Sunday, February 26, 2012

The Foot - Full Circle

I decided that I wanted to blog about something today and guess what has been on my mind lately? My foot. What a surprise right? Really though, I've mostly been thinking about how grateful I am to have it back to almost normal functioning again. Personally, I never really thought about being grateful for those types of things. Now I am! For example, have you ever thought about how nice it is to be able to wear two matching shoes every day? I definitely didn't. So as a tribute to my almost healed ankle I will tell the tale of how we got to this point.

It all started out on a late night in December of 2011. December 16th to be exact. I was with my dear peer mentor friends dancing the night away in the basement of Valley View Tower. We were planning the greatest talent of all time for the housing staff talent show! It was going to be amazing! After some interruptions from RA's on rounds and a lot of typhooning on the couch we called it a night. That's right folks, no big catastrophic event happened that night. The next day I was to drive home to St. George. During that drive my right foot was very sore. It hurt to even push the pedal down. I figured this was a problem. I talked to my mom about it and we decided to wait to see what my foot's condition was after Christmas. So.... I limped around with an ace bandage wrapped foot. After Christmas, things weren't really looking up so we went to see a foot doctor in St. George. They tapped me up and sent me on my way talking of tendonitis and the possibility of a stress fracture. After that I returned to Logan with no real improvement to the foot. Darn. So I was unofficially in a walking boot (next step in the process according to St. George doctor). I participated in Spring training to the best of my abilities. The talent went on without me and was performed amazingly by my staff starring our newest staff member. They were great. This picture was taken at Spring Training. Notice the boot. I would have posted the video of my dear staff members performing the dance but I couldn't get it to work.....
From there, life went on. I wore the walking boot most days and was hoping for improvement. One day was particularly bad. I went to a foot doctor in Logan (props to Tiff for driving me around A LOT throughout this process). I was officially diagnosed to the walking boot and was given a temporary soft cast. That thing was the devil! It was itchy and smelly and nasty and it forced me to shower in the disgusting bath tub. Yucky! During this time of wearing only one normal shoe, I started to wear out a pair of boots I got for Christmas. Problem was that I was only wearing out the left shoe... Needless to say, I stopped wearing the boots for a while. After soft cast was my brace. I had a week with the brace inside the walking boot and then I was FREE! TWO MATCHING SHOES AGAIN!!! Best day EVER!

I was an extremely happy camper at this point. Along with only wearing the brace I was given another lovely surprise by my foot doctor. Physical therapy time!! Normally I wouldn't be too happy about physical therapy in actuality I quite enjoy it. We are not going to go around posting reasons online so it is going to be left at that. Back to the story. Wearing a brace on my foot did allow me to wear two matching shoes again but the brace would only fit into certain "wide" shoes of mine. I assure you that my bishopric loved the slippers that I wore to church. After 3 weeks of a brace and physical therapy I had another doctors appointment. Best news of my life? Pretty close! No more brace and I'm done with physical therapy (bittersweet moment about the physical therapy)! That is where we are today folks. Finishing up my last physical therapy AND finally wearing normal shoes.
So we have almost come full circle now. It's been an adventure! There have been some bonding moments along the way (like with the cute man on the stairs in the institute. He had a brace and crutches. Poor guy.... We felt each others pain. His words, not mine. :D ). Thanks to everyone who actually read all of this since the only people really following this blog are the one who already know the whole story. You're great! Have a lovely day!

Thursday, February 9, 2012

What made you happy?

What has made you happy this week?
  • Hearing a girl down the hall rocking out to Def Leppard in the shower
  • Improvising a blues verse in Music Therapy Methods and Materials (kinda scary to do on the spot in front of the entire class, but I'll admit that it was fun and we were rockin'!)
  • Eating lunch with my dear past roommate Kristy and having our long talks
  • Getting my walking boot off!! (This should be #1 on this list)
  • Being able to pedal the piano again
  • Working out with one of my residents and actually being able to use the exercise bike thing
  • Strawberry-peach smoothies
  • Hearing from my friends at different schools
  • Watching Thumbelina until 2:00 AM (this was on Friday night/Saturday morning - not during the week. Definitely getting my sleep so my floor can win Healthy Lifestyles!)
  • Passing my music history test!
  • Teasing/talking with the guys at physical therapy
  • Being sore from being active
  • Going to institute and learning about the creation and God's hand in everything. It is seriously amazing
  • Planning a 50's Shindig - I love the 50's!
  • Getting calluses on my fingers from guitar
  • My institute teacher starting every class off with some type of video or song
  • Talking to my little sister on the phone
  • Having clean laundry (and doing laundry on the weekdays so all the washers are open and you can get it all done at once. Win!)
  • Seeing a video of my adorable little cousin making his scrunchie face
  • Having my Dad call me back and talk to me for a few minutes after a late night accidental butt call
  • Letters from missionaries
  • Completing a song
  • Getting a ride from a friend to physical therapy so I didn't have to walk all the way in the cold and gloom
  • Ordering an orange guitar strap
  • Watching a couple episodes of NCIS
  • Taking naps

So overall this has been a pretty good week. It was a really nice change after a super long, stressful, test-filled last week. I have had a bit more time to relax and it has been really nice. I have also been able to talk to a couple of my good friends this week that I haven't really talked to much in a while. Anyway..... I never really know what to say when I blog..... Um..... Things coming up:


-Presidents day weekend at home! Thanks to Button for offering me a ride! And I already have plans with one wonderful friend while I'm home and hopefully I make some plans to see other friends, along with seeing my boys and spending some quality time with the family.

- Valentines Day date! We are going to see "The Vow" and I am SO excited! No men will be involved in this night (who needs em' :D ). Girls night out!

- Spring Break! Hopefully the above mentioned past roommate Kristy will be joining me in my lovely home of St. George! We are planning a trip to the red rocks, the temple and some other cool places that I haven't thought up yet.

Well there's the update on life! I really should blog more but I need ideas/suggestions on what to blog about. Thoughts? I have about 100 unpublished/unfinished blogs. Hopefully I'll get better at pushing the "publish post" button.

Until next time,

Toodles!!!