Quick Post!

Run down of things missed or forgotten:

• After a month of waiting, I finally have a new mobile phone! The touch screen on my other had broken (on the day I bought a car, nonetheless) and I had to wait until my upgrade to get a new one. Thankfully, my parents let me borrow a mobile and the line they don't use often, so I at least had something while waiting. 
• Oh, yes - I bought a car! Well, rather, I signed the papers to commit to paying for a car for the next few years. My old car has not run in a year, and it was far too much money to get it running with no guarantee that something else would break down. I finally spent a decent amount of time going over the finances, figured out what would be affordable, searched and researched for hours online, and then spent 7 hours at a dealership getting approved for financing. The guy who wrangled with the banks for me was awesome. I love having my own car again and Agent M was highly amused by it when I picked him up with it.
• As of August, it has been one year since I injured my shoulder, which resulted in weeks of physical therapy, countless MRIs and doctor appointments, surgery, and six months of time off work. I am fortunate that it hurts so much less now and to have most of the mobility back already. December will bring the 1 year post-surgery mark. I can't believe all that has happened in the last year! (A subject for a whole other post)
• I spoke with my guidance counselor (is that what they're called?) at the community college and we made a plan for the next semester. I will be taking a maths class for the first time in over 10 years. I am more than a little nervous about this. 
• When I went onto the school website to check something after the counseling appointment, I discovered that one of my professors from last semester had died about a month prior. I was shocked and it took me two days to get over it. He had been key to getting through the last semester and taming a few of demons that I has battling. It took a lot in me to not call two of my other professors from last semester (who each had a huge impact on me) and make them swear never to die. (Again, whole other post on the subject, to come)
• I am STILL not divorced. Not amused by this. 
• In 3 weeks, I will be celebrating my Dad's birthday in Vegas, and then coming home to a wonderful to-be-announced-later secret. All I am saying for now is that I am over the moon happy and have been cleaning and working like a mad woman to have things together for the end of this month. 
• I am 8lbs away from my pre-pregnancy/pre-surgery weight (they were the same), and 15 lbs away from my post-marriage-dissolving/pre-living on my own weight. I have not made any drastic changes in my diet and I am just as lazy as ever, in my opinion, so this is a major accomplishment for me after getting back up to 205lbs after my surgery. 

And to close out things:

• Agent M is beyond awesome! Blaring the horn on this one! I have gotten a call from his teacher, plus a letter home, tell me how great he is doing in class and that he is an excellent student. His abilities in soccer are growing and getting more and more defined with each practice. I am so proud of him and each day I am so happy to have him in my life. He really inspires me to be the best person that I can be, and amazes me with the person he is becoming. 

Where I Usually End Up.

I am so far behind on school work.

Spring Break, even though I hardly had Agent M, was not much help, much less than I had planned for it to be. I was sick for a couple days, but plowed through and cleaned house like a woman possessed. I unpacked boxes by the dozen, hung paper lanterns in my bedroom, wrapped cloth cherry blossoms around the iron scrolls of my headboard, vacuumed the entire house twice, sorted and moved bin after bin of just stuff, and dusted everything. I was so sick from allergies that I actually took medicine and spent part of Tuesday in a fog. Homework was completely forgotten at that point.

Wednesday, I got to meet family that was in town from Sweden. Amazing people, and so full of love that just being around them made me happy. Between Wednesday and Thursday, I stayed at my parent's house for hours longer than I had planned. I tried to work on an article I was writing at one point, but got distracted and could not focus enough to string a full sentence together. It hurt to see them leave, and I unexpectedly had to fight off tears as I hugged each of them good-bye. To be honest, I am still sad from it, in the way that you feel sad when you go to a party that you don't want to attend, only to have a great time right at the end and feel as if you haven't had enough time to enjoy yourself.

Friday, I finished the article and sent it in. I looked over my homework, but being sick still had me wiped. Plus, Agent M was home and keeping me busy. The weekend was the same. Monday came, I was still sick and my shoulder hurt too much to go to class - so I told myself I would catch up then. Instead, I slept in and ran an errand. Tuesday, I felt better but had more errands come up, and found myself working on homework at 1:47am, crouched near my laptop, with a notepad in my lap as I struggled to practice my Swedish, write answers to questions on a homework sheet, and stay awake.

So, now it is Wednesday. I am tired. I had a great night at my parent's house, celebrating "Easter Wednesday" and then left Agent M there for a sleep over. Plenty of time to work on a paper or two. I briefly worked on the mountain of art supplies that has been taking over my living room, and sat down to type this up - but I can barely keep my eyes open. If I wasn't chatting with a friend, I would already be in bed.

I need to get over this sense of blah. I know my mind is else where, I know it is partially because my grades, which were all A's three weeks ago, are beginning to slip. I am disappointed in a lot of things right now and feel uncertain about what will be happening in the next few weeks. My last day of physical therapy is tomorrow, and Friday I find out if I am going back to work or waiting six more weeks. I'm stressed and tired. I want all the puzzle pieces to come together, but just feel so unmotivated to put them in order. I hope this feeling passes soon.

OT: Post-Op Story and Milestones

First, some history. I had surgery on December 8th to repair what was figured to be a torn rotator cuff muscle, figure out why it tore, and make my left arm able to be lifted pain-free over my head eventually. I had never had a surgery before, save for when my wisdom teeth were taken out. Not having a clue what to expect, I made small plans for the worse (letters typed up to be passed out to loved ones in I didn't make it through the surgery), but generally felt like the two months on Temporary Disability would be like a lovely vacation, spent typing, crocheting, visits and daycations with family, and packing for my upcoming move.

I was, literally, to be sorely mistaken.

Wanting the surgery to be well worth it, my surgeon actually found two tears, one on muscle and one on cartilage, plus the bone spur culprit. We were fortunate, he told me at my post-op check up a week later, the tears had been small enough for one stitch each and were in the best areas possible to have tears. I felt fortunate that aside from two days of massive nausea, mild pain meds and cold pack treatments had been keeping my pain to a relative zero. I was instructed to wear my arm sling/wedge contraption for 6 weeks total. Always when going out to protect my shoulder from sudden movements or bumps, but less when at home. While six weeks sounded far longer than I felt I would need it, I nodded and told him I would follow all orders and see him again in 6 weeks.

The first couple of weeks, were decently medicated. It's all a blur of comfy pillows, my mum making me grilled cheese sandwiches whenever I asked, and lots of television. Lots and lots of television. My sling was comfortable usually and I wore it at all times, no problem. As week 3 hit, I was getting antsy. Life was less medicated and being mobile was easier than in week 2, but having my arm out of the sling was uncomfortable usually, my sleep pattern was all over the place, and when I did take my arm out of the sling, I had to still be careful to either support it in some way or let it hang like dead weight. On top of all that, I was still not to use it at all. This usually left me having to support it with my right arm - meaning whenever I had been attempting to do was then moot since that brought me to having no free hands. I began to daily thank all the deities and saints I could think of that this was temporary, and marvel at the competency of people who have lost an arm completely.

The end of week 3/start of week 4 has hit me the worst. The weather has been fridge and the week started in storms. I have been increasingly frustrated with how slowly my progress towards full use has been. Still on physical therapists orders to only use my arm passively, I've had to mentally erase every single thing I thought I would be able to do with my left arm at this point and instead have been making a mental list of the things I've discovered I can do with my right arm. (My handwriting with my right hand is pretty legible at this point and I can easily make pancakes again.) Monday night my arm hurt deep inside, as if something was kinked and could not flatten itself back out. I began to take the pain meds again. Yesterday was worse. I woke up aching, and felt like my shoulder ball joint was sliding on the edge of the socket. This had happened here and there in the last few weeks, but only for a hair of a second and all was fine. Not yesterday. All was not feeling fine, and I had a physical therapy appointment that day too. Therapy was uncomfortable to the point of my eyes tearing up. My physical therapist (John) kept me as distracted as possible, discussing various cartoons of our youth versus what our kids watch now as he pulled and rotated my rm into positions I can not achieve on my own. Most of the rest of the day was spent gasping for air when my arm would suddenly tense into shooting blasts of pain, then trying to move it in to an angle that didn't feel like my arm was about to rip out of socket. The sling was not a help, having it out of the sling was not a help. Painkillers barely took the edge off. I wanted to just cry, admit defeat, not do anything, and give up for a while.

But this is a new year. I have vowed to be a new Ashley.

Sure, I went easy on myself the second half of the day. I let others do more for me. But I also sat up with better posture and stood up with my shoulders back, forcing my left arm to consciously relax. I did the at-home exercises the best I could instead of skipping them. By evening, the pain wasn't as awful and I even slept without the sling. That might have simply been possible because of exhaustion, but it still was a relief. Waking up this morning, my arm was aching like usual. But, it wasn't the sharp, bite-down-on-something pain of the last two days. I kept the sling off as I made breakfast. I sat my arm against the counter and was able to whisk eggs for an omelette. Then I sat down at my desk to read emails.

Inspired by the slack in pain, I let my fingers walk up the desk drawers as high as I could - an at home exercise that I usual fail. Usually I make it from the middle of the second drawer (waist level) to the handle on the top drawer. It felt fine. But again, today something felt different too and I kept my fingers creeping up the desk, pushing myself to be better than fine. My finger tips got to the top of my desk, curled them over the edge and I paused at the slight ache that was developing. I sat my shoulders back, breathed. Focused on relaxing every single muscle in my left arm, except for my fingers, and used them to pull my arm onto my desk. Tears came to my eyes as I crept my fingers to a point where my arm was resting up to my elbow on my desk. They were not tears of pain - this was accomplishment. For the first time since surgery, I was resting my arm on my desk. I sat and just looked at it, watching it unfeeling, as if it was led there by Thing, the famous Addams family relative, not part of my own body. I wanted to call people, send them cell phone photos of my arm on my desk, and would probably would have if my phone had not been sitting on a table on the other side of the room. At that point, I didn't want to get up, for fear that I would not be able to do it again. Then that thought repeated.

Do it again.

Because I did it. I pushed myself and did it. It ached, but I did it.

And I feel renewed. Inspired.

Welcome to the new Ashley. The Ashley who can do it. The self who pushes even when uncomfortable, and celebrates even minor victories.

I did it.