I’m a bit broken, but I will fight another day.
Basically, my muscle relaxers I take at night adversely affect my balance when I get up, even when I use my walker. It took many tries to get to my feet after waking up on a Wednesday afternoon June 4th at about 1300, and about the 30th time I tried I fell with my right leg underneath me. There was much popping noise from my ankle, my knee, my hip, and my fibula. It didn’t hurt much so I went about getting breakfast after the paramedics got me off the floor moved me from the bedroom to the kitchen. I procured a beverage, heated a breakfast sandwich and prepared my morning peanut butter sandwich while getting up and walking gingerly around the kitchen performing these tasks. After breakfast I noticed I didn’t have my phone and went back to the bedroom to get it, no problems aside from the leg being a little tender all during this, picked up my phone, turned to leave and pivoted on my right leg like normal, and there I was on the floor again. This time the ambulance took me straight to the ER where they did some X-rays and told me I had a broken leg, specifically my fibula. A formable splint was applied to my leg and suitable padded and wrapped and I was told to apply weight as tolerated and left alone in the exam room.
I was asked if I had a preference of what rehab I wanted and of course I told them Encompass, they gave me an ER bento because it was way after 1800 by this time and I was back to running on fumes. I was expecting to spend the night at Methodist Richardson but shortly before 2230 I was bundled into another ambulance and put n my room at Encompass. I was in bed by 2330.
Then I threw myself into my rehab like a monster, adding weight and reps to my exercises way in excess of what was asked until I was exceeding by double or triple most of my exercises. One in particular I went way overboard, it’s called the rickshaw that after a while I got used to it at a moderate resistance so I added reps until I was scaring both the therapists and the other patients then I started adding weight until they ran out of weights then I had them throw the rack they stored the weights on on the machine and did 2 sets of 500 reps, and did similar on other machines until there wasn’t anything more to be gained by staying longer at the rehab, but I still couldn’t go home because of my balance issues and the fact that Mrs. the Poet is also in skilled nursing care. So we are now in the same room of the nursing home where she’s going to be for a while longer. I’ll be here until my leg finishes healing and I get my community support.
Speaking of community support, I got a printout from my social worker “So You Have Severe Mental Illness” that had a list of conditions that if you have 1 or more you have SMI. In the printout was a list of resources I qualify for including housekeeping and a shower attendant, and a plethora of other in-person help. Anywho, on the list was depression, PTSD (both kinds), ADHD, WXYZ (just kidding), and I had 3 or 5 of the list. So it’s official now, and I qualify for lots of help because of it.
Witch on a Bicycle 
