Remarkable

When I did things like climb to the top of a mountain 4 months into recovery, get back on my bicycle at 10 months, or get full range of motion back in my arm, people told me what I had done was "remarkable". I politely thanked them, but never felt that way myself. I thought about it a lot. Then, I started talking to other people who had done things that I considered "remarkable" in their recovery or in dealing with what life throws at us. None of them regarded what they did as "remarkable". One cancer survivor said, "What was I supposed to do, lay down and die?" I found this interesting and thought about it more. Maybe the fact that no one who does "remarkable" things considers them to be "remarkable" is the key to being able to do them. Maybe it all comes back to attitude, yet again.

It had to happen sooner or later

I made it 2 years and 3 days without falling. Thursday, April 8th, I fell in my garden. I'm not sure what happened, or I might have prevented it. We're laying out the garden, so it is a minefield of string and stakes. Luckily, I didn't fall on the stakes that are marking the beds we are putting it. But, I did fall on my left elbow which poked into my ribs pretty good. I broke 3 ribs once, so I know that they are not broken, but anyone who has injured their ribs will tell you it's no fun at all. You ribs are connected to everything you do, including rolling over in bed while you sleep, or try to.

With all the 1000s of times I lost my balance and recovered and thought I might fall going up and down steps, climbing on ladders, and so on, it surprised me to just take a regular fall. At first I thought I was relieved that it had finally happened, but then I realized I had to think about not falling for the rest of my life, oh well.

If you have not had a stroke, you probably don't realize what it is like to live with one. I'm explaining this, not complaining. Since my stroke 2 years ago, I've had 6 or 7 moments where I forgot for a few seconds that I had a stroke. I have to think about every step, every curb, holding things, my balance. etc. In the beginning I described it as walking around with a cement bag on your shoulders, ever-present and adding o the difficulty of all tasks. Well, life has gotten easier, the cement bag may be gone sometimes, but the stroke is still ever-present. When I think about it, or it bothers me, or I can't do something as easily as I could before, I simply remember I am alive. That seems to be enough.

My second anniversary

My second anniversary was Sunday, April 4th, 2010. Anniversaries are a funny thing and you must be careful in how you look at them. At first, you think about them in terms of how your life changed. You tend to remember what you used to have and be able to do, not what you DO have and CAN do. Some people say anniversaries are hard. I was around some of that thinking early on, and guess what, they were hard. By the time I got to a year, I had changed how I looked at things and I refused to be influenced by anyone else's thinking. So, I decided that on April 4, 2009 that I would CELEBRATE my first anniversary. I thought about what I loved to do the most in this world and decided that was to be out taking pictures on a beautiful day finding the beauty in the worlda nd trying to capture it. So, I went to a couple of conservation properties to take pictures for the Land Trust for the Little Tennessee calendar that I do. That day I took one of my favorite pictures of 2009, Redbuds and Scooters. It's this month's (April 2010) shot in the calendar. It was a glorious spring day and I reveled in being alive and able to appreciate it.


Redbuds and Scooters (click for a larger view)


While I was there, I took a pictures of the lambs. They are so cute, who could resist? (click for a larger view)

This year, when I thought about how to celebrate my second anniversary, I thought about gardening and photography, so I decided I would do both. We are turning our back yard into organic vegetable beds, so I worked to finish the last 5 of 12 beds we are making this year. The other 7 have already been planted.