Suck it Up

My right foot and I are not on speaking terms at the moment. Since I had my stroke, my right foot has felt like I’m wearing a sock that is way too small and someone is pulling it on tighter and tighter against my will. It’s also swollen nice and fat, apparently a byproduct of its lack of use. Useless, fat and uncomfortable…I think I’ll name it Bertha. I think that’s a name fit for a fat old hag. I don’t know what her deal is, but she is hell-bent on betraying me. I’ve been dragging her sorry ass around for over a month now and it’s getting old. Today was a rough day. And that was just my foot. My so-called good arm suffers from severe carpal tunnel syndrome. So while my right arm is still too paralyzed to be useful, my left arm spent most of the day burning and going numb.

Yeah, yeah…suck it up. It could be so much worse. Today was not painful because I have it so bad. It was painful because I pushed myself harder today than I have since this all went down. A walker requires both hands which is fine if you don’t ever need to hold anything while walking. I was so busy trying to do little things for my son that I actually ditched the walker at one point. Granted, I almost fell a few times but I started strategically planning my route to lean against walls, grab on to chairs, etc so I could get his food from the kitchen to the table. Then I had to get to where his bibs are, coerce him to come with me to the table, and help him climb up on a chair (highchair was obviously out of the question) so I could feed him with the good arm that was going numb from the carpal tunnel. Whew! And that was just breakfast.

I don’t know what I was thinking. Then again, I guess moms don’t really think about why. I won’t bore you with a play-by-play of the rest of my day but it was basically a lot more of the same sprinkled with a few trips up and down the stairs. I even managed to get 4 full size pillows and a large blanket up the 15 stairs to our bedroom in one trip; One long, painful, sweaty, dangerous, albeit stupid, trip. So yeah Bertha is pretty pissed off at me right now. I’m sure she’ll be handing me my ass tomorrow.

“There is no try, only do.”   ~Yoda