Pooped!

Oh, I can't remember how I used to do multiple full days in a row. It feels as though two in a row might do me in! This morning Betty left the hous shortly after sunrise. She and her grandson Blake flew to Virginia to return Blake home and pick up the other brother Austin. It's not that I do not appreciate everything Betty does for me, but that saying about not knowing what you have till it is gone comes to mind. Navigating the kitchen for breakfast was tricky. To get the glass and pour the juice is not difficult, but if I don't want to drink it standing at the refrigerator, then I have problems. Sliding bread from one end of the counter to the next was not as tricky as getting it across the kitchen to butter it and add applesauce, which had to come from the fridge. Oh bother...this is what it is going to be like...I am probably going to start calling people to take them up on meal offers because dinner is not as easy as toast and juice. So two days of work in a row at the office...I actually made it into the garden briefly yesterday and out to an agency for youth programming tonight. Both were harder than I expected, and tonight may have been the straw that broke my back. It is easy to know when I have gone to far, but it is hard to sit in a chair wondering how much more I can do. For four years I have overcome the pain to try to live as normal a life as I can, as active a life as I can, because ultimately I know that those two qualities contribute more to my health and happiness than never hurting. If I had to give up skiing, biking, walking and hiking, and all the other physical stuff, I would have to be vigilant about what I ate, so as not to gain weight and create more stress on my hip. These things I think about...So all this for nearly four years, and now I am supposed to back down at the slightest twinge. It is difficult to unlearn the perseverance through the pain, though if I can persevere through the recovery, maybe I won't have pain again? We'll see. Tomorrow makes FOUR years. FOUR long years! It makes me want to cry. Feeling like I do tonight doesn't honor the hard work I committed myself to do to get better. All the counseling and physical therapy...nearly two years before I felt comfortable biking again...getting over the fear... And if I am lucky, I will settle my case against the state for causing all this before 2 July 2009. Here's to hope! tori