This post will be tremendously cliché because we have all heard how much we take our health and mobility for granted.
Still......
Stuff I miss:
Wearing whatever clothes I want to. I have been relagated to clothes that will fit over my cast/boot. This tends to consist of such fashion trending items as my huge polarfleece jammies, a collection of voluminous skirts, and the occasional "skort". Suffice it to say, none of these are really on my "A" list of apparel but, there we are.
Showering any time I want to. Or, more importantly, any time others want me to. Any activity involving water is now a giant pain because of the cast/boot. While I can technically take it off, When I do, my ankle is vunerable to a dislocation which would lead to surgery. I also cannot put any weight on that leg and we all know how dangerous wet bathtubs are. So I am stuck employing a variety of tools and strategies generally consigned to the over 80 crowd. Yuch!
Going to any room in the house any time I want to. Even though I have access to crutches and a wheelchair, getting around my 1928, "not compliant with the Americans With Disabilities Act" house is a royal pain in the petuckus. We have a lot of stairs and a lot of narrow doorways. The big stairway can only be safely navigated by skooting up or down on my butt. Charming.
Cleaning my house in under 20 minutes. Yesterday there were a number of items that needed to be cleaned up or put away before I had an important colleague over for a meeting. It was a full work day for John so I was pretty much on my own.
A process that would take 20 minutes or less if I had the use, and speed, of both legs took closer to 90. Even with the wheelchair. Because the real problem is not having one bad leg, it is being unable to carry things around. You need both hands for crutches and both hands for pushing the wheelchair. And stuff falls off your lap while you're pushing the wheelchair and wrestling your way over thresholds and through the aforementioned narrow doorways. I tried holding the phone under my ear while I was crutching my way into another room the other day - I wiped out. Not trying that again.
Driving. Lord, where do I start. I now really understand what a blow it is to our parents when we take away their car keys and make them dependent upon us for every tiny little interaction they wish to have with the outside world. Don't get me wrong - I don't want folks out there driving when they are impaired in a way that makes them a danger to the community - but when you're on the receiving end of the driving ban, it really bites.
Energy. I've mentioned this before but I just cannot get over how slothlike I feel. I've never been a fan of jumping jacks but I kind of wish I felt like doing some.
There are more things on the list but then we get a little too personal....
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