Today I realized the reason why I like talking on the phone with my therapist than seeing her in person: TRAFFIC! I left my house at ten o’clock and literally got there around 12:30. Normally I get there around noon but the traffic when I got to route nine, well, was just horrible. I don’t know why they have traffic cops at a construction site when they DO NOT DIRECT TRAFFIC!! There was at least a three mile back up and they were just sitting in their cars watching! I couldn’t believe it. But then it is typical of these guys. I don’t know what they are supposed to do, really, other than get paid overtime with our tax dollars for doing nothing. I want that kind of job.
My foot is better today, though I didn’t think I would be able to walk down the street. Half way down the block I needed to walk to get to the bus stop, my ankle started hurting really bad. It is still throbbing and I can’t take anything for it because I still need to pick up my sister as I have her car.
I was proud of myself today as I know my trucks. There was an F350 behind me on the way home and I knew that it was just by looking at the grille of the car. I love the Ford trucks. I fell in love when my friend’s stepdad picked us up at the airport when I first visited his parents. We spent a good amount of time in the truck as we had a long drive from Omaha to his hometown of Sargeant. The ride was nice and roomy, my first time in a truck and I was in love! I always wanted to own one but I don’t think I can drive one. I have a hard time with perception and am afraid of side swiping another car. That is why I am afraid of driving my bro-in-law’s jeep cheroke. It is a wide vehicle and new so I don’t want to damage it. I am not saying I am a horrible driver, I am not, but if something scares me I tend to stay away from it.
My therapist would call that trauma. We talked about that today with that weird dream that I had about my back surgery. I dreamt about it a few days after I got discharged from the hospital. I still have flashbacks of everything, from the time I was told I had CES again to getting admitted the next night and then surgery the next morning. I remember waking up with my left leg feeling weird. I thought it was just post-op stuff but it turned out to be a missing disc fragment was imbedded on my nerve root. I lost total feeling of it. I had no strength in it. I couldn’t lift it up if you paid me a million dollars, it was that weak. It took me a month to regain strength and another four months of physical therapy to get back to my baseline. I shopped around for a physical therapist that had experience in nerve injury and cauda equina syndrome. I didn’t go to the Spaulding rehab because 1) they were expensive and 2) they were not willing to work with me. I knew that if I did go with them, they would want to do things their way instead of what was right for me. I found someone at a local hospital rehab center that helped me get back to where I was before surgery and then a little more. I had to fight for the extra sessions and have my surgeon, then my primary care doc order physical therapy because I did not want to go through what I went through the first time I got this bloody condition, which was just surgery over, care ends too. I still had foot drop in my left foot that took months to regain strength the first go round. I wasn’t going to let that happen with my entire left leg.
Turns out that no matter what I did, this stupid, fucking condition ended up disabling me anyways. I still ended up with an AFO (ankle foot orthotic) for my left foot. I still end up with panic when my foot flares up in pain and I think that CES is going to happen again. No matter how much time has passed, and it has been years, I am always going to have that trigger soon as I can no longer move my toes because of inflammation/pain. And because I still have a fucked up spine nice and full of herniated discs, there is a chance I will end up with another diagnosis of CES. I fear that if I have to have another back surgery, I will need a fusion. If that happens, I will never be able to work again. As it is, I can’t walk more than a few blocks and stand for more than twenty minutes. The thing that I have to be aware of is trying to lose weight, which is tricky and wicked hard. But one doc told me that even if I weighed eighty pounds, I still would have a messed up spine. I just have to watch what I lift, making sure to do it properly, with the legs and not the back. But I don’t do much lifting of anything other than my Gatorade bottles. My biggest fear is getting rear ended by another car. That will hurt!
midnightdemons7 