Go With The Fleau

My staples came out yesterday. Or rather, I got them pried out of my skull. I’ve had stitches removed a couple of times, which was not fun by any means, but this… my god, was not excruciatingly painful, just not fun & I am glad it ended as quickly as it did.

Apparently the first stitch that Sherri, Doc’s name was Sherri, decided to pull out had already started to scab over. She wanted to go after the most difficult one first, and everything else would be less painful from there on. She went in with her medical plier-like instrument. She tugged once, nothing. She tugged twice, still nothing. And after a failed attempt third tugged, I began to question if this bitch had ever done this before… She verbalized to me that she would be skipping that one and went to the next.

She pulled, and pulled, and pulled, and then came to a pause before she asked me “How many staples did you have again? I told her I was told I had 8. Then again, I did have a concussion and am still suffering from memory loss. Sherri tells me she doesn’t see any more staples, however she’s only pulled out 7.

Great. Sherri, who had so much trouble pulling my first staple out, is now question if she missed one. I’m sure the fact that a few of them started to scab over, as well as the fact that my hair is so thick really didn’t help the situation. My records had to be pulled up, however, while Sherri was in search, this didn’t stop her assistant from annoyingly & vigorously digging through my scalp like this 8^th staple was some fabulous wonderful treasure that if found would allow her to pay of her student loans and dump her job as an assistant.

Apparently I only received 7 staples and was now a little annoyed that all this extra time, and pain, had needed to be spent. But, in the end, I suppose it was better be safe than sorry and I’m kinda glad they’re out now, they were starting to itch and were uncomfortable when I laid down for bed. The end.

Has my bladder shrunk? I swear, it feels like I am needing to piss every 5 seconds. It really doesn’t help that it takes me 5 years to get up from a laying/sitting position up into a standing position.

There’s been several instances where I’ve almost pissed my pants, and I know that this is the effect of my car accident. The first time this happened, or almost happened, I wanted to cry. I was a dancer doing pirouettes & leaps and now I’m struggling to get up from my bed, and to the point where I’m almost pissing myself.

Is this really what my life has become? I feel like I am constantly being forced to prove myself on subjects that I have already passed. I already had my peeing in my pants stage when I was a toddler, & most people may going through it when they’re older, usually significantly older. Why am I being forced to deal with this at my age? I’m young…

I have to take these things as blessings. The fact of the matter is, I will get through this and I will be able to be stronger because of all of this. And although many people become stronger and bigger people through their hardships and struggles, not to many people can say they’ve lived to struggle this way. These are blessings. I am lucky. I will get through this. I will be stronger in a very unique fashion. I am ready.

Apparently my mother and I made plans to go to San Antonio today. These plans were made yesterday, I believe. My mom got off work and came to pick me up to head out and I was so confused. I have no recollection of setting up these plans. I mean, I remember that we were making plans, but I don’t remember what the final outcome came out to be.

I wanted to cry. I can’t explain the feeling I felt, it was a mix of sadness, frustration & over-all helplessness. I’m not sure exactly why, but I did. It’s not like I forgot that we had come to the plan off heading to San Antonio, it was like when I went back in my head to where that memory should be, well… it was just a void, like a black hole. Forgetting something is like a memory being covered in dust, it’s there just a little lost with time & covered up. This was different, this memory was completely gone.

I understand I had a concussion, but damn, I also had just created this memory. I know my mind deleted some memories, or perhaps just misplaced them, but is it still deleting/misplacing them?

The trip went well, and I suppose only time will tell how my brain decides to heal. Luckily, the people I’m currently surrounding myself with, my loved ones, are really patient with me. I guess all I can do is the same, be patient…

I can’t see myself NOT working… broken spine or not.

My mother knows this and with some of her assistance I’m looking to assist a local boutique owner on some design aspects as well as other business on opening a boutique. Luckily, I have experience with opening a boutique. I’ve done work from making price tag templates for product & merchandising entire stores to ordering product from vedors & working on marketing plans. Hopefully this will bring in some cash, at the very least it’ll add a nicely to my resume. Most importantly, I should be able to do all of this at the comfort of my bed or while remaining seated.

God has never spoon-feed me, but he leaves me tools knowing that I can make great things out of them. Some tools are less obvious then others. A broken spine doesn’t seem like necessarily the best life opportunity, but the big man knows I know how to make shit work. And like I always say: ‘Defying odds’ is my specialty.

Getting out of bed has become extremely annoying. See, there are certain positions that I just can’t move my body into. One of them being a straight bend forward (i.e. literally “sitting up”) much like one does while doing a “crunch”. That specific bend in my spine is just not possible for me right now with out causing me extreme pain. If I’m lying face up on my back (which is honestly one of the few positions I can lay in comfortably) and if I want to get up this is the process I must take to do so, now, I have no illustrations, so bare with me…

1. I have to keep my body straight, but flip over to my side. So, now instead of my view being the ceiling, I know see the wall. One of my ears faces the ceiling while the other is under my head. I prefer to flip over to my right side, simply because the staples in my head are more on the back left portion of my head, so flipping on the left side can tend to be uncomfortable and/or even painful. For the sake of the explanation, let’s say I decided to flip to my right side, remember my body is still as straight as I can make it, for comfort.

2. I pull my body in starting at my abs, much like a fetal position. Ideally, the tighter my fetal position is, the easier the next step will be, but this is easier said than done. However, I don’t always have the strength to pull my legs in all the way to my chest. If I can’t pull them in all the way, I scoot my body to the edge of the bed/sofa and try to get my legs to dangle at the edge. My body should now be in a full fetal position or a half fetal position with my upper body tucked in and my legs dangling at the edge, all while remaining on my side.

3. I continue the rotation in my upper body. Basically, my face is now pressing into the bed, with my folded arms sandwiched between the bed and my chest. I am almost in an awkward version of a “child’s pose”. Now, I push as hard as I can against the bed, so my upper body rises up. If my legs are dangling at the edge of the bed, once my upper body pushes off, I’m now literally sitting at the edge of the bed. If my legs weren’t at the edge, then I push up and I am sitting on my shins, which are parallel underneath me, much like sitting straight up from “child’s pose”.

4. The half fetal position, into sitting at the edge of the bed is easier to get off of the bed, but more painful… significantly… So, I prefer to sit on my shins, un-tuck them from underneath me, slide to the edge of the bed, and move from there. It is a longer process, but it takes less of a toll on my body.

This all seems very complicated, but if you actually saw me doing so, you’d notice that it’s not very complicated at all… it’s actually EXTREMELY complicated. It can take me anywhere from 60 seconds to several minutes, or like today, I just gave up and went back to sleep. Luckily, I’m getting better at this process. I’ve always considered myself to be patient & new routines like this are just building my patience’s, which is definitely anything but a bad thing!

I started a photo-dairy sometime back & received some great feedback from it. The photo-diary documented my growth through a broken heart. So, once a certain level of comprehension returned to me from my accident, the idea to document all this period of my life, the idea of documenting my growth through a broken spine, well, it just seemed like a good idea, to say the least.

My computer just told me today is Wednesday, from what I know, or rather from what I’ve been told, I was in a car accident on Sunday. What the fuck happened to the rest of Sunday, Monday, & Tuesday?

My memory right now is like a bunch of pictures and video clips all jumbled together. I do remember certain details but I don’t necessarily know where the stand sequentially to my accident. Please keep that in mind while viewing things blog, if things don’t seem to make too much sense sequentially, then you’re reading things correctly, chances are these memories don’t make too much sequential sense in my head either.

It seems every day I’m remembering and forgetting certain details of the accident and the time around it. That along with the fact that it will be a minimum of several weeks before I am back to 100% grants me plenty of free time, I’ll randomly be uploading post about my growth through this. As I noted before, I feel like today should be Monday, meaning I’ve lost a few days, keep in mind that these first few post will be about the experiences I’ve walked through these past couple of days & I eventually I will catch up with myself and be able to solely speak on current events.

Thank you for your time. Thank you for your prayers. Thank you for keeping your ears open for my voice & your eyes open for my words. I have much to say, much to show, much to live, & much to grow.