Getting through it

It’s sixty one today. Thank you global warming. Enough sunshine to lift my heart. Monday will dump a frozen mix, in forty degree temps. I have nowhere to go, but a therapist is coming here. Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday I have places to go and bad weather to do it in. As if a leaf turned, I am feeling none of the trepidation that incapacitated me earlier.

I’ve given myself a deal to get through this year. Back in July, not so bad. Then I fractured my butt, adding insult. In between I had my shoulder repaired. I would have done the shoulder repair irrespective, and it’s not subtracting from recovery.

Recovering from a shattered fibula hampered by a fractured butt sucks, however. I’ve not fallen again, and that, truthfully,  really was a mighty fine somersault over my walker. It has hampered my walking gait, though, and like any kind of advance, motion is required. It’s like needing to keep the car at thirty or above in slush in order to keep traction. You must keep moving through it on foot, too. Anything less invites being frozen in fear, or falling.

I bought “prongs” for my other cane, and tried them out. They are great in theory, but too heavy to be practical. Then one day I eyed the expanse of not well salted ice between me and the car, and came back for the modified cane, too. One in each hand, like Nordic walking, but with canes, I advanced on the car and achieved it!

Shoulder recovery does require unanticipated pain to get through. The prognosis was no less mobility than I had on going into surgery and more, if I would work for it.  Using muscles that have been idle for two years is painful, initially. I grumbled about that, last Friday. “But you are so far ahead of anything I expected!” from young Dr. Whippersnapper. I can reach behind my neck. I am another twenty degrees above lifting my arm to ninety degrees. I can reach behind my back.

Bend both arms, finger tips straight up, palms out, elbows pointing down. Now, extend each hand straight up, Hermione Granger correct answer style. At this point I can get my left fingertips to the top of my head, no further. I cannot recall the last time I raised my left arm, or for what reason. But that I cannot annoys me!

And in other news, advertising has captured me: Pleasure-Way Industries, Class B Motorhomes. I had one in the eighties, but not by this manufacturer. Mine was a Dodge Ram chassis. These folks build their camper on a Dodge Ram and on a Mercedes Benz. My family camped over much of the USA in mine. Mom used it last in her sixties.

I was thinking, what if I found one in my drive, one morning. I could drive it, of course. I could fill it with propane (if it needs propane). I don’t know about using a dump station; mine didn’t have that amenity. Could I afford it? Of course not. How did “they” know I’d click on that ad in a heartbeat?