The Road isn't always smooth

Today's PT session didn't go as well as I had hoped. I think partially because I didn't take any pain meds after midnight last night because I had been thinking the lightheadedness and dizziness with standing had been result of not eating enough, especially before taking Vicodin, and since I couldn't eat in the middle of the night to counteract the nausea of Vicodin on an empty stomach, I skipped. Not a good plan apparently. I guess the pain had gotten ahead of me, so even after taking the meds, I was still in pain 20 minutes later. So therapy pretty much sucked. I didn't get to walk as far today and it was a lot more painful, complete bummer and definitely brought me down a notch after yesterday seemed to go so well.

I didn't like today's therapist as much as the one I had over the weekend. She was a lot more business and a lot less encouraging. Luckily, the PT tech, who happens to be a GMU athletic training student (small world), is really cool and was much more helpful than the actual PT. I asked the PT how far she wanted me to go today and she said, as far as you want. I told her I needed a goal and she got kind of snarky and said, well I could tell you out to the end of the hall and I told her I needed a short term goal. She seemed bothered that I was asking her for that. But I wanted to know what was expected because if I need to be able to walk out into the hallway in order to get to go home, then fine, I'd walk into the hallway, even if it took a few hours.

I think through all of this, I will become a better athletic trainer because I've never had a significant injury, so I didn't know what it was like to be in a lot of pain and be down in the dumps because I can't do the things I want to do. Even adjusting my position in bed right now seems like an Olympic event. Hopefully this will make me better professionally and make me a stronger person in general.

So, anyway, hopefully I'll be going home today. There are some things to accomplish before that can happen, but I won't mention them here ;).

Things I will not take for granted anymore:

*walking, running, or just moving normally in general

*showers

*eating normal food

Things to become more positive about:

*this is going to take awhile to recover from

*just because today was a bad day, tomorrow won't necessarily be a bad day too

*I can only do so much in one day, tomorrow will be the opportunity for more.

Lastly, I didn't mention this last night because the meds were taking over my brain, but I really appreciate everyone's phone calls, emails, text messages, facebook messages, and visits. Being in the hospital is an extremely lonely place, at least with their current visitation policy, so hearing from everyone means a lot. It'll be a few weeks still before I'm up and out of the house, so you're all welcome to come by my parents house any time you want. I'll be there ;).