It was so nice to be home for Christmas.
From baking Christmas cookies, to watching Christmas movies, to eating cinnamon rolls on Christmas morning, there are lots of traditions that surround the Christmas season and while some are general, some are family-specific. I had a lovely English Christmas last year but there's no place like home for the holidays! And it was fantastic to not have to be home for Christmas only in my dreams! I loved opening the advent calendar each day, decorating (a slightly shorter than normal) Christmas tree with my mother and sister, doing our annual KayStone gift exchange and being with my family to open presents around the tree.
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Some other Christmas highlights included: going to two Christmas Eve services and having our whole family stand and lift the candles together in Silent Night and driving around looking for Christmas lights with some friends while also hotly debating which Christmas carol to listen to next. Christmas is such a fabulous time of year and I loved celebrating it with my parents and sisters so much that I didn't even scold my mother for forgetting the Christmas crackers. ;) |
| Christmas Eve Service |
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| The KayStones |
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| The decorated tree on Christmas Eve |
It's incredibly humbling to have to constantly ask other people to assist you because you're so helpless. While it's nice to have people who care for you, you sometimes just want to do something yourself (like, say, put on your left shoe?) It was exhausting walking around even with my brace on because my other leg still had to do most of the work. Shortly after my surgery I went to get something out of the pantry while my mom was tutoring in the basement. I somehow managed to open the door right over my toe on my uninjured leg. My toenail was bent back quite deeply and blood was on my sock, but I couldn't hobble to get first aid supplies since now both legs had problems. My cell phone wasn't too far and after a quick call to my neighbor, she ran over to help me bandage my toe.
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Freedom is walking to the bathroom without a brace or crutches. Or at least it feels like freedom after a month of shuffling and hopping. I don't think you ever stop to appreciate how easily you can do something until you can't do that thing anymore. For example, did you realize that you have to be able to stand on two legs in order to take a shower like a normal person? You apparently need two legs to even step into a bathtub, something I wasn't able to do for a month! Stairs are also quite problematic…
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However, there were some nice things about being handicapped. I got wheeled around the Kennedy Center like a VIP when my family went to see Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. I had a temporary handicapped parking pass which allowed me, or anyone driving with me, to park in the spots closest to the stores. Absolutely, hands down, greatest way to have friends chauffeur you. Target? Here we come. Walmart? No problem. Have a hankering for Panera? I'm there. It helped that the motorized carts at certain stores were quite entertaining to drive around. May or may not have knocked things off the shelves, but hey! I'm handicapped!
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I went into the movies with some friends and it was a theatre where you had the super comfy reclining chairs and had to choose your spots before going in. There were some nice looking seats with a better angle on the screen towards the back and so I asked the lady if we could sit there. "No," she said. "They're handicap seats." I told her I was handicapped. She laughed. We sat two rows from the front craning our necks because, short of pulling down my pants and showing her my scars, I didn't have any way to prove my story. #handicapproblems |
| The view from a motorized cart in Costco-Christmas shopping. |
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| In a wheelchair at the Kennedy Center |
Um I think I could probably say this ten times over. It was soooo nice to get to see so many friends and to spend time just doing nothing! It's the hanging out time that you just can't recreate over Skype and I was loving just soaking that in. But, also, you guys (you know who you are) made me feel so loved and special with all the effort you put in to seeing me and to encouraging me through ACL recovery.
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| Hanging at the creek |
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| Hanging at the creek |
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| Out to eat-did I mention I did this a lot? |
I don't think I had a proper understanding of physical therapy before I was doing it three times a week. They make you work hard! If they feel like you're not working hard enough, they hook you up to a torture device, aka electrical stimulation machine, which delivers an intense current for 10 secs every 30 seconds to help "activate your quad" in a sequence known as the Russian. This was all before I was allowed to be weight bearing. After I was cleared to walk around, my next form of torture was wall squats, a feat especially daunting when you feel like you just can't trust your newly operated knee. When I first went to PT, I felt like I was the worst one there. I couldn't do anything very well or for very long and it seemed like everyone around me was doing so much better. I was holding out for the day when I'd see someone more injured than me come in and have to hobble to a table. I clearly wasn't there long enough, because that never happened…but I did realize that what was hard for me was easy for another person and vice versa. In the end it was actually good when something was challenging or my leg was shaking because it meant that I was strengthening my leg and getting back the use of my knee. I'm not gonna win any awards wall squatting, but at least I can mostly do it now!
It was hard to say goodbye.
I had such a wonderful time even with the surgery, the helplessness and the pain of PT. I was so sad to say goodbye to family and friends and I felt incredibly blessed to have been so warmly supported during my time at home. It made it hard to leave again. I cannot wait to see you all again and thank you so much for letting me lean on you when I wasn't strong…then and always!
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| Reflection Retreat Group Selfie |
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