... just like rising a bike! I got my bicycle out from the basement on Monday afternoon. I pumped up the tires and off I went! Until Monday, I had only ridden my bike one since all the bone infection/external fixator/non-union nonsense began.. The last real bike ride I had must have been sometime during the fall in 2014. I remember wanting to go for a ride in spring 2015, but I was living away from home for nursing school at the time and hadn't brought my bicycle with me. Then I started getting really sick with the bone infection and before I new it I had a PICC line for IV antibiotics. At that point I didn't feel like riding my bicycle at all. After that came all the surgeries, the external fixator, learning to walk again. Other than one quick circle around my neighborhood at some point at the end of the summer or early fall last year, I haven't been on my bike in at least two and a half years. The irony is that it is just like riding a bike - you never forget. Learning to walk again was so difficult, so slow, so time consuming, so frustrating. But I hopped on my bicycle and off I went! I wish learning to walk had been that simple. How is it that learning to walk is so tremendously difficult, but biking comes so naturally? Surely you would expect it to be the other way around...
But I did it! I am able to do both, walk and ride my bike! Despite the problems I continue to have with my leg (non-union, the prospect of more surgery in the future, muscle tightness), I am so thrilled by everything I am able to do. Yes, there are still bad days, and lots of pain, but things are going in the right direction. The bone infection is gone and I still have two legs!
Plus, biking gets me places, like the book store! And that promises more books! I am still a book lover at heart. I biked to a place called Book Outlet, which I think should be renamed heaven on earth. A trip there never fails to leave me with at least one more books than I had before I went. I went to pick up several books I had ordered on line (when you ship the books to the store the shipping costs are free), but of course I ended up with more than what I intended. I ended up finding the Millie Marotta's Animal Kingdom: Deluxe Edition for 13.99, amazing quality. The route I took to the book store is just over 11 kilometers, round trip. Not bad for someone who a year ago was hobbling along, unable to walk without crutches!
To top everything all off, my bicycle has a basket. That basket is perfect for holding a backpack full of books! XD
In other news, the first raspberries in the bush in my back yard were ready to be plucked yesterday! It was just a handful, but there will be plenty more to come. Maybe it will be good physiotherapy, like last year. I know I have come a long way, but I still have trouble with muscle tightness running through the back of my leg. Perhaps reaching for all those berries on tiptoes will help a bit.
Lastly, I am going to start a little cross stitch project today - two tiny hedgehogs by Margaret Sherry.
I love the feeling I get when I look at a fresh piece of aida and all the pretty colours I will use splayed out in front of me, thinking about all the hours I will enjoy stitching away and the final product I will get out of it!
There are many more things I could talk about: how much my leg hurts, how I can only walk a little bit before I am in lots of pain, the bone pain and muscle aches I get (especially at night), the doubts I have about being able to complete twelve hour shifts when I begin working as a nurse later this summer, the idea of more surgery), but I will leave this post with all happy things for today. I really just need a distraction from some other stuff going on in my life. I've always fallen back on my blog when I had all the surgeries. Maybe it will help me now too.
