Update:
Wednesday afternoon I went hunting with my crossbow. I put out some corn and enjoyed watching the
birds for the first hour enjoy their feast.
(Baiting is legal in our area—although it is the first year I’ve ever
done it). About 45 minutes before dark,
two young does came in. I decided to let
them grow another year and just watched.
A few minutes later two more does joined them. One was a mature doe and I decided to shoot
her. But as deer hunting goes, for the
next 30 minutes she was either facing me (bad shot with a bow) or covered over
by the smaller deer. I had been holding
my crossbow up the entire time and was getting tired—I probably moved too much
and spooked them a bit. The mature doe
that I wanted moved off about 80 yards away.
The smallest doe kept eating. I
heard a buck grunting and watched a buck chase the mature doe off out of
sight. Another buck moved into the corn,
ignoring the little does. He was at
least an 8 pointer. It was right at
close of hunting and he faced me directly the entire time until it grew too
dark. I had to sit an extra 20 minutes after
dark to give them time to leave so I could walk back to the truck without
scaring them. Watching the deer got my
heart racing and my adrenaline flowing.
It was intense! I had a great
time! Maybe next time I’ll get a chance
to shoot.
Although we were holding our family Thanksgiving on Saturday, most of
the kids were at the house for the day on Thursday. We sorted through a bunch of old
pictures. At breakfast with my wife, I
got pretty choked up during a prayer of thankfulness thinking about the events
of last Thanksgiving. Earlier in the
morning, Karen and I took a ride to my hunting site to get the SD card from the
trail camera and to leave a Thanksgiving feast for the woodland critters. We stopped by to see David (son) and Nick
(son-in-law) who were first in line at Best Buy after camping overnight. We went home to the warm house full of the
rest of the family. It was a pleasant day. By 5 p.m. all the kids went home so Karen and
I watched a movie together.
On Friday morning, my daughter Ruth and I got up and shoveled the snow. She dropped me off at the gym and then went
out to do a bit of Black Friday shopping.
At noon, she picked me up and then we went grocery shopping for the
family Thanksgiving. On the way out of
one of the stores I had an intense phantom pain attack. That drained me of all my energy—even several
hours later they said I look washed out.
After we got home I put my feet up and ended up going to bed early.
It’s now Saturday morning and I’m feeling energetic again today. My daughters, Kate and Ruth, are supposed to
be here all day cooking for our evening Thanksgiving gathering. I’ve got the kitchen clean for them to
destroy. Looking forward to the family
time together!
Thought for the Day:
I was telling my daughter about the constant discomfort that I have to
ignore when wearing my prosthesis. When
you first get a prosthetic leg, it is really foreign and hard to forget. As time goes on, you learn to ignore the
discomfort. It becomes normal to you but
it never entirely disappears. My daughter
said that it sounds a lot like wearing high heels. She said that they hurt and you just sort of
ignore it and go on. Wow! I don’t know anything about high heels; but
if they are like wearing a prosthesis, you ladies need to make wiser shoe
choices!
Since my
adjustment earlier this week, things have gone much better for me. Overall I am in less pain and better able to
go about my day. But that doesn’t mean
that I don’t have limits. Walking about
300 yards in the woods doesn’t sound like much.
Working out at the gym for 90 minutes is tiring (as it should be) but
doesn’t necessarily drain me. Going into
several stores (riding the motorized carts once inside) shouldn’t take that
much out of me. But currently it
does. I think that it is due to the test
socket still not fitting perfectly and my leg is still sensitive from before. Although I am no longer experiencing major
pain, however, there is a moderate level of discomfort constantly. I do alright for a while but eventually my
batteries discharge and I am out of juice.
The hard part is accurately gauging when that will be so I can manage it
better. It seems to fluctuate so much
that I it is hard to tell. It doesn’t
necessarily seem directly tied to my activity level—although I think that
accounts for most of it. It seems to be
a cumulative effect of doing several high-energy activities. I haven’t figured it out yet so I just push
forward until I am sent to the sidelines because I am unable to play any
longer. I look forward to getting this
all straightened out so that I can more fully engage in life. Currently there are some things that I still
am not doing because of the uncertainty of my ability to walk and
function. For most of the summer, I was highly
functional. Now I would say that I am
moderately functional which is much better than not being functional at
all! So while I look forward to “more
and better” I am “satisfied” with where I am at currently (when I compare it to
“doing nothing”).
What a weird
way to live! Daily challenges and
adventures. Lots to learn and explore. Many things to conquer and some things
to endure. There is no such thing as a “routine
day” for me any longer. Every day is
different and just about the time I think that I have it all down—everything changes
and I start on a new learning curve all over again. Life is exciting! Some days I wish my life would be a bit more
boring; but I am enjoying the ride and glad I am here to experience it.
Over this
last year, I’ve learned a lot. I’ve had
multiple opportunities to learn patience; I am much better at it than I used to
be—still room for improvement. I’ve
learned to ignore a lot of what I use to call “pain;” now I call anything I can
ignore for a while “discomfort.” I’ve
had to learn to dig deep within myself to continually face the challenge and
push through difficulties and discomfort.
Finding out how to repeatedly encourage and motivate myself to keep
going when I want to quit has been very important. I’ve learned that some of the things that
used to seem so very important to me was just me being nit-picky. I’ve had to learn to moderate my emotional
response at setbacks and difficulties.
Not being able to do what I want, when I want, as freely as I want, has
been a hard reality to absorb. My leg
and what is going on with it that day heavily influences my day. I’ve learned to be comfortable with my
amputation--I wear shorts in public and go swimming at the pool without a leg. I
don’t necessarily try to hide my amputation, in fact I realize that I sort of
enjoy others noticing. Each one of us is unique and we should celebrate that
uniqueness; so my amputation is a part of my uniqueness. It has become a part of who I am. I’ve learned to sleep on my back and to go
to sleep when the house is noisy. I know
that I have much more to learn; but that is one of the joys of life—always something
more to do, to learn, to conqueror.
Whatever
your day brings, I hope you will find joy in it. Some days you have to look a bit harder to
find it; but every day you take another breath gives you reason to find
satisfaction (and maybe even something to celebrate and enjoy).
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