uphill battle

uphill battle

I went to see my ankle doctor on Wednesday, and now my stitches are FINALLY out. Unless my ankle starts bothering me again, I won't have to go back to that doctor anymore. That's a big step, considering he's the doctor that dealt with my foot, ankle, fibula, and femur - and did five of my surgeries. I have a feeling I'll be back to see him at some point, but for now this is progress.

Now I just have to get my ACL fixed. I made an appointment with my knee doctor, but the earliest he could see me is in the first week of August. I was planning on having that surgery done this summer yet, but reality has started to set in. The earliest I could probably get in to have surgery would be the second or third week of August. My athletic trainer told me I'd probably be on crutches for about four weeks after the surgery. Not only is August a busy month with marching band, but I'm scheduled to take photos at someone's wedding in early September and I can't be on crutches for that. And I don't want to start yet another semester of school while still recovering from surgery. As I see it, I have a few options: I could have the surgery done in August anyway, but for the reasons I just pointed out, that probably wouldn't be the best choice. As much as I just want to be done with surgeries and fully start my recovery, I don't think I can do it in August. Another option is to wait until January or sometime after that. I'll graduate in December, so I'll have plenty of time to rest and recover from surgery. The downside is that I wouldn't be able to work full-time for a while afterwards, so I would be poor and uninsured (my surgery will be covered, but I don't want to go without insurance). My other option is to take classes part time over the next two semesters, and delay my graduation YET AGAIN. If I'm only taking classes part-time, I could have surgery whenever, and still deal with my small class load. But then there's the insurance problem again. Basically there is no good option, and I'm sick of my life being fucked up from the accident. I just want to move on, and do normal things again, like go snowboarding. Or go on a vacation. Since October, my (short-term) future has constantly been up in the air because I'm never sure when my next surgery will be. I wish I could close this chapter of my life.

Anyway, rant over. In good news, enough time has passed since my last surgery that I can start going to the gym again. Before the accident I went to the gym regularly, and I was always trying to strengthen this or that. I was happy with myself, but that didn't stop me from trying to improve my overall health. Now I realize how much I took it for granted. I am so weak now that I can barely do anything. But I know that I shouldn't take my current strength for granted, either. I'm so much better than I was back in November or December. And I still notice an improvement from week to week.

A lot of people have been asking me lately about the long-term effects I'll have from my injuries. I really don't know. That's something my doctors don't talk about. It's interesting that people who have a small amount of medical knowledge are quick to tell you what they think your long-term effects will be. However, people who've had a lot of medical training refrain from saying anything about patients' futures. I guess I'm just going to have to wait and see what happens.

I don't know if I've mentioned it on here, but I'm working on writing music for the students I teach in marching band. It hasn't been going very well so far. It takes me a long time to write music. Especially when I have a lot of stuff on my mind, which as you can probably tell, I do now. I'll get the music finished soon enough.

I realized that my blog posts tend to be kind of negative sometimes, but that's because this is my outlet. If I write it all down on here and get my complaining out of the way, then it's not on my mind quite as much. At least that's what I like to believe. Anyway, I write this blog mostly for accident-related reasons, so it's bound to be negative. There aren't many positive things I can say about what happened.