Sunday, February 1, 2009

I think I can, I think I can, I think I shouldn't have...

After surviving my check-up on Wednesday and taking the kids to their annual check-ups on Friday, of course with the help of my paternal chauffeur, I was feeling a little brave yesterday. Maybe too brave?

I woke up around 8:00 to get a shower and get ready for Ethan's game. I was feeling so much better because Friday I had managed to get in the downstairs bathroom and get a shower all by myself. All of us got ready and headed to Ethan's basketball game at The Place, I was feeling really good and was so relieved to be able to get around so much better than the previous Saturday's game.

It turned out that Ethan's team would be playing against the team of Kaitlyn Sweeney. Kaitlyn is Kelly's daughter. Kelly and I had been the bestest of best friends from first grade up. Although the years of jobs and motherhood have kept us from talking and seeing each other on a regular basis, it seems no time is lost when I run into her at sporting events throughout the year. It is as if we are back in high school as we chat each other up about the current phases of life we are experiencing. It was a great game. Ethan's team didn't pull off a victory, although they don't officially keep score, Kaitlyn's team dominated and we had to swallow our pride to admit defeat. Okay, so I'm a little dramatic about it, but I'm telling you, I find great happiness in watching my son play ball.

After the game, I knew Greg would want to grab some food before picking up some groceries and heading home. I thought it best to go ahead and use the restroom at The Place than having to wander around a slippery restaurant floor with my crutches. As I attempted to exit the restroom stall, my extremely handy cell phone slipped out of my sweatshirt pocket and was swept off by the current of the massively strong toilet. I've heard of folks dropping their phones in the toilet, I spent almost 2 years working at US Cellular, I heard lots of things. But actually managing to flush it down the toilet...geez...

Greg found it quite amusing. Let us pause for a moment as we try extremely hard to imagine my husband finding humor in this situation. Okay, I'm done, are you done? As we drove down the hill leaving the gym, he cupped his hand to his ear and looked over at the culvert swearing he heard it ringing.

Moving on.

We went straight to US Cellular where they confirmed my dreaded thoughts...I had remembered calling and taking off a few bells and whistles to lower our phone bill because of my surgery. I knew that I would be at home more than anything in the upcoming months and therefore thought it would be in my best interest to drop the insurance I had on my phone. Um, yeah, well, enough said. I had just purchased this phone back in October. It had cost me almost $200. I had ruined my ipod by accidentally running it through the washer, so I wanted a phone that would also work as a music player. It wasn't too fancy, but it served it's purpose perfectly. I had hundreds of #s stored in it. And now it was gone, and I was paying $110 for a used phone to try to take it's place.

We ate lunch and decided to make the best of our time, we would split up and I would go to Wal-Mart while he went to Sams to get the few items on our list. Greg dropped off Ethan and myself at Wal-Mart. I had every intention of getting one of those scooters and attempting to not humiliate myself by pulling a back and forth Austin Powers episode in front of a Saturday shopping crowd. But I just couldn't bring myself to do it. So, with my faithful silver crutches, we headed off to pick up 5 things. He dropped me off at the grocery side. We walked over to get some pencils and erasers for school, then to get nail polish, then to get a mini sd card for my phone(my other one was now in the sewer), then all the way to the back to get yogurt, and finally back up to get lettuce and to check out. All this time Ethan is pushing the cart while I am walking about 1 step per minute. On the way to retrieve the lettuce, I started to feel my leg giving out. It was getting really heavy and my brace was feeling really tight. We checked out and when i got in the car I realized that I had made a huge mistake. My thoughts were a little walking wouldn't hurt, and would maybe even be good for me.

I was wrong.

We came straight home and I put on some shorts and assumed my position on my reclining couch. My leg was huge. I'm talking HUGE! From the back of my knee down to my toes my leg was bulging. I removed the brace and just couldn't believe how tight my skin was. It was extremely painful and I was just so angry that I had went from feeling so much better to having to prop it up and ice it again.

I spent all of the evening, night, and this morning with it propped up, and also icing it as often as I could. I wanted to be back at church really bad today, but there was just no way. I called the ER last night and talked with a nurse. He said to stay off of it for 24 hrs and then to ease myself back in to walking.

Greg was really disappointed with me for walking all that way in Wal-Mart, he kept saying that he thought I was going to get a scooter, and he wouldn't have dropped me off had he known that I was going to walk it. He was right, it was dumb, and I was paying for it. But in my defense, I thought a little exercise would be good for it.

It is almost 10 this Sunday morning, and here I am in the bed getting ready to eat a bacon biscuit that my husband just brought me.

I don't know if you ever find yourself doing this, but at night when I lay my head down, I do what I call a little emotion evaluation. I just kinda run through what is going on with the relationships in my life to see if there is a little something out of whack that I should work on the next day. The typical things like me and Greg, me and the kids, the people I talked to that day, the people I should have talked to that day, and then I usually pray and drift off to sleep. If there is something not right, and it is something that I have done and I can't fix, I have a hard time just praying and going to sleep. Let's face it, there are worse things that could happen to me than flushing my phone down the toilet or having a swollen leg, but because I caused those things and I can't fix it, it troubles me. I mean it really troubles me.

I find myself wallowing in regret. Now, I know that I shouldn't. I know that the Lord would want me to be focused on my blessings, to be thankful for so many good things going on in my life while others around me are currently suffering major heartache. But I have to admit that I struggle with forgiving myself for doing stupid things. I pray that I will start remembering that as a child of God, He has a purpose for me, and I am getting in the way of that purpose with my ignorant self pity.

Alrighty then, my biscuit is getting cold.

1 comment:

  1. I think we (as mom's) think we can do anything because we are strong. We hold the family together with all that is going on. Please don't beat yourself up over this. I will continue to pray for you as I too do the emotion evaluation every night before dreamland.

    ReplyDelete