Building The Love Shack

Let’s start this off with, I have been kind of keeping a little secret.

A year ago I woke up with pain in my right arm. I let it go. I was busy. I had work and writing and blogging to do and of course, work to do at the Love Shack.

So anyways I let it go for a few months. Then it turned into ultrasounds, x-ray, MRI and a few other tests. It turned out, my bones had fallen in my shoulder, I had a tear in the back of the shoulder and a tendon had stretched allowing the ball to roll in and out of the joint.

Ok, it hurt, but being a Warrior, I carried on. No work accommodation was asked for, construction went as planned and surgery was put off for a while.

Monday, a year later, I finally went for the surgery, three procedures were done at once. Now I thought, oh piece of cake. I had eighteen inches of my bowel removed twenty-three months ago. I can wing this…

Ha. Ha.Ha. Said my arm.

 

First, I would like to say, it hurts like, hell. Yup, I swore. Second, I am losing my mind not being able to do anything.

Today we figured out how to lower my desk and raise my chair, because I can’t lift my arm, but can use my hand, with everything put into proportion, I can actually now reach the keyboard. That being said, it’s still typing with one hand as I can’t reach across the keyboard.

This being able to reach the keyboard at the least, has given my mind a healthy boost of hope. Sitting in a chair with a converter was making me nuts. I became worse than a house prisoner, I became a prisoner of my bedroom.

We had moved a reclining chair and put it next to my bed and in front of the tv. I couldn’t cook, bake, write, or even shower myself.

With having my keyboard, I can now write and communicate. To watch me do this would be entertaining because I cannot reach. So each time I need to do anything with the mouse or capital letters, I am doing a slide dance. I slide to the right across my chair use the mouse and slide back.

I might add I have also taught myself how to brush my teeth and hair, do most of my shower. I can get in and out of some clothes. I watered the plants today and I can still escape, to go for a walk. I can eat anything as long as it’s cut up and I can use a spoon to eat it.

One of my daughters said to me before the surgery, you are one of the strongest and most independent people I know, you got this. She is correct and I also thank god, a nurse. I  prepared my house and self as best as I could. I also learned you can not prepare your self as best as you can. You can only do the best and work with the rest.

Each time something happens to me or one of my family members, I try to use it in my work. When I return to work in about four months, I hope to bring a lesson with me from this.

The lesson being that the loss of your dominant hand is hell, but like I am doing, you can learn to function among the frustration. It takes time, and with encouragement and consideration by those who are helping you,  you to find a way to make it work.

On that note, I have not been working on Only with Him, as I saved it to do over this long four months off of work and now thanks to my husband I can start working on that second edit.

 

But before signing off today’s blog, I want to give a special shout-out to the people work with.

Every day I watch you put your heart into what you do, and each time there is a change or set back in my own life, I appreciate what you do for our residents so much more.

Until you know the need for someone who does your laundry, cuts up and cooks your food, helps you shower, gets you dressed and yes, helps you to the bathroom and cleans after you, you will think you understand what its like, but you won’t truly know till you go down that very frustrating road.

To the other people in the medical field, you rock, even when you are having your worst day.

Well on that note, I am afraid my shoulder has said, enough. It’s time to put an end to the chair dance and go face the idiot box and pray for something that doesn’t insult my intelligence to be on it.

I will post “Wednesday through the Lens” as soon as I can manage to do downloads from the camera to the computer. One step at a time as my friend said to me today or this to shall pass I answered.

As far as the Love Shack goes, this year’s work is still underway. We are now at the point where we have a lot of finishing projects to do. Most are a one-man job, yes we have been planning for this.

I have another Warrior to introduce you to. A longtime friend of twenty-something years, who is not only good enough to come and stay with me at the Love Shack but was also willing to give me my first post-surgery shower, now that is love. She will be popping up in posts this year as she has offered to be my right hand.

The Warriors continue to be my Warriors, if not working on the cottage, then they are driving me around to doctors appointments and other things that I need right now.

Signing off for today, frustrated, but blessed as always.

If there are spelling errors or typing errors.. Be kind… I did this with one hand.