I think I will start today’s entry off with a quote.
“Believe in yourself…
You will be
A shining star.” -Rui Huang Washington Ballet
I found this quote in a dance magazine. I’ve been looking at it all week as my resolution falters. Last night my resolution faltered big time. No binging, just sad and tired, and a lot of pain in my leg. No binging is a good thing, major progress there. I could do without the overwhelming sadness though. Sadness with the tinge of anger, boiling rage if the truth is to be told. With a HUGE dose of frustration.
What am I depressed and angry about? Why am I writing it out? I am writing it out to work my way through it. Who knows perhaps it will help someone else work their way though whatever is going wonky in their lives as well. That would be a good thing.
I am depressed and angry that:
(1) I blew my friggin knee out climbing over a bloody snowdrift. It’s been 33 days since that nightmare began. I have another appointment with the ortho on May 6th. I thought she was nuts when she put it off a month, the first time I went in. Now I understand why. She was waiting for the inflammation to go down. It has to some extent. Actually it has a lot. I am still not able to walk naturally. I am walking nearly stiff legged with my left leg. I can bend it now when I am lying down or sitting. But it doesn’t want to bend on its own if my leg is fully extended.
I am waiting to see if I have a torn acl and/or meniscus. I found some info on acl damage on about.com, mostly about recovery from reconstructive surgery.
My hams and calf muscles are screaming and knotting up like crazy. I did get a hinged brace to help stabilize it. I’ve cut back on my workouts, however I haven’t been able to cut back much on the ranch work.
If any of you have had experience with jacking up your knees and have come through it I would love to hear how you worked through it. I don’t want to leave it inactive because it will stiffen up and weaken. I am trying to find a balance between overdoing it and doing even more damage and rehabbing it, hopefully avoiding surgery. I know that’s unlikely if I have ripped that acl.
One more month until my husband is on vacation, and then there will be someone to pick up a bit of the slack on the ranch/kennel work. At this point just getting through the ranch/kennel work is wiping me out for the rest of the day. I can’t believe how much effort it is taking to handle what I normally do.
(2) Here comes the next round. April 14th, 2009 our family home of over 100 years burned to the ground, no there was no insurance on it. Ashes to ashes and dust to dust. The neighbors dragged my mom out with a broken power wheel chair, in the clothes she was wearing. The Poms and birds I’d been trying to get her to send over here burned to death. I keep thinking I should have just taken them before this happened, but legally I couldn’t do that. I should have done it anyway. On my way over there I kept seeing one little Pom’s face in my mind’s eye. I still see her in my mind’s eye.
On the drive over there, as I was trying to keep from running the van in the ditch, totally panicked, not knowing whether my mom had burned alive in that fire all I could see is that Pom. Mom’s special baby. Her little face kept popping up in front of me.
I got there to find mom in shock sitting out in the road, no shoes, not even realizing how cold she was. I was glad to see she was alive, but I wondered if she would survive it. That has been questionable for the past couple of weeks. She is starting to come out of the shock of it all now. Most of the first week and a half she slept. Having nightmares of fires, afraid to be alone.
Before this happened she could transfer from chair to chair, get into the van and so on. After the fire she lost the ability to transfer. When she tried to stand she got confused and the ground started spinning. There is still some confusion but she is standing a bit better. Still very little leg control. I’m not sure if it’s all shock related, or if her arms and legs were hurt being rescued. I think most of it was shock related.
I watched her sink into confusion after discussing the burned out remains of her home. Her complexion would actually gray and she would sink back into a shell after each conversation.
Frankly I can understand it, I lost it when I went to the burned out carcass of our family home to feed the cats. In the state mom was in she didn’t realize what was happening, so David and I discussed it with her. There hasn’t been much in the way of discussing the burnout since then. Talk about it later when there has been some time for healing.
I don’t think the people hashing it out with her realized what was happening. She didn’t sound confused during the conversations, she collapsed afterwards.
(3) The third issue is related to the two above. From what I’ve been told scavengers have been digging around in the remains of the house. It’s bad enough that 100 years of memories went up in smoke, its adding insult to injury to dig around in the carcass of our home. Frankly I would like to set my house guard dogs on them and leave them in bloody pieces strewn across the burned out carcass they are ransacking. Right now it’s best that I stay away, because I am really reeeeeeaaaaaally angry. If my kennel, my mother, and my husband weren’t relying on me I think I would mount a little hunting party. A scavenger hunt so to speak. I can think of a delightful prize for these digging thieves, desecrating the grave of our family home. How about an ant hill massage, neck deep with some honey for hair dressing. That is if I called the dogs off them before they were carcasses themselves. Frankly allowing the dogs to do the deed is just too quick. A slower process is more appropriate.
You know, karma, the Golden rule, etc will take care of it in the long run. But it would work off some anger to help it along. No I’m not going to do that. Hello journals and blogs. Yes it’s true I write my way through rage.
(4) The fourth thing that is getting at me is trying to determine what the best thing to do for my mom is. A friend that I hadn’t seen in 6 years. (I’d moved, she started her own company, and we lost touch) Stepped up and has been an invaluable help. She is a professional nurse and she was excellent in working with my mom. Thank you Pat. Mom started coming out of the confused haze when Pat started coming out to transfer her from chair to chair, and visit with her. I tried to do it and failed miserably. My knee gave out, and frankly I had no idea how to do it without hurting mom and myself. If Pat hadn’t come, mom would be in the hospital, or a care facility. Then I wonder if she would have ever come out of the confused state she was in.
Right now she is sound asleep in a lift chair in the corner of my office. I thought of turning my office into a bedroom for her, but that isn’t going to work since my office also is a walkthrough hallway to the upstairs. No Privacy for her. I thought about moving our room upstairs and giving her our bedroom. That’s not going to work; the upstairs bedroom is going to be filled for a good bit of the summer already. So what do I do? I need a room with some privacy, a bit of space, that she can call her own. The only room I have is my pantry. When we first bought this place she popped into the pantry and said “this can be my room” I remembered that comment too. So the pantry is going to be turned into her room. It isn’t huge but it isn’t a closet either, keep in mind this is a small semi-berm farm house. The room is about 10 by 15 give or take a few inches either way. What can I say it’s an old house and the measurements vary lol. I think It will make a cozy room once I get my pantry supplies out of it.
Now to figure what to do with the pantry supplies. I’ll figure out something. Probably put the back up frig in the quonset. It would be great to have a storage/pantry room built inside the quonset. That isn’t going to happen immediately but down the road a bit. I would like to put a gym together in there too. One step at a time.
(5) The fifth thing that has been concerning me. Actually the thought of it about drives me batty. Is a long history of misunderstandings, and crisis creation in this family. Makes for a toxic living situation. I refuse to live in the middle of it. After last years mess, I had separated myself from it almost entirely.
With mom moving in with us I was concerned that it would start swirling here again. So I came up with a “house policy” When a he said/she said, whomever said whatever repeated commentary comes up. The parties involved will get together and clarify the comments.
When I made this policy known, there were some rather negative reactions. Mom’s reaction was let it go.
No I am not going to let it go. That is like seeing a toxic waste dump in your living room and letting it fester and put off toxins.
Frankly I would think that folks would want to clarify discussions so relations could flourish in a positive environment. Unless stirring up a toxic mess was the intention in the first place. In that case I can see where being called into conference to clarify and take responsibility for one’s comments would be an issue.
It’s pretty simple really, if you don’t want to take ownership of your words, then don’t speak them. Because whether you want to take ownership of your actions and words or not. They are your words and your actions, you own them, you are responsible for them. Such is life. Denying responsibility doesn’t take the responsibility away, it simply puts you in a state of denial.
If someone vents to you, it was for your ears. Not for someone elses. If they want me to hear it they will say it to me. Otherwise I am not interested in hearing it.
Frankly I don’t think I will have to mediate many if any of these conversations. I think the knowledge that I will pull the parties together to discuss it will be enough to stop the most of it. However if I have to mediate nonsense I will.
I wish someone would have stepped up when I was a child and done this. It would have made a major difference in the relationships within my extended family. It’s amazing how people pick at and hurt each other over and over again. There were a couple of them that actually used to laugh about it. Stir up a toxic mess then laugh. If they want to live that way, fine. But it isn’t going on in my home.
Some of them have passed on to the other side, leaving unresolved toxic issues behind them in their wake. It’s sad that so much family life was missed out on because of the toxic lifestyles that were lived. Lonely toxic people.
Well that was a very long post. I feel better, hopefully it will benefit someone else as well.
Oh… I almost didn’t mention. I have lost 21 pounds so far this year. Whoo Hoo! The compulsive eating is no more. All of the stress over this past month didn’t trigger a single episode. What a wonderful sense of freedom.
I am actually eating to live, rather than living to eat, or hiding in food. 21 pounds lost, 129 pounds to go for my goal of losing 150 pounds. There are two places online that I am so very glad I found. One is the Midwest center and the other is Beachbody. Both have been a blessing in my life transformation.
Life is a journey, enjoy the trip.
Mary E. Robbins & the Hairballs
Robbins Run Ranch: Living the Dream With Our Pomeranians.
Independent Beachbody Coach: Helping others reach their fitness and financial goals.
307.788.0202
A bit late on my morning workout. I actually slept after working in the kennels all day. I scrubbed out all the water and play buckets, over 40 and groomed 3 poms, mucked out the whelping house, took care of the fowl, and my sweet puppies.
Got on the scale this morning. I lost the pound back off that I gained last week. I am at 275lbs now, down from 299 lbs. In actuality I was over 300 lbs in December of 2008. I know I was because I had started to change my eating patterns and working out before I got on the scale for my initial weight.
SIGNS OF OVARIAN CANCER (even in the absence of Ovaries, and no matter what age you are) THIS IS A MUST TO READ TO THE END
Listen all to the tales of yore
Morning glories are one of my favorite flowers, morning glories, 4 o’clocks, bearded iris, peonies, holly hocks, baby’s breath, wild roses, blue flax, bachelor buttons, and lavender.
The Best Laid Plans of Mice and Women
I got on the scale this morning. I broke through the plateau. Whoo Hoo. I weighed in at 283 lbs this morning. That is a 5 pound loss. For a total of 16 pounds down. 299 – 16 = 134 lbs to go to lose 150 lbs. I lost an additional 1.5 inches off my body measurements for a total of 12.75 inches lost so far this year..JPG)
Beauty Salon chairs, movie theatre seats, airplane seats, office chairs with arms, bucket seats in some cars, all were a; what do I say.
I am one happy camper, lol. I still have a long way to go to my healthiest size, but I am on my way. I am losing inches. Yes I know I can tell that by a tape measure, but sometimes that doesn’t really sink in. Now my but not having to be wedged into a salon chair, that makes a major impression in my mind, lol.