Update:
While doing
some demolition work at the church work day on Saturday morning, I got bonked
on the head with a long 2x4 as it fell. I was sent home with a suspected slight
concussion. By Saturday night I was feeling okay--still had a good headache
going on and my head was sore where the board hit me. I am pleased to announce
that the board that hit me was damaged more than my head and was thrown away as
trash--just proof that I have a hard head. Seriously, I was grateful
because the board had a lot of 16p nails sticking out of it, my head managed to
find a spot on the board without any nails. The damage to me could have been
much worse. Now on Monday night, my head
is still tender but the headache is gone.
I was
supposed to attend a friend’s wedding on Saturday afternoon. I was very disappointed not to be able to
attend. I really wasn’t up to driving or
partying so I just had a quiet evening at home.
On Sunday I made it through church with the help of some ibuprofen and
didn’t do much the rest of the day. I
was itching to go for a bike ride but didn’t feel up to it; excessive movement
made my headache worse.
Monday
really went to pieces on me. I noticed
that our refrigerator was not working.
It is completely dead—two of my sons came over and brought our old
refrigerator up from the basement. Since
all the kids moved out we no longer needed a second fridge and we had talked about
trashing our old one. It’s over 20 years
old and has a lot of wear and tear—but it runs.
The newer one that replaced it is five years old and something probably
blew on the computer board. So glad we
hadn’t gotten rid of the old one yet.
Trying to diagnose the problem and getting it moved upstairs took the
morning. Then I had to go to the
Register of Deeds at the Courthouse to take care of an issue (I was thankful
that was easily resolved).
I did the
grocery shopping for the week and got home in the early afternoon. Unloading groceries with a prosthesis is much
slower than before the surgery. If the
items are light, I can take two bags but normally I make a separate trip for
each bag. And I thought unloading
groceries took a long time before; now I know better. I saw a bilateral below the knee amputee
while shopping at Sam’s. Bilateral means
both legs were amputated. I was going to
go say hello but he got out the door before I could nab him. Like me, he used a motorized cart while
shopping and then walked out of the store.
He walked very well without a cane.
My day is coming!
After the
groceries I was finally free to go on a 9 mile bike ride. How is it that the wind can blow in your face
no matter which direction you are headed?
On the positive side—no gnats! I
got a good workout riding back home with a stiff wind in my face and I made it
up both of the hills I decided to ride over.
With the wind against me that was quite a feat. Dogs were especially “friendly” today. I came very close to being bit twice. Both
times I was headed uphill and already in first gear and had nothing extra to
boost my speed. One dog circled me a
half dozen times. The owner finally
called him off. I used my foot to gently
push the other dog’s face away from my leg.
I am surprised he let me do that without biting me. I was pretty calm both times
surprisingly. There was really nothing I
could do to stop the attack, so I was pretty relaxed—maybe since I wasn’t
speeding away or showing fear, the dogs figured that I didn’t taste good enough
to bite?
After my bike
ride I mowed my lawn and trimmed a couple of bushes that had gone native. This is the second time I’ve mowed my own
lawn. It takes a lot of energy for me to
push mow and with frequent rest breaks it takes 3-4 times longer to get the
entire yard cut. Here is a short video
of me mowing the lawn
After dinner
I changed my hand bells to a higher weight.
I do a lot of weight training with hand bells and it was time to
increase the weight I am lifting. Having
to use the handrail on the stairs meant that I could only carry one down and
one back up at a time. All my weights
are downstairs except the ones I am currently using. I don’t usually go up and down the flights of
stairs at home more than once every few days.
It takes a lot of extra energy to go up the stairs and quite a bit of
mental energy to go down; so I limit what I do.
I ended up getting lots of good exercise on the stairs as I traded my
sets of 10 & 12 lbs. for the 15 & 20 lbs. sets.
When I took
my prosthesis off before bed on Monday, I found that I had developed a sore on
the back of my residual limb. It feels
like a bad rug burn. My liner must have
pinched and rubbed me raw. That means
that I won’t be wearing my leg for the next few days because the wound has to
heal. Wound care is extremely important for
an amputee and an open sore halts use of the leg. I have sent an email into my
doctor to verify what needs to be done.
Thought for the Day:
When I
discovered that I had the raw spot on my leg on Monday night, it was a challenge
to my emotional wellbeing. I knew right
away that it meant not wearing my prosthesis and riding the wheelchair 24/7
until it heals. My first thought was, “Not
this week!” I have an event scheduled
every day for the next three days that I was planning to attend/participate
in. That’s all changed now.
Emotionally
that revelation sought to bring me down.
It’s relatively easy to be happy and content when things are going
right; it is much more difficult to keep that kind of attitude when things go
wrong. It is amazing how emotionally
fragile most of us really are. We can go
from “Cloud Nine” to the “depths of despair” in a matter of moments. Based upon what? Our circumstances.
Allowing our
circumstances to be in control of our emotional well-being is a recipe for
disaster. Each one of us faces a mixture
of good and bad situations. Sometimes it
seems like the bad ones had been backed up and suddenly broke free to dump on
our day. Wham! Wham! Wham! (That’s a
Triple Whammy, if you are counting).
If I let
circumstances determine my happiness, then I no longer am in control of my life. I don’t like that because there will be too
many days of misery, so I am going to choose my own attitude, thank you very
much! I choose to be content. I may not feel like grinning ear-to-ear but I
choose to be at peace about my life.
I have to
admit that I am not perfect at this. I
got frustrated and a little hostile about the refrigerator not cooperating and
going back together easily after we took it apart to get it through the doors. But this is my goal and this is what I strive
towards—peaceful acceptance of what is and what cannot be changed. Don’t misunderstand—I am all for changes that
improve my life and I will strive mightily to make them happen if it is
possible; but when things go wrong as they often will, I choose not to emotionally
follow them down the path towards that dark hole.
I hope you
have a great day in store for you today; but if you don’t, I hope that you
choose not to let your attitude crash and burn.
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