Bad brace!

The braces were bad today, the left one especially.

It came loose multiple times. I am not sure when I decide that as helpful as they are, it is more dangerous to wear them even though one comes loose a lot than to just give up on them.

I am afraid it is near, though. And that bothers me. It is hard to find tools that help me. it is frustrating to find only to have a technical issue.

I have emailed the braces guy but haven't heard back.

The honeymoon's over, braces

I am still wearing my braces regularly, and they are still helpful. Just today, for instance, they get my legs in a good place when I was transferring in the bathroom and missed the wheelchair seat. Thanks to them, I was able to get on the chair myself.

So yay, braces!

But their enough annoying things that I am not sold.

• I have given up trying to get them on independently. That's kind of a big blow. In telling my PT I would try them, I insisted that the braces be things I could put on myself. But I can't. They require more than I can do. For instance, I cannot get out of bed without shoes on but I cannot put the braces on without pushing my feet into them by standing and I cannot start them when sitting on the edge of my bed.
• The left brace especially comes off my heel several times a day. If I cough and my foot muscles stretch, if the brace nicks the toilet when I am setting up a transfer,  if as I am putting my feet on the footplate, the brace nicks the plate ... The right one comes loose to but not as much. This is extra bad because I have poor feeling in my feet so don't always notice it before I need to transfer.
• This lack of feeling also comes into play with my toes. They can get jammed up in the show more  easily with the braces then before.
• I have hammer toes on both feet that are made worse with the braces.

Ugh, braces!

See?

Be healed

At my previous job, there was a woman who said her preferred superpower was heal ing without anyone knowing she had cured them.

I told her the power was great, but I'd want a billboard saying I heard someone. I am kind of vain, but I wouldn't really want that.

If I could do it, that would be enough.

When someone I love had cancer years ago, I wished I had it, not them. I don't value my life less. I have just seen the crap that I handle and figured I could take on more.

It didn't happen.  I guess that is not an acceptable use of free will.

That hasn't stopped me from asking. I do, and I get mad when my prayer isn't granted.

I know that I can offer things to people fighting a life-changing illness. but there is next to nothing tangible I can contribute.

That is hard.

Mr. Plow

As I sat at my window working, I watched neighbors and relatives shovel snow. I have mentioned before that I miss that (comment #6 made my evening).

After some searching, I found a solution!

How cool would that be? I could quit my job and just be the neighborhood plow. I just need someone to build/buy me one.

Also, snowboarding in a chair. Who knew?

The idea of a person trailing you made me laugh. If I didn't hate the snow so much it might be fun.

My poor face

I am coughing more, and my face is paying the price.

Actually, I am not sure I am coughing more so much as sitting at my desk more, so when I do cough, I hit the bumper on my desk. It does prevent worse injuries but ...

My nose has a Band-Aid Again. It was better, but I coughed and the bumper prevented more injury but still slammed my glasses into my nose.

A few days later I coughed with a cup in my mouth. I put my hands to my mouth, and they came away  bloody. the blood stopped, but my lips HURT.

I hesitate to think what's next.

Dogs' lives

When Claren, my first service dog, was sick and couldn't go to work with me, I was aggravated.

She made my life better and easier, and I knew I'd have to put up with strangers asking where my dog was. Like the day after I broke my collar bone and I left her home because my arm had no strength to hold her leash. I was wearing a sling and someone came up wanting to know if my dog was OK. She didn't care about me apparently.

I could do the stuff Claren did for me, not as easily as she could, but usually without risking life or limb.

When current service dog Fame is sick (as she was today), I am not aggravated, but genuinely upset. She also makes my like better and easier, and people I don't really know ask after her.

But unlike with Claren, there is more risk when I undertake Fame's chores.

It is not the dogs, it is that my body is worse.

i survived, but I don't like my body, have I mentioned?

What if

I went to get my eyes checked today, and it was a fine. But here is the more exciting tale I concocted on my way home:

He tells me I am going blind and there is nothing to do about it. I find a renegade surgeon who operates and gives me Six Million Dollar Man eyes.

The government then starts hunting me because it wants me to kill for it. I go on the run but because I am in a wheelchair, it is on the roll. That could be the series' name.

I find a friend. I hadn't decided whether it would be a butler or love interest. Hollywood would likely demand a love interest, and who am I to argue?

Then I become the leader of a movement. This will need work because saying it now sounds cult-is.

The government has no choice but to kill me, which it does savagely.

At great personal risk, my family uncovers the truth about what happened, and it is plastered across the news.

Here is the last scene: We pan over a quiet cemetery, then come to rest on a fresh dug grave. It then pans down, and goes dark, like you are in the ground or casket. Then an eye opens and you look out the Six Million Dollar Man eyes but just for a second, then roll credits.

Did the surgeon do something to give me l life or is it just my eye still works? This  screams franchise.

Sad and cold

I wish I knew why I wasn't blogging much.

Things aren't awesome. It's not like I have nothing to write about.

I think that partly it is the cold. So that means I am not going to be writing regularly for a while.

And I am just sad.

Staying out of the ER

About 8:10 I decided to go into the office today instead of teleworking ... as long as I didn't spend the evening in the ER.

It was touch and go for a little while.

I went out a little earlier with Mom to go for a walk.

My feet slipped off the footplate on the way down the driveway, and I ran over one pretty bad. It was bent upside down under my chair.

I fell on my lap, and Mom started pushing me up. It took me three or four tries to grunt out, "Move my chair back."

It hurt.

We put ice on it and it didn't get worse.

No ER, I was officebound.

Brace-legs

Growing up I had braces and other orthodontia for years and years, so you would think braces are no big thing for me.

That stuff was in my mouth, and I was a little better-abled (although the fact that I used to successfully string tiny rubber bands between the top and bottom braces is mind-boggling).

Now, though, I am trying out my fourth pair of ankle braces. (Here are some past braces stories.)

The difference this time?

• I like and trust my physical therapist better. She came over today to help me figure out how to use them. So I think I'll have support. My past and current student therapists also think they will help. 
• I see benefits to them. Not invisible one like stretching my calves, which these will do, but ones I SEE: They keep my feet on the footplate. They also help me stand better.

But they are not easy to get on. Not now. I got the right one on in about five minutes and my PT had to help with the left. I'll keep at it. She seems to think that it'll get easier and that I can do it.

I mean I did the rubber bands. This should be easy.