Day 452

When you spend over a year depending on crutches or a walking stick to support you, rehabilitation isn't easy. Every time I arrive home from physical therapy shaking and exhausted, needing ice to soothe my knee and coffee for my nerves, I wonder if I can do this.

Every block in the neighborhood or sometimes every sidewalk square walked is either a challenge or a victory.

The physical therapist assures me that I'm doing better than I think, but I only see what I lost 452 days ago. If I push for that extra sidewalk square before turning around, its only a 3 foot square. Its not the mile.  If I push to conquer walking a block, its only a block not a 5k. If I push to walk across the room, or building, its not enough -- its not grocery shopping, or being able to walk across the parking lot, into the church and through the sanctuary. If I push to balance for 15 seconds, its still not cooking, or to stand waiting.

I'm left wondering, how long will my life be on hold because of this?

There are too many sides to the question. As working poor, I wouldn't be in this position if we had insurance coverage when I got hurt. I wouldn't have given up so much life to this injury simply if I had been able to treat it when it happened. We wouldn't be facing an increasing debt load that we won't be able to handle.

The burden this has placed on my children has taken its toll and it will continue to.

The burden on my husband is huge.  Without him, everything would have collapsed a long time ago.  He does all of those tasks I can't. Forty is so young to become a caretaker for your spouse.  It was the time we planned to enjoy our lives together, instead of him looking after me knowing that simple things aren't simple because I'm physically broken.

So day 452 finds me struggling to rebuild and rehabilitate something that has gotten so weak and worn that I my only hope is in getting strong enough to replace what is broken.