Friday...

[fajrdrako]

Went to the hospital today to get my new cast on The Foot. maaseru went with me, and no thanks could ever be enough for what it meant to me. I got a new cast - a lighter one - and they took the staples out of my leg. It's healing well, but a little swollen, and should be kept up more. And higher. And I should exercise. Four weeks from now, I go back to the doctor, and sometime after that will start physio-therapy.

I had no appetite before going to the doctor; it's hard to eat much these days. By the time I got home I was shaking and exhausted, and so ate a bit, and napped. And then felt halfway human again.

Then my friend Jacques came over. We had Greek take-out for dinner and talked and played two games of Scrabble - with the first one, he felt he'd forgotten the rules too much, it took a good half game before he got a feel for it. But he's a game-player all the way, and by the second game I could see his brain kick into gear with clever strategic moves.

Mostly we talked. I've known Jacques since high school. He's very interesting for self-analytical and philosophical talk - in fact, once we get talking, it's hard to stop.

So now I'm tired again, but not unhappily so.

Comments

[wanderinunicorn.livejournal.com]

I'm happy you've had a nice day, I often think about you.
PS:"Pawn in Frankincense" is on it's way to me - in English. I'll try to reed it, what can I do.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the kind words! I like to think I'm a little better each day. But... still not mobile.

"Pawn in Frankincense" is one of my favourites of the whole series. It's heartbreaking but quite wonderful.

[commodorified.livejournal.com]

Not-mobile is ... hard. On so many levels. I mean, as you say, the pampering has its moments, but it's irksome. Just when you need rest everything takes so much EFFORT, and it's hard not to feel infantilised, or demanding, or like an upside-down turtle.

I can't tell you how much I've admired your good humour and patience these last few weeks -- but just so you know, if you're not always like that, I'm going to understand.

*loves you*

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Not-mobile is ... hard.

Sigh. Yes.

Just when you need rest everything takes so much EFFORT

Yes. More than once I've ended up weeping in the kitchen because the simplest of tasks is so difficult. And I can't even feel pride in acheiving them 9whenI do) because it's so difficult, I just fall apart. Briefly.

and it's hard not to feel infantilised, or demanding, or like an upside-down turtle.

All of that!

I can't tell you how much I've admired your good humour and patience these last few weeks -- but just so you know, if you're not always like that, I'm going to understand.

Aah, bless you. I try not to be crabby. That doesn't help anyone.

*loves you*

Love you too. *hug*

[walkingowl.livejournal.com]

That you feel no appetite makes me feel sad. What can I do, think I, to help you with that? You love food so much. Sigh!

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

It will do me good to eat less for a while. Really!

[walkingowl.livejournal.com]

If you say so. I'm currently wondering how much more weight I'm going to lose; it seems that this has happened in the last three or four months, with all the stress; today, the jeans I put on in the morning were practically falling down, all day at work. Baggy and much too loose at the waist. Please don't say "good!" -- it was unnerving and upsetting.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry to hear if you're losing weight and don't want to. I have been more alarmed by my (previous) weight gain and hoping not to gain any more now.

[walkingowl.livejournal.com]

One can be pleased and satisfied to be losing weight by surprise (I do know that it is not due to any insidious health issues, which of course I checked into when I first noticed it) but still unnerved to find that jeans that used to fit were ill-fitting at best and that one was now stuck with wearing them like that all day at work...! More on this later....

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

As long as you know it's not a serious health issue, take it as a resetting of the cosmic balance.

[walkingowl.livejournal.com]

Yep. I've been thinking a lot about the cosmic balance these many months. I'm fully in the flow of a massive collection of realignments, I'd say. I'm going with it.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I've been thinking a lot about balance too. For one thing, learning to balance on my left leg - traditionally my weak leg - has been the theme of the month!

[walkingowl.livejournal.com]

Yes, I'd been thinking about that. I think it can be done. I'm sure you're finding that it can. Myself, just speaking physically, remember (maybe you don't) how my right hip wouldn't take any extra weight on it...? I think that has changed now. There are some interesting issues involving (as somehow I'd suspected) the very small, very key muscles which hold the femur to the pelvis, called psoas muscles, which I discovered in a book called The Body Bears the Burden, which is about how a person's history of physical and other traumas ends up getting expressed in one's body in what the author has discovered fall into certain very clear and identifiable patterns. Once I read that, and let it go on pause in my thoughts for a few months (over two years, now), I found that I have much less of a sense of the weakness and need to protect that area. So, maybe we could try that out together, next time I visit? [g - just a thought, randomly generated]

Other things of mine that have been "forced" to come into balance lately are things that I had thought I was afraid to do on my own; circumstances made me take the steps, and now things are much better for me, and... well, it was relatively painless. Some of it's still hanging out there, but a lot of it is taken care of, and now I'm giving myself time to get a feel for this new sort of balance I am closer to.

I hope you have not felt your "weak" left leg giving up on you; I doubt taht that will happen. I think you will find, as I have, that the potential for true balance is indeed there, just awaiting opportunity.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

the very small, very key muscles which hold the femur to the pelvis, called psoas muscles

I think those are the exact muscles that have been giving me trouble and making complaints.

Other things of mine that have been "forced" to come into balance lately are things that I had thought I was afraid to do on my own; circumstances made me take the steps, and now things are much better for me, and... well, it was relatively painless.

You know my belief that fear is the root of all evil. And every fear is best dealt with by facing it. Attack-escape.

I just need to strengthen the left leg and hip and get used to handling the new way to balance my body.

[walkingowl.livejournal.com]

I think those are the exact muscles that have been giving me trouble and making complaints.

Ah...! Really. Well, listen to them. They connect your core to itself (in many ways). It might even be wise and useful for you to meditate and converse with them. Ask them what they need from you, tell them what you need from them. (I should be doing that too.)

...fear is the root of all evil.

I'd agree. And imagined fear is one of the worst kinds of it.

I just need to strengthen the left leg and hip and get used to handling the new way to balance my body.

Which is what you've been doing for the past three and a half weeks, of course... and, again, perhaps you should meditate and ask that part of you what it needs, and what it wants to do? Maybe that's just a little too literal for you, but... not the worst idea I've ever had, hm?

You do seem to be coming back into balance already. But the effort seems to be quite enormous, and continually exhausting. Which it is for anyone who has to keep paying attention to all the minutiae of what seems to outside observers to be just a simple task! I feel for you, as you already know. And I wish I had advice to help you find it less exhausting, but I truly don't know that solution. Not for me. But for you, I'd say eventually you will just make the new patterns-of-movement/behavior more habitual and less in need of direct thought and ocncentration. Yes, I do think that'll come, for you. As you said: finding the new balance. And it's there. And you will find it.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Ask them what they need from you, tell them what you need from them. (I should be doing that too.)

That would be a good exercise for whatever bits are ailing me.

And imagined fear is one of the worst kinds of it.

Yes. Partly because it's illusion (or has an element of illusion). Partly because fears get magnified in the mind.

I wish I had advice to help you find it less exhausting, but I truly don't know that solution.

Time. It's still... easier each day, as I get stronger, The Foot heals, and I learn to do things I couldn't do - often just figuring out strategies. I found a way to carry a cup of coffee from my sofa to my computer chair, for example. It's time consuming but it works.

[walkingowl.livejournal.com]

Becoming more aware of your own body, your own energy, as it moves and changes -- never a bad thing.

I think, actually, a key to making all this less exhausting is just to make a major focus on your own energy and find what it is trying to do. It might be that the exhaustion sets in because your energy is able and willing to do this or that, and you are unaware of that and intend to do that and this, instead. The exhaustion would mark where the discontinuity becomes insurmountable.

Figuring out strategies would indeed be a form of "finding out what your energy prefers to do." Congratulations on the cup of coffee transfer. I won't ask if you managed to do it one mouthful at a time. (The most time consuming method that I could think of quickly.)

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

No. My coffee method is to put the cup of coffee it as far away from me as I can reach on my coffee table. Then I take the walker to the other side of the coffee table and lift the mug over to the far corner of the table at the other end of the sofa. Then I move to the chair at the computer and I can reach the mug from there. Triumph!

[walkingowl.livejournal.com]

Good for you! ...You might be intrigued to know that this is what I was guessing you'd come up with. Yeah, you see, I too have had experience with being less than fully mobile, and I (and many others) have come up with many of the solutions that you now are finding. Massive congratulations again!

You have a coffee table in your living room now? That must be keenly handy in so many ways, and also a major tripping hazard!

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I like the coffee table - it's from Ikea. And its very handy. My thought had been to keep it dismantled most of the time, and put it up when I need it - so I would have the floor free for yoga, aerobics, or whatever most of the time. Currently it's handy for everything.

[walkingowl.livejournal.com]

I feel relieved that you have a coffee table to use right now. I couldn't imagine how you'd keep things nearby and organized, otherwise, at this time!

This is a rather bizarre irony, you may realize. You say you kept the table dismantled, putting it together only when you needed it. This is the same table that tipped over and crashed down on my shin and the top of my foot, the night of March 31, when I was puttering around cleaning my living room while still all caught up in the news of your amazing adventure. I keep mine in pieces, too, and right now it is serving to lean against the front of the fireplace to keep the kitties from trying to get in there and find out where the flue-vent goes. But mine was from Ames, not Ikea!

(Does yours weigh around thirty-five pounds? Watch your feet, around it!)

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Hee - coffee table synchronicity!

This table is very, very light, which is one of the reasons I got it. maaboroshican carry the one that twice this size (but of identical make) under one arm, with the legs thrown in. This one... maybe, I don't know, I'd guess less than ten pounds. I was going to say 'less than five' but that doesn't seem possible.

But it seems sturdy.

I did some cleaning up today - I now have a clear arm chair!

[walkingowl.livejournal.com]

Hey! hi. I've been responding to comments without first reading them in my e-mail, so I've gotten somewhat turned around -- don't know what I've answered yet, basically. From my e-mail, I'm talking. (Sorry that made no real sense. I was all primed to tell you about how well I'm doing today with sensory issues, only to have the young man to my right, about ten minutes ago, start to riff page by page through a textbook... and if he could make each page make any more sound, I hve the feeling he'd be doing it!!! Utter disruption of tought processes. Ai.)

I will refrain from further comment on "coffee table synchronicity" until I know you have healed as well as I have, okay?

Wow, that's one nice table, if it's that lightweight. It must not be made of pressboard, which mine is. No doubt exuding formaldehyde and other nasty chemicals into my front room nonstop, too. Ah, well. It does the job of keeping the front of the fireplace safely closed off from kitty curiosity, and I'm actually fine with it when I don't try to move it!

Ah, this was the day you cleared/neatened the clutter that had accumulated on your comfy chair, yes? And such an accomplishment it was. Good for you!

I was proud of myself Tuesday night the 29th, for writing three articles (wrote three, edited one) for our union newsletter; good stuff, too. I'll probably live to regret it when they're published (but that's not new). I spent five hours at our union office doing that, and from there I can (for some reason) get online and read & respond to your LJ, but can't log into my e-mail account. Odd!

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

It can be easy to get confused in messages. I suspect I sometimes reply to people twice. This is okay, as long as I don't contradict myself.

Yes, the lightweight quality of the table is one of its charms.

[walkingowl.livejournal.com]

Ah. That would be embarrassing, yes. I imagine I've done it.

This sounds like one nice table. Ikea, you say?

Today I was outside on the porch, working on the porch. Literally. I was putting wood-filler putty into a broken gap in the front porch steps. It was some struggle, as every time I tried to smooth more putty onto the area I'd already filled, the first stuff started to peel up and come out. Gnahh! I soon learned that the trick was to let the first stuff surface-dry for about fifteen minutes, then put more stuff on. So, I was doing this off and on for most of the afternoon. Now I'm letting it dry overnight, and will sand it smooth tomorrow... uh, or, actually, probably fill in the remaining gaps tomorrow, right. Well, I'll sand it smooth on Wednesday, and then -- considering that the area is on the front steps, and they are bare wood, and this filler stuff is the same color as manilla paper... either paint it, or stain it. And I thought, why not paint the area in black, then letter on my house number? I've seen people who do that on their houses. I may as well. I hope it looks nice.

So, I already have some paint for another project, and all I needed was to get some black... which I did before stopping here. I'm set.

The yard landscaping is going better than I'd expected. I don't think I'll need to move a great quantity of earth after all, but just put down the river pebbles and then let them settle into the ground. The ground was quite dry, too; I'd expected it might be too wet to work. It will be nice to sit there on summer days, after things are all done.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Yes, it's an Ikea table.

Sounds as though you have a lot of work to do around the house! Enjoy.

I haven't been out since Sunday - hoping for an excursion today. Even if just to the back parking lot.

[walkingowl.livejournal.com]

Sounds as though you have a lot of work to do around the house! Enjoy.

It is pleasant stuff that I come up with to busy my hands. I like working with my hands. It is joy to work with my hands. But I overdid the earth-work: both my knees hurt last night, ouch. Today not very bad. I didn't try anything strenuous today, however.

I haven't been out since Sunday - hoping for an excursion today. Even if just to the back parking lot.

Ah, you yearn for adventure! DVD vicarious is not enough for you now. This is good. All you need is someone to hold the doors for you, and there you are, outside in free air. Shall I come do that for you? All I need is the gas money and an invitation (uh, and some other things, but let's not let "mundane" interfere; this is poetry, not documentary!).

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I didn't get out today; maybe tomorrow. Theoretically I could, and can, get through the doors by myself - but it's so difficult it doesn't seem worth it. Going to get my mail is adventure enough!

[(Anonymous)]

I think going to get your mail is a major adventure, yes. It probably takes some concentration and energy.

No, it's not only easier to get outside with someone else to help with doors, it's more enjoyable to have the company. Hope you managed that today.

(Now that you are moving around on crutches more, are you finally using the utility belt...? It has a special pocket for glasses of iced tea!)

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I think going to get your mail is a major adventure, yes. It probably takes some concentration and energy.

It takes a certain amount of strength, stamina and balance to get through my front door. Heavy handle, heavy door. Then to push it open again when I come back. Amazing how challenging it is!

Yes, I went out today with [Unknown site tag]. We went to Bento Sushi for lunch, and then to get the car washed, and then since we were in the area, I persuaded her to take me to the Silver Snail. "This is her spiritual home," maaseru explained to Dave. Then Kin told me about the time he tore his Achilles tendon in a squash game in Toronto and was in a cast for six weeks.

[blackbyrde.livejournal.com]

I haven't read LJ in months! I had no idea you were hurt! :( {{{big big hugs}}} and I'm glad to read you are getting better. Would you like a visit from two cute little people and their mommy? :D

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Oooh, yes, I would love a visit! That would be wonderful!