The day finally came to say bye bye, wheelchair! Yesterday I had my 12-week post-op appointment. I had already been out of the chair for a short bit (with and without permission) but yesterday was the day to do new X-rays and put the wheelchair away for good. How did it all go? And how do I feel about it? It’s complicated…
Thoughts on Wheelchair Life
This is a tough subject to write about. One the one hand, how fortunate was I to only have to use the chair for 12 weeks whereas for some people it is a permanent thing. But on the other hand, in the context of how this all should have gone in the first place YEARS ago, ending up needing yet another surgery and then time in a wheelchair was traumatic. I will give it a “little t” traumatic because I reserve “big T” traumatic for those in a wheelchair permanently.
It was SO DIFFICULT! It was trying. It was slow and clumsy and frustrating. I was invisible to most people when out and about. I needed help and patience at home. Going out of the house was a project. It was terribly lonely. Physically but also in the sense that who could I even talk to and connect with about this? How many people go through the same issues and surgery I did and are put in a wheelchair for just three months? I felt stuck – physically, emotionally, and without any promise that this would even work. This list can go on and on…it was really F-ing HARD and upsetting and made me angry a lot.
And who am I to complain? My wheelchair time is over and for so many others it will never end. Bless all of you! I will never under-appreciate what your life is like! I am lacking words and will be working on shaking off my “little t” trauma for awhile.
Bye bye, Chairry, you were good to me, but I don’t want to need you ever again. I hope you understand.
New X-rays
Dr. Stoneback says things are looking good. I noticed what looks like bone loss on these new X-rays compared to the ones from the 6-week appointment, but he thinks/hopes it is because the images were taken at a different angle today. Since I have experienced this after every surgery at this point and it has always been true bone loss, I am not convinced. I can feel that spot and that things are not great. (Yet?) We will keep an eye on it…
Freedom
At 12 weeks, every one of his wheelchair-bound patients is free to ditch the chair, regardless of healing. The thought is that whatever healing was going to happen will have happened. So now I have the freedom to do everything except high-impact. I’m free to ride the Peloton, row, walk on the treadmill, lift weights (no super heavy squats), basically everything except run. This feels like a huge leap after spending all that time in a wheelchair so I’m obviously taking it very slowly and keeping tabs on how I feel.
Permission to be free feels amazing! I left my appointment celebrating. I did a similar dance to the one below while pushing my empty chair out of his office and through his waiting room. It is a difficult place to be, filled with amputees and other difficult cases like mine, so people were so happy to see someone get to be free and dance around. WOOHOO!!
But I’m also entering that danger zone period where previous attempts of fusion have gone backwards, so I’m extremely guarded about celebrating or getting my hopes up high. This feels yucky!
Hope?
I’m looking for it. It has been so hard to find this time around. I haven’t written about how I feel because I wanted to just not feel. I haven’t written about my days because I have purposely made them mundane and unremarkable in hopes of them sliding by, less noticed. But here we are now, at a pivotal moment. I suppose I have to put on some hope and forge ahead.
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