Broken Ankle Day 14 ~ 14 Things

 

1.  Broken ankle recovery is MUCH more difficult that mastectomy recovery.  I went back to my blog posts to check and yes, I was out ~ slowly and with the requirement of much sleep afterward ~ two weeks after my mastectomy, and preaching a week after that.  Yes, there is a lot of depression and sadness that accompanies the loss of a breast, and the problems inherent in the lingering presence of general anesthesia out of your system are the same in both cases, but after breast surgery you can WALK.

 

2. I need the entire queen-sized bed in the guestroom for me, my cast, the foam cushion on which I sometimes raise my leg, my tossing and turning, my books and phone and ipad, and my cat.

 

3.  I crawl upstairs on my knees and come down on my rear.  Once a day for each.

 

4.  I wash my hair in the kitchen sink, leg resting on a chair, and take sponge baths by sitting on the toilet in the tiny downstairs half-bath.  I do both things as seldom as possible.

 

5.  Get-well cards and notes are the high point of my day.

 

6.  I was surprisingly angered by a blog post on the spirituality of accepting one's powerlessness in the face of a friend's need.  POWERLESSNESS?  Excuse me?  If you have two working hands and feet, you are not powerless.  There is stinking laundry all over the house, people run out of toilet paper and food staples, rugs need vacuuming, and litter boxes need cleaned. 

 

7.  I have been reading blogs about broken ankle recovery.  Yesterday a friend, a secretary at the university, told me that she broke her ankle two years ago and said, "I know you were just like me when the doctor said how long it would take.  I said, 'Oh, no ~ you don't know me!' "  "Yep," I said, "that was me."  "A year," she said.  "A year for everything to feel back to normal."  Holy SHIT.  It's true. 

 

8. I am so grateful to . . . the head of the religion department, my lectionary study group, the people working on my newest project, and our clerk of session, all of whom are coming to my house for meetings in the next week.  This does require the purchase of a new vacuum cleaner, however, as ours died yesterday, of course.

 

9.  I look longingly at television commercials in which people are walking though airports and frolicking wherever it is they frolic.  Unlike Mrs. Patmore, I AM a frolicker. 

 

10.  I am grateful to the friend who is going to take this week's sermon and preach it for me.  We are pretending that I am Paul, writing to one of the first century churches.  Alas, those were in the Mediterranean, and mine is in Cleveland.

 

11.  I am binge-watching The Sopranos (wearing), reading The Beekeeper's Apprentice (fantastic), watched On Golden Pond (lovely) this afternoon.

 

12.  I have fallen twice in the house.  I don't usually go around falling down, but this business of getting around with one leg and a walker or a scooter requires somewhat more coordination than I possess.  I am terrified of breaking something else.  I am terrified of the steps in and out of my own house.

13.  This has happened when I was pregnant (twice), when Josh died, when I had breast cancer, and now:  I wish I had a mom.  Wouldn't it be the most amazing thing, to call up your mom and say, "This totally sucks!"  Wouldn't it be the most amazing thing, to have had a mom to share your life?  I don't think about it too often, but sometimes I do.  This is one of those times.  Also, don't moms do things like bring soup?  Irony of ironies, my daughter is sick this week and I can't take soup to her.

 

14.  Tomorrow I venture to the surgeon's for a second post-op visit.  Staples come out (ouch!) and maybe I will get a walking boot on which I will not be permitted to walk.  But at least the damn cast will come off.

I will try hard not to write 30 things on the 30th day!