The mind is an amazing thing - it lets us indulge in the simplest pleasures and allows our senses to take account of the smallest detail. We are not only able to remember things that happened years ago but also able to quickly accustom to a new scenario. But the mind also has the capability to make us forget, to detach from reality when it becomes too difficult, when an unpleasantry is greater than all things pleasant before and around us. It allows us to deny the very things around us, and that is where I am right now - a little bit of denial.
While getting ready for bed last night and putting away a few stray bits and bobs in my room I happened to glance at my leg. This is, of course, not so off. I mean, it is my leg after all. It is attached to me. And my leg has been getting quite a bit more attention (both by me and strangers) then usual lately what with the metal pins jutting from my shin. Curiously enough though, I seemed to have completely forgotten about it. Never mind the fact that I have had it for ten weeks. I had completely forgotten, just for a second, that is was there! In that moment I forgot about the fixator and the crutches, my daily pin site routine and inability to walk. I just calmly looked at my leg and thought "Isn't that a curious device? I wonder what it does. I have never seen a mechanism like it before." Those where the exact words I thought. It didn't feel strange or surreal or off if you will and it wasn't before several minutes had gone by before that I actually thought "Hey, that is my fixator!" And it is odd, because in that time I hadn't panicked or screamed or tried to shake the curious mechanism off my leg. It just was there and that was okay.
And that is why I am in denial about things... just a tad bit. It is strange because I have never felt that way before, not about anything. I have definitely been through several of the five stages of grief (anger, sadness, and acceptance) over the past decade as I have dealt with all the broken legged, bone infected mumbo jumbo; many chronically ill people go through these emotions. And there was (and to an extent still is) quite a lot of flip flopping between those stages, but I never experienced denial before. But here it is, and it doesn't feel bad either because, well, it is denial. You don't realize that there is anything to worry about! It also makes sense that I am dealing with denial now because, as normal as having an external fixator has become for me, it is also traumatic. Traumatic things can become normal too, but that doesn't make them any less traumatic. So a bit of denial helps with that.
I have an appointment at the hospital tomorrow morning to have new x-rays taken and a visit with my orthopedic surgeon. Thrusting me back into reality of course. I am, of course, hoping for good news but it is not like I am not expecting it. For once we are walking a more or less already traveled road. Everyone's fixator experience is different no doubt, but the concepts of bone transport, distraction osteogenesis, and external fixation are tried and true with quite a heap of literature behind them. So I am not expecting anything funny, not like the past anyhow, what with infection and delayed healing and all that. So I am neither nervous nor excited, just a bit curious instead. I have to trust that my body knows how to heal itself, albeit aided by some fancy metal bits and bobs. And for the first time in what feels like a life time I am trusting my body - I am confident in it =) It has all just become part of a normal routine. And I think that is why I am so okay with everything (regardless of the trauma that is the fixator itself). With the infection all those years, many of the previous surgeries, PICC lines and antibiotics and ER visits and scans there was so much uncertainty. So many things could happen and there wasn't really a road map to how things were supposed to happen. But now there is. So the last month had been one of the calmest I have had since the relapse was diagnosed almost a year ago. It feels really nice for things to be calm - not like gearing up for surgery number four in the summer and the PICC line, not waiting between surgery four and five to see if the infection would come back or not, not adjusting to the initial shock of the fixator in those first few weeks. Now there is a routine and a plan to grow back my tibia; it is more normal than before, even though it is still actually quite far from normal.
Anyways, here we are and things feel calm and good most of the time. It makes sense that denial and a sense of calm go hand in hand. And aside from mum and myself, I have some very curious physiotherapists who really want to see my new x rays next week. We are hoping for lots of fuzzy white bits on the x-rays. Go little bone go!
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