Category: health

Surgeries, Knee-Scooters, and a Case of the Flu

EricaLeave a comment

*This is one of those posts where I started writing it a few weeks ago, and I finished it today… sorry in advance for the possibly confusing timeline*

As I write this, my son is playing in his room right now, having no-so-quiet “quiet time.” He’s having a tea party with his stuffed animals, pretending to be their mother – I don’t want to forget these sweet times and memories.

It’s a Sunday afternoon, it’s been an interesting weekend that started out with my husband getting sick and potentially having the flu – so, most of our weekend has involved just staying at home.

At the initial time of writing this, I was almost 3 weeks post-surgery – I had surgery on my foot to reconstruct my fallen arch – it included 4 incisions (3 on my foot, one on my calf) and 2 bone grafts. I am not allowed to put weight on my foot for about 5-6 weeks after surgery, so needless to say it’s been a bit harder for me to do my typical activities.

Yesterday when my husband told me he was sick – initially my stomach dropped. He has been my rock while I’ve been recovering from surgery – he’s taken our son to and from daycare every day, he’s dropped me off at work (my first week back was last week), he’s done all the driving/errands… I quickly recovered from the shock and told myself that my time of rest and recovery was over – it really was a noticeable shift in my mind. I had been comparing my husband to my knight in shining armor the last few weeks, and now I was picking up my sword and shield, donning my own armor, for my family that needed me.

I had never actually gotten in and out of our car by myself yet post-surgery. My knee scooter presents a challenge, in that it’s hard for me to get it in and out of the car without help (especially when I can’t use one of my legs!) But, in the current desperate times, I decided it was time to figure it out. I did a test run – if I balanced my bad leg on the driver’s seat with the side door open, I could fold up my scooter and get it in the car without falling over. Success! I’ll admit, I was pretty proud of myself for my abilities and my level of self-sufficiency.

One of the many humbling lessons I’m learning from having surgery, is that just because you can do something by yourself, doesn’t mean you should, or that you can’t ask for help.

So, I did what any person (well, any over-achieving person struggling with pride) would do: I asked for help by not asking for help. I sent a message to a group of people from church and asked for prayers. I’m not implying that prayers were not appreciated or helpful – but secretly, what I really hoped was that someone would read between the lines of my request and say, “what can I do for you?”

And because I have some lovely and caring (and insightful) people in my life, that’s exactly what happened. And even then, it was still hard to voice what I needed. There’s vulnerability in asking – there’s a chance people will say no, and that it will hurt. Do people really want to spend their time and energy helping me? Am I worth it?

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Dear Facebook: there’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you…

EricaLeave a comment

I’ve had in mind to do this for a while, but I kept putting it off. Recently, however, the little Jiminy Cricket I have inside has been working harder and harder to get my attention about this (that’s my conscience for you non-Pinnochio fans out there). So here it is, my break-up letter to Facebook:
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Dear Facebook,

You’ve been a good friend all this time (it’s hard to believe it’s been 14 years!) When we first met, I didn’t really like you – you seemed a bit too trendy for me – but I caved and quickly found out just how easy it would be for me to like you a whole lot. You were very charming! I was at the perfect stage in my life, being a freshman in college, for you to be totally appealing.

It was fun to watch my friend count increase, to share my pictures with the world, and to be able to look at pictures of other people without them knowing it (though I mostly only did that with one person, and he is now my husband!)
[Yes that’s right kids, Facebook stalking sometimes does work!]

Maybe it was the shiny newness of social media, or the fact that I was so young, but I remember you (Facebook) being a place just to have fun. It was fun to reconnect with old friends, fun to share silly pictures of dogs or cats – and remember poking?!

But Facebook, to be honest, you haven’t been that much fun lately. Recently after spending time together, I don’t come away with many fun or happy feelings. In fact, I usually feel angry or sad, or perhaps even jealous sometimes. It doesn’t make sense to point fingers or assign blame – I think both of us have changed over the years. I’m just not sure we’re compatible anymore.

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My Unoriginal New Year’s Resolutions

Erica2 Comments

I love making New Year’s resolutions – I love goal setting and list-making in general. I love that feeling of a fresh start and the potential for the year to be anything you want it to be. 

Some people pick a word for the year – and I’ve never really been able to do that before, nothing ever felt right to me. But this year, the word that keeps coming to my mind is “thrive.” I’m really optimistic about 2020 – I think big things are going to happen for me. I have no proof of this, just a feeling.  

My year is starting off with a bang – three weekends in a row I will be out of town, which is almost unheard of for me. I turn 33 in two weeks, and I’m heading to Dallas to celebrate by getting my first tattoo (I’m super stoked for this by the way!) The following weekend, I’ll be heading to Orlando, Florida to celebrate my mom’s 60th birthday in DisneyWorld. Then the next weekend Dean and I will be going to a My Hero Academia convention (back in Dallas). Two days later I will be having surgery on my foot, and then I’ll start the long recovery process…

So, why have I said that my resolutions are unoriginal for this year? Well, thriving for me looks like doing the things I want to do for my health, but have struggled to do for the past few months/years:

  • Exercising consistently
  • Eating better/cooking at home more
  • Praying/meditating daily

These goals are things I always take for granted that I will do every day, but I found it to be a real struggle to achieve these while I was in grad school. They’re your basic “good habits” that we all know we should be doing, but somehow find ourselves not doing them. Now that grad school is done, I feel like I’ve got more breathing room. I mostly just want to get back on track with being healthy physically, mentally, and spiritually. So yes, they are totally cliché and unoriginal, but those are my resolutions for 2020, summed up in a word: Thrive.  

Another part of thriving for me is just feeling good being me in the places where I am. I feel like I got to a point last year where I just felt tired of feeling bad – of feeling insecure and anxious all the time. Is that something you can just decide to not feel anymore? I’m going to pretend like it is and see how it works out for me… I’m tired of feeling imposter syndrome at my job – I’m tired of feeling ugly in pictures – I’m tired of worrying about being made fun of for the music or t.v. shows I like – I’m tired of pressuring myself to be a “better” mom – I’m tired of caring that not enough people “liked” my photos or read my blog – I’m tired of just barely surviving and making it to the end of each day – I just want to be me and feel good about it, to be good enough and not perfect. 

Perhaps my unoriginal resolutions have a bit more nuance than they initially do at first glance – but I’ll admit they are still pretty run-of-the-mill. However, I am pretty excited about my unoriginal resolutions and what they will mean for me in the upcoming year. Whether you’re the type of person who makes resolutions or not, whether your goals for 2020 are exciting, boring, or average, I hope this year brings you one step closer to thriving. 

Thanks for reading!