Normal

I have just finished making plans with a friend to get together next week Wednesday. For her privacy I will refer to her as S., instead of her actual name. S. and I became friends while we were in university - we met through a history course we were both taking. I am incredibly excited to see her; we haven't been able to get together since before I got really sick last summer. Being with someone my own age will add a bit of normalcy to my life.

So many of my friends, or at least people who I thought were my friends, dropped out of my life when I became ill. Losing a friend always hurts, but loosing multiple friends at once is an extra harsh blow, especially when added to an already tough situation like the one caused by my health problems. S. and B., who I have also been friends with for years (We met at the start of high school back in 2006), were the only two people who continued to text me, visit, message me on Facebook, etc., throughout the years despite my medical issues. I count both of them as my best friends. As long as I can remember, my mum has always told me that we are fortunate if we have one or two good friends. This is a sentiment I have heard repeated by many other people throughout my life, and I think that it is true. It is not the number of friends that you have that matters, but the quality of your friendships. This is not to say that it didn't hurt when the people who I thought were my friends fell away when I became sick, because it did. I had invested in those relationships and thought that my friends had done the same, but obviously I was more a friend of convenience to them then anything else; when we no longer saw each other every day at school, I somehow ceased to exist, even if I would reach out and try to contact people. Anyways. I am very fortunate that S. and B. are my friends. And I do believe that they are my best friends - we can lose contact for long periods, sometimes even months at a time, but when we do finally meet up again it is like no time has passed at all and the friendship is as strong as ever.

So S. is coming over to my place next week. She is putting in a lot of effort to come see me, coming over from another city which requires several buses to do. I want to think of something I can give her to thank her for making that effort. Yes, yes of course this is something friends just do and if I could walk, I would be more than ready to make the trip up to where see lives. But the reality is that I can't, and even if I would do the same for her, I still really appreciate that she is making the effort to see me now. I know that loves tea, so perhaps I can get her some Pickwick tea from the Dutch store down the street. This is a brand of tea you can't buy in the shops in Canada, so hopefully it will be a nice surprise =)

Being around friends and other young people during this difficult time is really important for me. There is so much in my life that is not normal at the moment. I am doing things that older people do, things my friends won't have to do for a very long time if ever at all. These are things like using a walker or wheelchair, having surgery, blood work, doctor's appointments, limited mobility, pain and difficulty with household chores. The list could go on. On top of that, I am not doing what people my age do typically do - post-secondary education, graduating, job search, working, dating, marriage, buying houses, road trips, hanging out, etcetera. My world is very limited right now; not very much happens in my life besides physiotherapy, home visits from my nurse and doctor's appointments; I can't go very far because using crutches is tiring and dangerous outside in the winter, plus issues with pain and being able to get comfortable. So while seeing a friend may be the same old thing for most other young people and just part of everyday normal life for them, it is so much more for me. It is an opportunity to be normal, a normal I don't normally have. I cherish that!

The funny thing is that is not just having a friend come over that makes me feel happy and feel normal - sitting here tonight texting back and forth as we makes plans has the same effect - I feel light, airy, alive... happy . I am doing what a young person does. No, I am not going out on a Friday night like some young people do, but just like my brother, who is young (twenty-four) and healthy, is relaxing at home tonight texting his friends, I have someone to text with too. My other friend, B., and I have also been texting a bit over the last few days. She has knitted me a hat and would like to hang out sometime. Yes please! Hanging out with friends is always fun, but it is extra fun when your physical limitations prevent you from getting out very often and your life is filled with medical stuff. I am not sure exactly when I will see B. yet, but I am as excited to see her as I am to see S.

That last little blurb about feeling happy around friends is significant (not that the rest of this post is not). Aside from wanting to feel normal and hang out with my friends, I need to be happy. Don't get me wrong or make any assumptions here - I am not unhappy. On the contrary, I am often quite cheerful and upbeat. The people around me think that I have been handling this entire situation quite well and often tell me how positive I am, how great my attitude is, and amazing it is that I am always smiling.  But I cannot deny that my leg situation is not starting to affect me. This past week has been very difficult for me - a lot of tears, sadness, and grumpiness. There have been more of these things this week than there likely have been since surgery in August. While it is important to stay positive, it is equally important to express your feelings instead of bottling them up inside. The weight of the situation is finally sinking in and the prospect of the months to come (at least two more with the external fixator), more surgery, and then having to literally learn to walk again in combination with the knowledge of how long I have been doing this and how much I have been through already has gotten to me a bit. So not only will seeing my friends help me feel normal and have fun, doing also will also help me be happy and keep cheerful as I continue the process towards walking again. It gives me something to look forward to during a process with no specific end.

There wasn't really anything particularly fixator related in this post that I wanted to say. Instead, I wanted to share with you the other, non-medical side of things. There is more to my situation than simple re-growing my tibia, external fixators, appointments and surgeries. There is a human being who is vulnerable and lonely; a person who is as alive as she was a year ago but currently can't do anything with that life. I am still the same person that I was before the relapse; the relapse and all the things that followed did not change my needs and desires. I still want (and need) a sense of normal, control in my life, happiness and fun in the same way that you do. That doesn't change simply because I am facing medical hurdles. Because of my good friends S. and B., I am able to have these things again for a little bit, and that makes me both incredibly blessed and happy.