one leg, to lift the fallen crutch off the ground…whew:) My heart was beating after that episode, but all worked out with no problem.
Keep posting!!! Sounds like you are getting around okay….good for you for starting to exercise as much as possible. It’s good for the mind and body.
Keep Healing!!!
Marianne
September 29th, 2008 at 7:31 pm
Marianne I will surely start to wear a shoe on my good foot. Everyday is a day to learn and by the time I am an expert I should be up on 2 feet again! lol
September 30th, 2008 at 10:42 am
Sympathy pains for your garden! My garden was just starting to take off when I injured myself and now it looks like what it is…a sad neglected plot. The zucchini have taken over, the tomatoes grew top heavy and fell over, the rhubarb up & died (I thought those things were indestructible?), the beans followed after the rhubarb, my flowers and strawberries have been over run by bindweed and some other weed that grows at least 3X as fast as my flowers. I’ve tried to go out and rescue plants but had to face the fact this season was probably a lost cause. The weeds grow back much too fast. I even toyed with bagging my leg & sitting amidst the weeds to try to do some damage control. But dirt up the cast would NOT be a good idea & I just can’t get enough leverage to pull out some of those stubborn weeds! In the meantime, neighbors have reaped the harvest of my over abundant zucchini & I did get my boys to stake the tomato plants upright. Unfortunately, in pounding the stakes in, they must have cut thru the main root of my best plant. It tried to hang on but finally succumbed and went out in the garbage last week.
As for slip sliding away, isn’t that fun?