Wednesday, November 21, 2012

Keep on walking

Setting goals is good. Achieving those goals are better.  Sometimes you go way over your head, but then those goals can be the ones that you can't continue on with your life without doing them.  I set one of those goals a few years back.  I wanted to be able to run a marathon by the age of forty.  Lets break this goal down; I didn't say that I wanted to run a marathon by the age of forty, but that I wanted to be ABLE to run one.  I know that a lot of people make this goal but a few years ago I was coming up to a sad deadline.

When I was 19 I crushed my lower spine so badly that it took 4 years in rehab to be able to walk correctly again PLUS I developed adult asthma.  I was the kid that you could walk anywhere but why when running was much more fun. Total lifestyle changer, then the doctors told me that probably around the age of 36 I might be concerned with some issue moving in the direction of a wheelchair.  Then I met my bestie Juliet that got me involved in bellydance as a way of physical therapy.  It did great leaps....and a lot of body glitter.

If you've read some of my older posts there was the break dancing incident that when I went to the doctor he brought to my attention that I was walking around on broken bones & didn't even notice.  So when I went back for my third epidural session that's when I made the marathon goal.  I will be able to feel my legs to end of my life & be able to run on them.  And up until this past year I was heading the right direction with  my little health check-list:  Complete four years of dental work to have a great set of choppers - DONE.  Get the weight back down- DONE. Get the asthma under control- DONE.  Correct my hearing lost & correct the genetic disorder of circulatory problems in the legs.

I couldn't wait any longer. This year it hurt to walk, stand or sit. So I went to the same clinic my sister went to see if it was time to get Endovenous Laser Abation of the Great Saphenous veins in both legs (to get technical).  During the ultra-sounds they condition was 3 times past when I needed it done & that both of the valves were broken.  Right there in the ultra sounds there they were just dangling around like snapped twigs & the veins were perforated bleeding into my calves.  So I scheduled the left leg for the beginning of November & the right for the end.

The most hilarious part of the whole thing is that Honey Boo Boo is my drug dealer.  The pharmacy mailed the pain cream & Valium to my apartment two weeks before the procedure.  My land lady got the package for me. Wonderful woman, single mom...but her & her daughter remind me of Toddlers & Tiaras.  One night I got a knock on the door & there was her 6 year daughter in blonde curls & pink tutu handing me a box of valium.  God bless America I presume.

The scariest part was the day after the operation when I took off the triple wrapped bandages & the maxi-pads for drainage. One of the incisions didn't close & I lost about  pint of blood in my bath tub that afternoon.  Here's the most naked shot of me on the internet:

My leg seven days after the operation with out the compression socks on.  I now own quite a few maxi skirts. You have to wear those hose all the time except bed & I cannot wear them under pants.  It reminds me of the women in the 70s that wore pantyhose under polyester pants. Yuck.

I have a whole week without the hose on right now, but next Tuesday. Under the knife for the right leg.

Other than that I got a sexy new tire on the truck. Went into the frame shop to work one night & they told me that corporate thinks I'm making too much so they were reducing my pay. When I went home to write my resignation letter my power adaptor died & I couldn't work on my computer until I tracked down an adaptor for an older laptop.  Good times.

Well its Thanksgiving tomorrow so all I'm going to say is that I miss you more than not having to work on Thanksgiving. - V