Tuesday, July 14, 2015

I broke my legs.

I broke both of my legs.
Fibulas to be specific... just the lower portion, below my knee.
This is all very new to me. I have perfected the art of living with a broken arm after having to do so several times over the last decade but this feat is new. I've never been without the use of my legs before and even though it's the same (a broken bone in my limb), it's still very different.

I'm confined to my house unless someone can put ramps on the steps to help me with my wheelchair. Some days if I feel like I am in dire need to get something from outside the house I might spend all day trying to figure out how to get both me and my daughter out of the house. It takes a long amount of time and patience. The smallest setback feels devastating.
Sometimes my husband is home and able to help out with this task. He sets up the ramps for me to wheel down and he easily carries my daughter to the car. Everything is far less trying and I breeze through a trip to the store without much effort.

Sometimes I am able to get out of the house to at least allow my daughter to run and play. Everything looks and feels so much more frightening from my new chair. I can't yet easily navigate the hills and bumps of the road as I previously did with my own legs.

My workplace has a long flight of stairs leading to the top. There is no way for someone to easily get both me and my chair up to my office so most days I have to stay at home. My checkbook dwindles.

As the trips to the store become less and less and the money becomes less and less, I find it necessary to always stock up on things that are essential. I fear running out of things and not being able to go to the store because of my broken legs. If I don't have these things I start to panic.

My husband talks to me throughout the day. The days drag long on him because I am constantly in need of his help. I can see it wearing on him. He asks me how I am doing throughout the day but doesn't seem to want my answers to coincide with my new found struggles of being in my chair or in physical pain. I struggle but I can tell he is just too tired. He can see I'm in pain and that I'm trying but I don't think he will really know the challenges of not having the use of his legs unless it happened to him. He doesn't understand the constant pain and how it affects you in a bigger way than can be described in words.

I forgot that I never mentioned how I even broke my legs.
I'm not going to say it was my daughter's fault, because it really wasn't. I will tell you that it did happen as a direct result of her. All of the right things had to fall exactly in to place for me to get hit the way I did. I was protecting her.

She will always be worth anything and everything.

It's for her that I will get out of my wheelchair when I can't get through doorways or areas in the house and it's for her that I will gladly crawl on my hands and knees. It's for her that I do whatever I can to learn about how to be in less pain and be more mobile. To heal. Unfortunately there aren't many interventions that can be done for pain because of my current pregnancy. I just have to learn how to deal with it. How to get through every day pretending it's not as bad as it really is. To pretend I can sleep just fine when I know for sure I toss and turn and wake up quite often because of it.

I cried out in pain a few days ago and I was asked to please keep my pain to myself unless it was caused by that person. Even if I explained afterwards that it wasn't their fault. Every day people either stare at me or expect me to be better if I look like I might be in better spirits.

"She lifted herself from her wheelchair to the couch so she must be getting better."
"She is smiling, not grimacing, so she mustn't be in pain."

No one knows what really goes on in my head. How I struggle to be normal even though it's clear that I'm unable to function normally. Not many people can tell when I feel as broken as I am. I have to ask people to help me. I don't like to do that.

I hear some people say I'm over reacting.
I'm not sure how you can over react a broken limb. Maybe they think it doesn't hurt? Do they think I'm faking? Do they think they could do better or control it or prevent it had it been them?

I go to see a doctor on a weekly basis to talk about my progress and to help me find new ways of doing with things and coping with my current disability. It won't be there forever but I do need to learn new ways of life to make it through. I focus on things that I am able to do. The mundane ones. It's all I can really do.

I don't really feel right telling my support people how I feel day to day. When people ask how I'm doing they just want a mere "fine" instead of the loaded truth.

I feel empty.
I feel alone.
I feel misunderstood.
I feel like no one really actually wants to deal with what this actually is.

What's easiest of all - is to pretend like mental health is any different from the physical problems you might stumble upon. Like it doesn't need special treatment. Like you don't have to make any changes to how you treat someone when you can't physically see their wound. Like invisible wounds aren't important, aren't real.

I didn't break my legs.
But I just explained how it feels for me having PPA/PPOCD in the comparison to something you might easier understand.

Maternal mental health needs a voice.
Mine may not be very loud and sturdy, but I will surely be chanting along side my warrior moms and making sure I am, if nothing else, part of something more.