Tears and Jealousy

The highlight of my day - listening to the Hobbit soundtrack while doing my pin site care. Nothing like listening to the music from that scene where Gandalf and the dwarfs fight those cunning orcs in their underground lair... sly little buggers. Seriously though, movie soundtracks make pin site care seem like an even more daunting (or is that exciting?) task than cleaning an open wound with an over-sized q-tip dipped in hydrogen peroxide already is. You should try it sometime; I highly recommend it! Not...

The last two days have been rather blah. Except blah is not the right word. They have been lonely and dull and repetitive and empty, looming. I wake up every morning and think "Great, another day. How will I fill the hours before bed this time?" The days loom ahead of me, endless. I don't want to be doing this anymore. I want to walk. I want to carry a cup of tea. I want to be able to sit down comfortably and relax. To get up to go to the bathroom and just walk... not grab for my crutches, to be able to make my bed in two minutes instead of ten, get dressed without the ado that is getting a pant leg over my pins/fixtor and neatly folded under my knee. Wanting to be around others instead of lonely and isolated sitting at home all the time. Want! Want! Want! I want all of these simple things I would never have thought about if I was healthy. But more than anything else, I want to wake up and not have to think about my leg and it's (and therefore my) future. I don't want to worry about bone growth and pin sites and infections or best/worst case scenarios. I don't want to be doing this anymore.

So there were a lot of tears, both yesterday and today, but more so today. And I am not talking holding back tears welling up in my eyes or letting one or two run down my cheek before I mop them up with a tissue, let out a few sniffles, and get on with my day. I am talking full on hard deep overwhelming crying, reserved for those moments you just don't think you can handle any more. Crying instigated by the most insignificant things. Crying that has nothing to do what it going on in that exact moment and everything to do with feeling overwhelmed and drained and exhausted, tired of having to care and bare in mind the daunting things that are still to come. It was a much needed cry; my mum lovingly gave me a shoulder to cry on, followed by many hugs throughout the day, and occasionally a few more tears. And then, when I thought there were no more tears left, I cried a bit more while doing my second dressing change of the day while listening to that soundtrack of a troupe of dwarfs fight off a hoard of orcs, rubbing my open skin with hydrogen peroxide and pondering the absurdity of it all. 

And on top of everything else - crying because I am jealous of my best friend and then some more for feeling guilty about feeling jealous of my best friend. My best friend is, well, my best friend. She has worked incredibly hard over the last few years and now is renting a place with several of her friends. She is incredibly excited about this and wants me to come over and have a look (which I am doing tomorrow afternoon). And I am jealous, so incredible jealous. She can walk and I can't; she can work and I am unable to; she has her own place while I had to move back home because of  illness; she has the ability to go and do what she pleases, an ability I don't have as a result of the inherent limitations of crutches and external fixators. I am not jealous of her in a bad way, like wanting a job promotion someone else got and then loathing them for it even though they earned it. No, I am jealous as in I am really happy and excited for her because she worked so very hard and earns every last bit of it but I wish I had something like that for myself too, instead of sitting at home these long seemingly endless months regrowing a tibia. The thought alone of visiting a friends reminds me of everything I don't have right now and everything I a loosing out on, and that makes me incredibly sad (along with jealous). And then I feel guilty for feeling jealous because my friend can't help that she is healthy and I am not. It makes me feel like I am not a good friend =( Add all of this to everything else I have been feeling and going through (because let's be honest, I would be lying if I said that having giant metal pins sticking out of my shin is not even the least bit traumatizing), and it makes sense why I sometimes feel down and burst into tears.

I know that I will probably feel better tomorrow and that I will likely be back to my normal cheerful self. But everybody needs a good cry and a small pity party at some point. And in my book, having an external fixator and the fact that I haven't walked without crutches in five months are two very valid reasons for having that pity party. Let the misery commence!

On a brighter note, I managed to put clean sheets on my bed (all by myself, thank you!), have a nice relaxing steaming hot shower (albeit with a garbage bag taped over my right leg) and snuggle up in some warm clean pajamas (which one day will once more not have to be manipulated over a giant piece of metal stuck to my friggin leg). Comfy and clean make for a happy me. Typing all this out alone has helped me better. Now on to read some Harry Potter before bed, hopefully followed by good dreams and a pain free night, and all will be bright and shiny in the morning.