Humpty Dumpty

It's been a rough road orthopedic-ly. I fell. A no big deal, I wouldn't even remember in an hour fall. In my own bedroom on a clear area of the carpeted floor. Just sort of tipped over. The moment I hit the ground I knew I was in trouble and went into immediate denial about how bad it was. You see friends, the pain on my right side, upper back wasn't a bad knot/bruise combo. Not this time...

I fractured a freaking rib! Let me tell you, this particular injury is no joke. I felt like such a cry baby dragging myself to the doctor for tipping over in my own room and then he informed me that the recovery time on this is THREE to FOUR MONTHS!! I'm not a pain meds person so he suggested a brace, but I'm not the same size as most adult humans so I was cautiously hopeful. Now that this intense localized pain had a label it was far more unbearable. The brace was a no-go. So, the doctor prescribed a course of oral steroids to suck all the inflammation out of the surrounding area so the bone would sit right and (fingers crossed) heal. He also set me up for physical therapy.

Here I was with reason number 4,987,230,567 not to fuse your spine. A little "tip over" and you crack a rib. SIGH. Also, I'm used to my impressive pain tolerance and a boatload of distraction seeing me through. This was a horse of another color. Nothing helped. NOTHING. I went to physical therapy and whimpered and complained of pain the entire evaluation. It was embarrassing. I even had to take a second dose of steroids because of a nasty pain spike.

While all this broken rib garbage was going on I went to check in with my hip doctor. It's strange how you only become conscious of the pain in the total complexity of the whole pain...ecosystem? And then you focus in and start singling them out...

No, my hip wasn't broken. I had in the ortho's exact words "a big old nasty bursitis." Lucky me got the big old nasty cortisone injection that goes with that.

After fractured rib and "big old nasty bursitis" you would think I'd be steeled up and ready to face what was next, but I was quite literally dragging my feet to find out what was up with my train wreck of a right ankle. I am not usually a whiner, but the rib injury was making me grouchy between the pain and the depressing thought that it would continue for months I was running awful short on motivation. I finally decided to face the music...

It turns out because I had ankle fusions pre-puberty I know had a severely arthritic joint in my right ankle. When you fuse a joint any joint nearby has to pick up the slack and the overuse of the neighboring joint can severe inflammation aka arthritis.

It really makes me irritable about all the surgical fusing. I'm on the mend, slow and steady. I refused an injection for my ankle and the doctor gave me a topical. Some of my friends were skeptical that it would "do anything." So, I was stunned to discover that it worked. I actually had a surreal period where I imagined my foot must be missing entirely because it didn't hurt. It made me realize what I refer to as a zero on the pain scale is not a zero. It was great and bizarre.

Feeling a little Humpty Dumpty, but I'm healing and working through it. Still, kicking as much ass and taking as many names as possible.

So, How'd it Go?

Ugh, um...good...er well, I guess.

   I feel wrung out just now. I did get really sick right before my birthday, take some trips out of town, go on some auditions, work on  children's theater production, play the lead in a romantic comedy and directed a children's musical in two weeks. All this on top of the day to day stuff obviously. I tried to make it back for more Jedi training in June, but my schedule got crazy and we had a death in the family (perhaps more on that later).

   So, here I am just past the "thank god, things can get back to normal" phase well into "Oh dear god, is this really it?" phase. I'd been so busy I'd thought about catching up on laundry as some great happy goal. Obviously, it made me happy to get through the back log, but seriously? Sigh....

   Project! Over-doing-it, pain, stress, spending down time resting and recovering, being overwhelmed for a cause. End project RELIEF, rest, chores, time...depression. I hate even writing about my "normal life" just now. Uncertainty, plagues me and I hate that I can't ever grow out of the not knowing. The adults had it all together, before I was one. 

  I don't want to complain, but I do want to say because no one ever does being a parent (disabled or otherwise) and a fulfilled human being is really HARD. 

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So, full disclosure this is like draft four or five of this post because it's been a long time coming and I have a lot and nothing to say all at once and I can't let this be a complain post. I will now take a few deep breathes and tell you a lot of things that seemed super significant happened since I posted last, but most were not. 

I continued to try and balance my personal fulfillment with family obligations and physical pain and limitations. Nothing new there, but the battle becomes not letting on how much of an impact things are taking on me physically while being honest with myself. Emotionally, it's been a rewarding theater season/school year. Crap, rewarding? Draft five seems inevitable....

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