March 10, 2010

I hurt all over (whine). Sorry, but this is my pity party post. My poor body has been through so much over the past week. First it was the trauma of falling down the stairs. My lower back has big, ugly bruises all over it and my leg and arm both have big, ugly bruises also, although not as badly as my lower back, which has been very sore.

And then I ended up very sore from the crutches. I am careful not to rest my weight on my arm pits, as they had cautioned me about that. But still, my hands are sore and the sides of my chest, under my arms, where the crutch pushes against me at times, is very sore also.

Then I started using the knee scooter, which really has been so very helpful. But my thigh muscles were so very painful after the first day of use. I felt as if I had gone down hill skiing, after not having been in 20 years. That lasted a couple of days and was just starting to feel better when I went to the doctor yesterday morning....when I had the cast put on.

I already had some red, sore skin on my shin and knee from the scooter. But yesterday the top of the cast was rubbing against my leg when I used the scooter and it was really raw this morning. So today I was careful to only have my knee on the scooter, while holding up my lower leg with the cast on it. By the end of the day, my knee was really sore and the area behind my knee was also really hurting from the weight of my leg and the cast.

Knees were just not meant to bear the body's weight, as if they were feet. And the weight of the cast is the cause of the soreness on the back of my knee and it really hurts.

I think it will take another couple of days for my body to adjust to this new change (the cast). Hopefully after that I will be fine for the remainder of my sentence:).

The cast is not very comfortable, surprise surprise. When they put it on they told me to not put any weight on it for at least 2.5 hours, as it takes that long to completely harden. When I almost fell in the locker room at the swimming place, I put a significant amount of weight on my cast and I think I might have smushed the cast area underneath my foot a bit, as it seems a little too tight.

Between going to the doctor yesterday, going to swimming lessons, almost falling at least 3 times, coming back to the house and helping make lunch for me, the boys and my friend and her sons (my sweet friend helped a lot but I was up on my foot/knee/scooter the whole time), letting the boys play outside on the driveway (which meant I had to back the van out of the garage and put it back in when they were done), go to the door to tell them to quit throwing rocks, quit pulling branches off of the neighbors bushes, etc. too many times while making a casserole for dinner I was up on my foot/knee/scooter/new cast WAY too much. I way over did it and today I paid for it.

I have given myself several pep talks today and, overall, I think I have had pretty good self-talk. I know it could be so much worse and, in the spectrum of problems, this is probably not such a bad one to be dealing with. Even so, my leg was hurting so much by the end of the day that I had my own little pity party and came to my room for a few quiet tears. I felt better afterward so maybe that was all I needed. I also took a pain pill and that helped:).

Fortunately the weather was beautiful today so the boys were able to spend about 1.5 hours outside playing, without coats or jackets. They had so much fun and I enjoyed the peace and quiet.

They were so tired when they went to bed tonight. They went right to sleep and we didn't hear a peep out of them. With the days getting longer and the sun rising earlier, the boys have been waking up way to early (6:30ish). They normally wake up between 7:00 and 7:30. So the dear husband bought some sun blocking curtain liners and hung them tonight. I am hopeful that will help the boys to sleep in a bit tomorrow.

And talking about sleep, it is way past my bed time and I am exhausted. Thanks for listening and I welcome your prayers.