Well…for those who do not know, I broke my ankle/foot last Saturday.  I was leaving our local outdoor mall where my husband and I had just went to see a movie, then had gone to Cold Stone for some ice cream…that was amazing by the way (Coffee Lovers). It was dark, I was walking at a normal pace, I think I was switching my purse from one arm to the other when SNAP!  This bomb exploded in my right ankle and the fire spread up my leg, and my butt hit the ground…I had fallen off the curb, and I looked to my husband in shock…not only from what was occurring right then, but because exactly one week previously at the same mall I had tripped UP a curb and fallen forward and skinned, bloodied and bruised my knees, ribs, elbows and ripped my new jeans!

I mean what is wrong with me? Now I can’t even walk? Suddenly I have no clue how to maneuver curbs?  Like my son said (in the same sarcastic tone of his mom) “Do you see curbs and think you can DEFY them??” lol.  Now here I am, on the ground, people milling by, my husband is freaking out and I am as usual trying not to call attention to myself or my predicament, telling him to go get the car and bring it to the curb…I’m holding my foot, sitting on the curb, yet trying to act like this was the most normal thing in the world to be doing…I swear if I was out in public and my arm fell off, I would hold it up and pretend it was still attached until I was alone or at home.  Why am I like that? I have no clue.

I have had many sprained ankles and even broken them before.  I was younger then.  I didn’t have all these other health issues then.  I wasn’t already dealing with major pain then.  This is HARD.  I have this heavy Frankenstein boot on my RIGHT foot (can’t drive), using crutches is next to impossible because it requires using your abdominal muscles, which I don’t have and it makes my hernia buldge out as far as it can.  I cannot put ANY weight on my foot for six weeks.  So for the first week, I literally stayed in bed, only using the crutches for short trips to the potty.  I have a wheelchair from previous illness, but it’s a transport chair with the little wheels, so you can’t wheel it yourself…not that I could anyway with my abdomen issues, but we have been using it when I must be taken to doctor appointments.  Today we went and rented me a knee walker, thinking that would be the perfect thing, just rest my bad leg on it and scoot around the house! 

 First of all, it’s a damn crime how much these things cost to rent!  $150 per month! Or more at some places!  Buying them is double or triple that.  So I’ve been kinda using it around the house tonight…I have ran over my good foot twice, got myself in our tiny bathroom and couldn’t get it turned around to get out, same with my tiny kitchen (galley type), and my good leg is now exhausted from scooting around the walker!  I’m a walking catastrophe!

I know my husband and daughter are sooo sick of waiting on me.  I honest to God try to limit my needs.  But just the basics really add up.  We don’t realize how much we need or do until we are asking others to do it for us!  I mean, a glass of water…oh maybe a snack…oh, my purse, where’s that magazine? I need the phone please.  Heating pad?  Ice pack?  Meds?  Remote?  Extra blanket?  Turn fan on?  Dvd?  Feed fish?  Feed/Water dogs?  Let them out?  Let them in?  Breakfast?  Lunch?  Dinner?  Lotion?  Kleenex?  Someones at the door!

 And don’t get me started on taking a shower!  It’s like a national event!  I can’t do it alone, getting in and out that is…so, its like this “Ok, I need undergarments from that dresser over there I can’t get to cuz the wheelchair is in front of it, I need clothes from that closet I can’t get to cuz the box fan is in front of it..no not that shirt, the blue one..no, not that blue one…oh nevermind, I’ll wear a blue bonjovi tshirt with orange flowered pajama pants, who cares?…okay, now I’ll hobble down the hall, can you get me a towel and wash rag please? Get undressed with an audience, be assisted into the tub to sit on the shower chair…feeling exposed and embarrassed…shower head not pointed at me right…please point it so the water is actually hitting me?  Finally I can close the curtain for privacy and wash…drop the soap, drop the razor…an Intuition, which falls into three pieces, I can’t get them…I give up on shaving.  Finished, now freezing, trying to dry off, need help to get out of the tub and getting dressed…more embarrassment.  Then must ask them to take my dirty clothes away and help me back to bed or recliner.  I do not like others having to mess with my dirty clothing.

By the end of that we are all exhausted.  I am hurting so bad I could not imagine anything hurting worse, but I shouldn’t say that cuz God may decide to show me differently.  I am really feeling picked on.  I feel like people must think I’m some kind of whining baby, but really…this is some crazy shit that has happened to me in the last five years!  I have been thru more crap than anyone I know for sure.  I don’t get it…I’m a good person, really I am.  Am I truly cursed?  Is there such a thing?  Am I really being punished for something in a past life?  Am I here for a purpose?  Is my suffering for a purpose?  Why is my family being tortured?  I feel horrible for them. They are having to be my servants for God sakes!  Like I said, I am alone alot, so once one of them gets here, I am in need of things!  Not to mention just some human conversation!  It’s a bummer to say the least.

I hate being helpless and needing so much help.  REALLY hate it.  I try to have them get anything I think I may need all in one trip, and will just not say anything if in fact they forgot something I needed…even if its a fork for my meal! lol.  I have been dealing with illness and pain for a long time now, and was helpless for part of that…but I was a very drugged and in a coma type of helpless then, so it wasn’t quite as distressing as it is now.  The holidays are coming…will I be healed by then?  I have Christmas shopping to do…and I do NOT like to do that with my husband…lol, that is something I prefer to do alone, so I don’t want to have a “babysitter” to drive me around then! 

The worst time though is around four in the morning.  I have been asleep maybe two hours, and suddenly am bolted awake by severe burning ankle/foot pain!  It feels as if someone is beating it with a sledgehammer, while simultaneously setting it ablaze!  I get the boot off and put on an icepack that I have thankfully thought to request before everyone went to bed, I take an extra dose of pain medication, hoping I don’t OD!  There is no comfortable way to sleep.  IF I sleep at all.  I’m so tired right now, but I know I couldn’t just lay back and sleep.  I need a shower, but no one has had a moment to help me with that today…maybe tomorrow.

It’s no fun to be helpless, in pain and alone.

STUPID CURBS!