Suzy Q Homemaker

I see a trend.

I also don’t know what to write about other than the pain.  It has taken up most of my life these past couple of months.  Yesterday my physical therapist pushed me pretty hard.  There was one exercise I simply couldn’t  do because it hurt so bad.  I’m making steady progress but it is going so slowly that I’m getting frustrated.  The good part about PT is that the floor is slick enough I can work on pivots.  So long as my foot is right on the pivot point on the bottom of my shoe, my ankle doesn’t catch.  Just the slightest lip of traction sends a jolt of pain right through my foot.

The visible scars are healing well.  I have three.  The longest one is the scariest because you can see the holes where all the sutures were.  There are two small ones on either side of my foot.  I’m not sure but I think one is from the arthroscopic tenosynovectomy.  Doesn’t really matter.  Internally, I feel things starting to loosen up as my tendons are slowly learning how to do things again.  I suppose it helps to have a virtual obstacle course in my own house.  I’m also walking on uneven surfaces whenever I go down the driveway to the bus stop.  My foot gets a workout all day long.

I haven’t publicly admitted to being slightly depressed.  So I guess that’s what I’m doing now.  I hate that I don’t have the energy to do much more that sit with my foot propped up after getting the kids off to school.  Timothy has been watching more television than any toddler should be allowed to watch.  He gets food all over the place no matter how many times I make him take his snacks back into the kitchen.  The second I got up to go to the bathroom yesterday he took his spagettios into the living room and spilled most of them all over the carpet.  He also refuses to wear clothes for most of the day.  But that’s more amusing than anything.  And practical considering he is trying to make progress using the potty.

Wow I’m a Debbie Downer today.  I’m broken and I want to be fixed.  I miss that Zumba high I would get after class and the sweaty hugs from all my friends.  I know I’ll be back soon.  It just can’t seem to come soon enough.

Tell you what, though: I’m definitely looking forward to my first non-fat Pumpkin Spice Latte of the season. How did the weather know it was PSL time?  I might dig around in my cabinet and see if I have any cans of pumpkin left from last year.  I managed to make some really good imitation PSL in my crock pot last year.  So good.  On a similar note, the Samuel Adams Harvest collection is out and the pumpkin beer is really good.

Alright. I’m gonna see if I can muster up the energy to make myself some breakfast.

Happy Thursday, y’all.

I’ve been avoiding this place.  And it’s my place!  I suppose I’ve been in some form of denial these past couple weeks.  Deep in the back of my mind I knew that if I wrote about it I would have to fully accept it.

I’m having surgery on my ankle on July 21.  And I’m not happy about it.

Spraining my ankle a couple months ago has turned out to be one of the worst things that ever happened to me both physically and financially.  We’ve racked up medical bills for x-rays, splints, physical therapy, and the latest is an MRI that we have to pay out of pocket because we haven’t met our deductible.  Fortunately, we can set up a payment plan which I can only guess is what we’ll have to do with the surgeon and anesthesiologist when it comes time for my procedures.

Finances aside, I am trying to maintain a positive outlook on my recovery.  I need to remember that it will be a time for healing, not a time for mourning.  I’m going to miss my friends. The majority of my friends are Zumba pals who I only see in class.  I consider them colleagues as well as friends even though we’ve never done anything aside from Zumba together.  Well, they have.  But they’ve known one another longer and live closer.  I’m way out in the country which leaves “dropping by” to the family that live next door.

I can say the same for church friends.  I envy the people who can drive two minutes to their friends houses and can get together at the drop of a hat.  That envy has been a hard pill to swallow for many years.  I have only had one friend since moving out here that would come by on a regular basis and whenever she didn’t have much to do.  I lost that friend, though.  She moved away and I was so hurt that I destroyed the friendship before she left.  Burnt bridge.  Not that I haven’t tried to find her. She was living in Louisiana before the hurricane so I don’t know where she went after that.  The last time I talked to her I think I was newly pregnant with Simon.  It was an awkward phone call.  My cell phone number hasn’t changed in eight years.  I hope she wrote it down.  I know how “losing” numbers is easily done whenever a new phone is acquired.

Oh, but I didn’t mean to make this a post about her.

This is about me!

My sister and life coach started a list of things to do while I’m a gimp and I’m going to take her up on it.

1. knit some shit!
2. like one of these: http://www.internet-d.com/2009/02/13/willie-warmer/
3. write a short story
4. draw a comic book about a man who goes to the moon only to discover that the dark side of the moon is a series of underground caves inhabited by people the government “deported”
5. write your own madlibs and then have your kids fill them out
6. crossword puzzles
7. play scrabble with me on your iphone
8. braid your hair into hundreds of tiny braids
9. http://theoatmeal.com/comics/bobcats_monday

Four pregnancies pretty much wreaked havoc on my body.  With Timothy, I was fairly sure I would fall apart.  My abs were split, I had the stupid gestational diabeetus, and I was miserable.  Once he was born, I had no idea how to go about getting my body back.  Because of my diastasis recti (split abs), doing pilates and yoga were counterproductive.  Imagine trying to sit up from laying down.  Now imagine your abdominal muscles popping up like toast in a toaster.  That’s exactly what it looked like for me and it is not good for healing!  Finding a post-partum exercise routine was not easy.  I had to bind myself in pilates in order to keep my abs flat and that was really uncomfortable.

The wonderful Helene Byrne from BeFit-Mom sent me the Bounce Back Fast! Post Natal Core Conditioning DVD to try. Read more…

I don’t prescribe to any weight loss plan.  In fact, that never crossed my mind when I finally decided to get my ass off the couch and back into the gym.  See what had happened was I found myself growing more depressed as the winter changed into Spring.  That depression turned into laziness, comfort food, and the wearing of drawstring pants.  I hated what I saw in the mirror.  I hate the way I look in the family portraits we had done.  When I visited the doctor to make some medication adjustments, he recommended I get a complete metabolic profile, thyroid tests, and cholesterol tests.  To my surprise, my cholesterol was high.  He suggested I go on a low-fat diet and get more exercise.

It was pretty simple, actually.  We changed our e-mealz plan to the low-fat plan and once I had adjusted to a higher dose of Zoloft, I was no longer terrified of getting out of the house and into a couple classes at the Y.  I try to get into the gym at least twice a week.  A typical week consists of Monday night Zumba & Yoga, Tuesday night Pilates, and Friday night Zumba & Yoga.  Now that they’ve cancelled the Advanced Yoga class, I had to scratch that off my Tuesday night schedule.  There is a Zumba class to go to after Pilates that I tried last week.  Maybe I’ll keep going to that.  We’ll see.

One of the biggest things I actually did to keep myself on track was to write down everything I ate.  Everything.  I spent all summer keeping tabs on my calories in vs. calories burned.  I have a free app on my iPod & one on my phone so I can make sure not to overdo it when we go out to eat.  But I indulge every now & then.  I have to!  I try to do it sensibly, though.

All-in-all, I’ve lost twenty pounds since the beginning of Summer.  I can proudly wear some of the jeans that I was about ready to give up.  Woohoo!

Writing this made me want a cheeseburger.  That sucks.

I want this balance ball chair so badly. I had a yoga ball once. But you know how things last in this house.