Hi, I am Grumpy Cat, “ I hate everything! I always have a sour expression on my face.

My sons got me a little Grumpy Cat for my walker and I thought it was so cute. The reason I like Grumpy Cat is because sometimes you don’t want to be cheerful about the hand you were dealt. I am very angry and sad about how things have turned out in my life. After my second surgery went so wrong and everything became so difficult for me, I often found myself mourning my past life where I could walk around so easily.

I am so angry that I am not able to go and do as I please. I am so tired of the battle each day. Just getting up out of chairs can be quite an endeavor and such an embarrassing struggle in front of others. I hate the look of pity I see in people’s faces when I am struggling just to get up or maneuver around. I had plans of how I would play with my future grandkids and chase them around the yard, and go shopping with them.

My view of my future has drastically changed. I am so worried that if I have another fall and I am not able to walk, I will be forced to use a wheelchair all the time. One thing I hate is feeling like a cripple that everyone has to help. I worry that I might end up in a nursing home, but I hear they love cats.

Well I can’t live my life always feeling so grumpy. I plan to make the most of my life by enjoying my human friends. That is as long as they keep giving me my meow mix and loads of TLC. Purr……

 

This was my mantra that was embedded in my brain throughout all my therapies. It is so true! I have not been walking for a few days because of the cold front that blew into our town. I finally got back to walking today and I sure could tell the difference in just a few days. I plan to also ride my stationary bike today also.

It is very important that I keep active so I don’t become wheelchair bound. I am supposed to get a gel put into my knees to help with my arthritis as soon as it gets approved by both of my insurances. This will help my knees to function like they are supposed to and without pain. I heard it is painful at first but it is given in three installments. I hope it will be effective!

I hate having to worry about getting exercise and I want to just go about my day as I had planned. So I was walking today and it was cold, but I dressed warmly. Then it started to sprinkle rain, but I kept going for a couple more laps on my outside trail remembering that in the past I even jogged in the rain because I was so determined.

I have to get myself up more often throughout the day and walk even when I can’t go outside because of the weather. When I start walking laps around my kitchen, my Australian shepherd dog named Chester follows me. He looks at me as I walk around the kitchen numerous times as if to say,” Where are we going?” “Are we going outside?” He looks disappointed, but he keeps following me anyway.

I need to keep up with my schedule of exercise without any excuses (which I am guilty of at times.) I have got to exercise daily to keep myself from losing any progress that I have made as of late. It is all

up to me, but I know I need to just do it!

 

For the elderly and the disabled, the most dangerous room in the house is our bathrooms. When you have deficient parts on your body, and everything is wet and slippery around you spells Danger!

 

I have experience with these danger areas in my bathroom. We have a shower stall with marble walls. It has a stall with a lifted door for the shower so you have to step over to get in it. Inside the shower, we installed two rods that are attached by suction cups to the wall. It works great, but the problem is sometimes the suction cups stop sticking to the wall. I didn’t find out until I grabbed them to keep from falling and they came off with me along with it. This is very scary.

Then I am on the bottom of the shower with no easy way to get up. I then had to crawl over the door to get out of the shower with my bad knees. The additional problem is when I call for help with my phone is to decide whom to call since I am presently nude. I phoned my son who said,” Mom can’t you call your sister? I guess he wasn’t eager to see his naked mother.

One time I fell down in the bathroom and I was able to use my bathtub to hoist myself up. It is still difficult to crawl on the floor because of my bad knees. Pure determination enabled me to finally get up off of the floor by myself.

 

I recently got a new wheelchair like one I saw that a young lady at the movies was using. She and her husband told us that it is called a Quickie and it is lightweight. They told us the brand name so we found it online. What is special about the chair it is one that I can steer myself.  The chair that I had before didn’t have large wheels and I couldn’t move it at all except with my feet.

This chair will allow me some independence when we go places now. Well, I am still getting used to using it. My sister and I went to the ladies room and I took myself to the stall and locked the door behind me. I started to get up from the chair using the handicapped bars in the stall. I realized I forgot to lock both sides of the wheels and when I got up and the chair rolled so I plopped on the floor! Yuck! The floors in pubic bathrooms are usually pretty dirty.

I told my sister what happened, but she couldn’t help me because of the locked door. I tried to get up but I couldn’t so I just sat there while my sister got help. Then she came back with a lady who had a little three or four year old girl who elegantly crawled under the stall and unlocked the door for me. This shook both my sister and I up pretty badly.   Then we went to dinner after I washed my hands (thoroughly of course). Afterwards, we thanked the little girl and her mother said she was bragging to her family that she saved a lady.

This is my life now and I will have to adjust better. I must practice with this new chair so that won’t happen in the future.

 

 

Recently I went to a nearby Chiropractor. He said that my muscle tightness wasn’t that bad, but he was concerned about my left hip not moving like it should and that it wasn’t rotating because of muscle tightness. These are called hip flexors. He gave me some exercises to help loosen it up better. I made an appointment for the next week. Here is my final chance to begin walking better. I vowed to do my exercises religiously and I still am doing them.

Well, I went again the following week and it seems to be helping my hip move easier. The Chiropractor is still waiting for my knees to be x-rayed this week before he goes much further. I am anxious for him to help my numbness in my left leg. Whenever I lay on my left side, my leg starts tingling and it is very painful which consequently always affects my sleep.

I finally got an appointment with an orthopedic surgeon. He gave me some pamphlets on gels to inject into my knees to help cushion them so my bones wouldn’t be rubbing against each other. This procedure will be done soon. I prefer this instead of surgery given my past history.

I am worried about my ability to even walk now. My right knee is giving me trouble and pain. My left side is usually the problem, but now it is the right kneecap. I have always had bad knees all my life.

When I was fifth grade, I was walking home from school in a long dress, which probably prevented my knee from moving freely and I fell down in severe pain. My kneecap moved out of its socket. I was given a ride home from school that day, of course.

That was the beginning of my knee problems. The pain continued off and on throughout the years.

Later my husband and I were having our new house built in a nearby county. We walked across the front yard of our new house checking on its progress and looking at our new brick and admiring it. While walking, I slipped on some clear residue leftover from when the workers were cutting and laying the bricks.

I was in such excruciating pain that my husband had to carry me to our car. My kneecap was on the left side of my leg out of its socket. He rushed me to the emergency room. They told me they would have to pop the knee back into place first. Now that was unbelievable pain!

I made an appointment with an orthopedic surgeon who scheduled me for surgery.

I was teaching at the time in an outside portable classroom. I had to use crutches to get around while waiting for my surgery. It wasn’t very easy to walk so far. It is a good thing that I was younger at that time. Then I had knee surgery and I had to stay home and recuperate. We lived in a rental house near my school where I would see my former students very often. I loved the kids, but not so close to our house. Any teacher would know what I am saying that there needs to be some separation from my home life and work life. I would see them and they would yell out my name so excited that could see me.

I was looking forward to the completion of our house getting finished soon. Planning our new home was exciting despite a painful recovery.

 

How do I get beyond my disabilities to really relate to others like I did before? This is a question I ask myself often. I am not sure of the answer though, but I will keep pondering it in my mind. I was told that I should be in the moment fully and really listen to others speak. I am trying to remember to do this. My memory loss makes it difficult to remember future events so I use my calendar daily. At times, it is very difficult for me not to mourn my past life before my surgeries.

How do I enjoy life thoroughly? I have been told to treat the loss like a grieving process and just do my best each day. Life is too precious so I don’t want to take anything for granted. That is my goal anyway.

Sometimes life events get in the way and I need to focus on it fully. My husband I remember the last dinner that my other father, Dalton who recently died from a stroke during his cancer surgery and as well as other complications. Dalton just loved my husband’s fajitas before he had that dreaded cancer surgery. He was so happy to eat his favorite meal. He was anxious but hopeful about his upcoming surgery. That is when you would love to go back in time.

Surgeries haven’t been kind to my family. They have caused life changes so I always advise people to proceed with caution.

As a handicapped person, I am faced with many obstacles to try to overcome. For example, I have trouble getting doors opened at restaurants or stores. I have to rely on the kindness of strangers or otherwise whoever takes me has to handle the door and the wheelchair at the same time. I usually use a walker at home, but I use a wheelchair whenever we go out. I even have trouble in public restrooms reaching the soap or paper towels because they are too high or too far to reach.

The doors are usually too heavy for me to open or close myself in public bathrooms.

This is why I miss out on fun activities that aren’t walker or wheelchair accessible. We were invited to a neighbor’s Halloween party and we declined because of these reasons. I hate missing these activities because I am a very social person.

I have gone to close friends’ houses and found the walker is too bulky to mingle with other people. Also I can only stand on my feet for a limited time before I get too tired. When I take my wheelchair, my neck kills me looking up the whole time because everyone is usually standing the majority of the time.

Another challenge is using the bathroom at someone’s house because I have to use my cane of which I am not very stable or I use counters to move around inside the room. I frequently get tangled up in their bathroom rugs. I have decided to look at these as challenges that I can overcome.

I have decided the world isn’t always kind to the disabled even though it is much better than before. I do my best to get around because I don’t want to always stay home.

How do I get beyond my disability to really relate to others like I did before? This is a question I ask myself often. I am not sure of the answer though, but I will keep pondering it. I was told that I should be in the moment fully and really listen to others speak. So I am always trying to  remember to do this. My memory loss makes it hard for me to remember current and future events so I use my calendar daily. At times, it is very difficult not to mourn my past life before my surgeries.

How do I enjoy life thoroughly? I have been told to treat the loss like a grieving process. Just to take one day at a time and just do my best each day. Life is very precious so I don’t want to take anything for granted. That is my goal anyway.

Sometimes life events get in the way so I need to focus on those completely. My husband and I remember the last dinner that my other father enjoyed. Dalton had always loved my husband’s fajitas. On the weekend night before his surgery, He was so happy to eat his favorite meal. He was anxious but hopeful about the upcoming surgery. Unfortunately, Dalton had a stroke during his cancer surgery. He lived, but wasn’t the same at all. There were many complications. We are all still grieving over our loss. This is when you would love to go back in time.

Surgeries haven’t been kind for my family. They have caused life changes so I advise people to proceed with great precautions about any surgeries in general.

After retiring from teaching after my accident, I decided to figure out what else I could do with my time so I enrolled at a nearby Hospice Home facility. I began the training program diligently. The training was extensive and involved lots of reading. When I finished, it was time to begin my new journey.

I met some very interesting people whom will remain nameless . One older gentleman was very grouchy, but he had loss of hearing so you had to shout loudly for him to hear. I didn’t know how to reach him because of the extreme hearing loss. I asked the nurse if they could help him, but she said the family didn’t want to provide hearing aides for him. I brought my iphone and played some music I thought he might like (loudly, of course.)  He began tapping his toe to the music with a grin on his face.

I also met an elderly lady who had lost her limb due to blood clots and diabetes. She was friendly and we worked puzzles together while we talked. Another person was a lady who suffered from mental illness and she was very childlike. I borrowed some picture cards for her there and we worked on vocabulary and memory. I used my teacher training to think on what would work best to help her.

This continued for several months until I realized it was causing me to feel depressed and lose sleep. So I decided to quit and keep searching for my niche another way.