One step forward – one step back…recovering from the accident where I fell on an unmarked wet floor in a restaurant has been a Spring and Summer of hell …

For months my left side was not able to function, both my left leg and left arm out of commission…

I made great strides as I focused so intensely on learning to walk again along with learning to use my left arm while trying not to lose my smile in the process.

But first, I needed to not use my left arm and leg at all… as the surgery on my elbow healed, along with not putting any weight on my left leg, so the hairline fractures in my sacrum, tailbone and lower back would heal properly. Then after three weeks of sedentary torture, the cast was removed from my arm and I am told that I must break through the scar tissue, in order, to be able to use my arm ‘normally’ and at full range, while at the same time to strengthen the muscles in my left leg, so that, I will be able to walk without assistance and in my normal gait.

I worked diligently and hard everyday in rehab, and also on my own to gain full range of motion in my elbow and to strengthen my leg.

During this time, I would have nightmares that I would never be able to walk normally again and, of course, this freaked me out and made me work even harder.

I progressed from crutches, to a cane, to walking very slowly as I tried to make light of it all and have as much ‘fun’ as possible in this very trying time, as it hurt terribly to walk and I had overwhelming fear that I would fall again.

Emotional trauma makes an imprint on your brain just as  physical trauma makes an imprint on your body and it is difficult to deal with and takes time to release. And I was dealing with both.

Adrenaline coursed through my body as I worked so very hard to regain what I had lost as I tried to remain positive that I would be able to, and as of now, I have regained most of it…

But, I have hit what’s termed a ‘medical wall’ … after so much stress and intense effort, I am emotionally and physically drained and exhausted. I am tired and when I say tired…  I mean tired!

I still have pain in my elbow and the left side of my tailbone, but I am walking fine and have 97 percent range of motion in my left arm. But I need to keep strengthening my left leg and rebuild more, so the muscles I lost in my left arm will be as they were before the accident.

I can be walking at my normal pace, then I come across a concrete floor and panic internally and feel intense fright as I recall how quickly I fell and how horribly it hurt when my left side slammed into the wet concrete.

I am still hesitant to push up with my left arm, which is what I am needing to do now, while I will state again that I am tired… exhausted on a level that I never recall being before.

This healing and rehab after an accident is a full time job that shakes and takes a person to their core, in order, to not only call on all of their internal and external resources of strength, but that they call on God’s divine assistance and grace…

Everyone remarks about my ability to smile as I go through this ordeal. So I will reveal that I have had some very dark days and nights of the soul… when I ask why!

All my life I have tried to be careful and to take very good care of my physical being. I eat healthfully most of the time, except when I don’t, HA! And I have always worked on and guarded my physical self and fitness. I have worked out all my life in some manner and form.

Then wham! An irresponsible, unconscientious restaurant and I am damaged physically and from no fault of my own as I was  even wearing rubber soled shoes an still fell because the floors were so wet. I went from fit as a fiddle to broken, sedentary , operated on, in bed, in rehab, and now, this medical wall of complete and utter exhaustion…

I ask why?

Was it so that this particular establishment will be more careful in the future? How irresponsibly negligent that they leave a floor wet in a darkened area that is the only path to the restrooms. I was fit and agile and look what the effects of their negligence had on me. Think about how much worse this would’ve been on a more physically fragile person … it was a disaster waiting to happen.

Did this happen, so that I once again learn what I am made of… not only physically, but emotionally and spiritually?

Because now that I have most of the physical aspects conquered, I find I am dealing with a deeper emotional and spiritual wound…

When the doctor told me, you are healing great… I felt a momentary surge of relief  then cratered into some kind of a release of letting go of all that energy in the adrenaline surge that it took to help me heal and I feel into complete exhaustion.

Healing is such a multi-level, deeply internal process coming from the inside out, and ‘we’ humans are so very fragile as well as resilient…and just when you think it is past you, it’s not.

So, my hat goes off to those going through any kind of trauma…as compared to many, mine is not so much… but it was allot to me.

And now, I have collapsed into exhaustion…and praying that I will recover soon…

What is all this pain on earth for… the physical as well as the psychological? Then add to the trauma of the accident, I am still mourning my Dad who died almost one year before the accident occurred….

Thoughts?

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