today it's been a year...
...since I was run over. It's been a real rollercoaster ride. I've seen how good & bad hospital/rehab care can be, & how bad (only bad) medical bureaucracies can be. I've seen how willing neighbors can be to help, & how that can go right & wrong. I've seen the kinds of assumptions people tend to make about what it means that someone's using crutches, from thinking I couldn't do anything to thinking that if I took 3 steps w/out them I was all better. I've learned that the wingnuts on crutches can tear swinging shoulder bags. I've seen something of a loose community form around my accident, incl. a family of 4 who were in a car nearby when it happened; the mother called out to me a couple of months(?) after I got home--I had no idea who they were, since I hadn't actually met them before & might never have met them if it hadn't happened. I've seen them a few times since around the neighborhood. I've learned my mind tends to compartmentalize things too much, to the point that I don't think of things that would help me. That's not new, but it's more of a problem since I've had to deal w/accident-related things.
I've learned that things can happen that...well, I'm not sure if I'd call this serendipity or what: I went to an app't. at a social services ofc. & then shopped at 2 or 3 health food stores on my way to the bus to go back home. Once I was on the bus, I realized that somewhere btwn. the ofc. & the bus stop I'd lost the off-red overshirt I'd had tied around my waist (1 that I've worn to some of the ATPo meets, & a favorite of mine). I had to go back to the ofc. 2 days later, & I decided to retrace my steps & ask in each of the stores if I'd lost the shirt there. Nobody had found it, so I went back to the bus stop, looking around to see if I'd spot it even though I didn't really expect to. I was looking on the ground, but out of the corner of my eye I saw a flash of red up off the ground. Someone had found it & hung it over the branch of a tree! I was amazed. I wanted to put up some kind of thank-you sign, but I didn't have anything to either make it with or hang it with. It seems like a small thing, but w/everything going on, it meant a lot to me. Since then I tuck the sleeves through an extra time when I wear something around my waist.
I still have pain in my pelvis & shoulder, & in my back since shortly after I stopped using the crutches. (I think it's because the crutches kept some of my weight off my spine.) I have to have separate app'ts. for each of these things (see above re medical bureaucracies). Sometimes it's not too bad, sometimes it is. When I got to the shoulder orthopedist, he thought he saw a possible fracture in my new x-ray & ordered an MRI. The PA called me afterwards & said it showed I'd had a fracture in my shoulderblade & a partial tear in my rotator cuff; no one had mentioned a fracture there when I was in the hospital, & they'd specifically said I had swelling in parts of the rotator cuff but no tears. I don't know if they missed it or if it happened later. (& I just learned that "rotator" is a palindrome! Never noticed that before. Cool.) And it's hard to keep up w/everything: medical, legal, getting work. (Last week I edited a revised/expanded version of the article I was working on for an acquaintance when I was run over. It felt strange to have it come around again almost a year after the accident.) And I still get tired more easily than before, which probably has something to do w/the having trouble keeping up.
1 thing I haven't managed to learn is not to stay up too late! That could have something to do w/my getting tired too, although I think it's also related to that thing I said way back then about how much energy healing takes.
I've learned that things can happen that...well, I'm not sure if I'd call this serendipity or what: I went to an app't. at a social services ofc. & then shopped at 2 or 3 health food stores on my way to the bus to go back home. Once I was on the bus, I realized that somewhere btwn. the ofc. & the bus stop I'd lost the off-red overshirt I'd had tied around my waist (1 that I've worn to some of the ATPo meets, & a favorite of mine). I had to go back to the ofc. 2 days later, & I decided to retrace my steps & ask in each of the stores if I'd lost the shirt there. Nobody had found it, so I went back to the bus stop, looking around to see if I'd spot it even though I didn't really expect to. I was looking on the ground, but out of the corner of my eye I saw a flash of red up off the ground. Someone had found it & hung it over the branch of a tree! I was amazed. I wanted to put up some kind of thank-you sign, but I didn't have anything to either make it with or hang it with. It seems like a small thing, but w/everything going on, it meant a lot to me. Since then I tuck the sleeves through an extra time when I wear something around my waist.
I still have pain in my pelvis & shoulder, & in my back since shortly after I stopped using the crutches. (I think it's because the crutches kept some of my weight off my spine.) I have to have separate app'ts. for each of these things (see above re medical bureaucracies). Sometimes it's not too bad, sometimes it is. When I got to the shoulder orthopedist, he thought he saw a possible fracture in my new x-ray & ordered an MRI. The PA called me afterwards & said it showed I'd had a fracture in my shoulderblade & a partial tear in my rotator cuff; no one had mentioned a fracture there when I was in the hospital, & they'd specifically said I had swelling in parts of the rotator cuff but no tears. I don't know if they missed it or if it happened later. (& I just learned that "rotator" is a palindrome! Never noticed that before. Cool.) And it's hard to keep up w/everything: medical, legal, getting work. (Last week I edited a revised/expanded version of the article I was working on for an acquaintance when I was run over. It felt strange to have it come around again almost a year after the accident.) And I still get tired more easily than before, which probably has something to do w/the having trouble keeping up.
1 thing I haven't managed to learn is not to stay up too late! That could have something to do w/my getting tired too, although I think it's also related to that thing I said way back then about how much energy healing takes.