Hello My-Sorely-Neglected-But-Still-So-Dear-Readers,
It has been too long since I posted. There hasn’t been anything overly exciting going on, the days just seem to have been slipping by. I have been trying to sleep more, a futile quest as I have discovered. I have still been walking, of course, and I have a backlog of pics to share, so some new S. Walks posts will be coming in the next couple of days. Beyond lying in bed most days for hours, I did start physio this week!! I am sore, exhausted and just a bit discouraged. I have noticed that I am even more lethargic when I don’t have your wonderful comments to read and encouragement to lift my spirits… (Speaking of which, I still have eleven comments to reply to, so if you have commented and are wondering, “Hm, where is S.?” I am here, and you will get responses soon! Promise!) That being said, I only deserve comments if I write and since I have neglected to do that recently I am, as usual, my own obstacle. Why is it that at times you can be your own worst critic and the hardest challenge to overcome is your own thoughts and actions? I have started about five posts recently and then given up because the words just weren’t working. But who cares if the post is awkward, I have never claimed to be a writer at all, let alone a good one. Bah! Enough, away from excuses and onto this post…
I went to my first physio session on Monday and they are putting me through the ringer because my therapist knows just how hard I can push myself through the major progress I made in the ten months I was in physio before the surgery. My physio team knows that I would do anything they tell me… When they say do front bridges, I say how long do I hold it for, and then I hold it longer. There were times when they had to reign me in because they didn’t want me damaging the area by trying to work it too hard. My team J., my physical therapist and chiropractor, and A., my kinesiologist, have spent countless hours encouraging, teaching and motivating me. Actually there have been times when on my worse days I would wall into physio with, inexplicably and uncontrollably, tears streaming down my face.
This is the scar on my back. It is approximately eight centimeters, or three inches long.
I felt like the pain was going to make me fall to pieces, but through their sympathy and kind caring words I walked out feeling better, if not good. J. has dug me out if some major mental holes and periods of discouragement. A. has lifted my spirits more times than I can count and just recently he picked me up off the floor… Literally! I couldn’t get up!! Humour aside, he has picked me up so many times when my morale has plunged. I have spent so much time with them and the girls at the front of the desk that I consider them friends. They have been working with and pushing me for a year to strengthen and tone my muscles, and they know when I am motivated and and when I am more discouraged.
Today J. asked me if I was looking forward to being better and I realized that although I am looking forward to returning to work and normal activities, I am also very anxious and apprehensive about the amount of work involved in recovering. I don’t know if I am strong enough to push myself the way I had before the sugery. I realized that I am loathe to do the mini steps again. I have already went from 40% core strength to 110% once in the last year, and throughout the last three months I have lost so much strength I am actually weaker than when I started physio the first time. It is frustrating, disheartening and sort of overwhelming.
This time around I am finding it harder to get or stay motivated. The first time I went through physio there was a sense that if I work hard enough I would see results, get better and not have to get surgery. Although, obviously, that never happened I still held out hope, right up until the week before surgery, that my nerve pain would resolve itself without surgical intervention. Now I feel like I have nothing solid to work for. To get better. But what does that mean? How much better can I get? Will I get all the way better? Is this going to take six months? A year? and a half? Two?? There are still so many question marks in my future. I just want something solid, something I can rely on, I wish there was something I could set my sights on without the inevitable disappointment that comes when I don’t achieve my visions. It has been a long time since I could make plans more than a day or two in advance. Frustrating, overwhelming and disheartening.
Hmm… Oh! Guess what? I taught myself to knit!! I have been dabbling in knitting for a couple of months but since the surgery I have been really trying to teach myself new skills.
I made a scarf for my boyfriend, a neck warmer for my mom and a kerchief for myself without patterns before the surgery and they were all… satisfactory. After the surgery I delved further into it, beyond knitting and purling, and discovered ribs and cabling. So I have made a bag for myself. I still have trouble reading complex patterns, so the bag was a figment of my imagination, but it worked! I made one side using smaller (5.5mm) needles for the pink at the bottom of the purse, the same needles with thicker grey thread for the ribbed stripe, and bigger (7.0mm) needles for the top pink part. I made a similar size piece for the back, but I made the top pink part a bit higher to hold the stuff in, and a strap trying to cable, but failing miserably. The final piece is the bottom which is just a small grey rectangle knit in garter stitch using the thicker wool and smaller needles to make the bottom sturdy. And then I stitched it all together… Anyways, I am sure no one really wants a play-by-play but I am rather proud of it and wanted to at least show you all a picture.
First twelve lines of my Good Morning Bath Mat!
Right now I am knitting a bath mat I found a pattern for on ravelry. Here is how much I have done. I know it doesn’t look like much yet, but it is 1/5 done and took many hours to get that far. That is the one thing I am finding kind of tedious about knitting, nothing gets done fast enough. Haha, a reoccurring theme is that patience is not my strong suit! 😛
The last thing that has been keeping my attention away from here is my new e-Book: Cerulean Sins by Laurell K. Hamilton, which is the 11 book in the Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter series. I had seen this series in Chapters bookstore over the years, and always sort of thought, ‘Meh, not interested in another vamp series’, but I started reading her Meredith Gentry series, who is a fairy princess, around January of this year and really enjoyed that series so I decided to give Anita a shot. I started on the Anita Blake series… gosh only a month ago and I have read eleven of the seventeen books. If you are a fan of sexy vamp novels, where the lines between good and evil are never clear, you will enjoy Hamilton’s take on how society would change if vamps became legal citizens. Although the legalization is a passing thought in the novel series, it is instrumental in setting up the threesome between Anita, the vampire hunter, Jean-Claude, the Master Vampire of the City, and Richard, the Ulfric or king of the Werewolves in town. While there are elements of romance in this series I feel I must say that it is easy on the mushy feeling stuff, heavy on the sexy passionate bits (I envy her amazing sex life! 😛 ), and there is just enough violence and emotion to keep you interested and invested until the end. If you want to read my review of the previous Anita Blake Book, Obsidian Butterfly click here.
Oohhh… Speaking of books, I also just got the new Sookie Stackhouse novel, (HBO’s True Blood is based on this novel series) Dead Reckoning by Charlaine Harris that I can’t wait to dig into… However I am always disappointed that the Sookie books don’t last long enough. Or maybe I just read them too fast? Either way, a novel by Harris is only good for a day or two afternoons of enjoyment for me. Oh well, a sweet pair of afternoons it will be. I am unsure if I want to go ahead and finish the Anita Blake series or break for Sookie…. What do you guys think? Read the last six Anita books, or treat myself this weekend with the Sookie novel?
I think I am going to wrap this up here. It is another long drawn out post, so thankyou if you have stuck through to the end with me. I guess that is why I should write more often. Shorter posts are easier to read!
Oh, by the way I have about six days of posts to catch up on, so look out for me popping up, creeping through and commenting on some of your past posts! I look forward to catching up! 😀
As always, thanks for reading! -S.
