Further foot info, especially for Linda B. but also for anyone else who might be interested.

I fixed my blog colours so that links will show up in green now. There are a few links on the last post to explain some of the medical-ese, but visual aids can be fun too!

Basically, the triple fusion I talked about would salvage my left foot. The doctor would go in and place screws and plates in the three major joints. Sounds drastic, and it is, but I had one done 10 years ago on the right side and its holding up great.

Why does my foot need to be salvaged? Well, the CP has twisted the bones and muscles in my foot (and elsewhere) all out of shape, so my foot, in repose, looks a little something like this :)

It looks painful, and it kind of is, especially when walking and especially since the break

In other, foot related news,

I realised I didn't update anyone on the specialist visit I alluded to in this post.

Thank all things holy, I saw someone competent. I had a triple ankle fusion on the right foot, not the one I broke, back in early 2000. I was on the cusp between the recommended procedures, one for adults and one for children, so my pedes surgeon asked an adult surgeon to assist him. That surgeon, lets call him Dr. Rock, happened to be the one I saw in February.

He came in and said, "Your name looks familiar." I told him he had done my first fusion and he grinned, asking if I wanted a matching set. I told him I wasn't completely closed to the idea, but that no one seemed to be able to make up their mind whether or not I had broken the left foot, and although I could walk, it was extremely painful.

He furrowed his brow and got Lady to take off my shoe and sock. Looking only, he said. "What do you think happened to your foot?"

"Avulsion fracture." I said readily, having done some research since the brush off in December.

"So it hurts here?" He asked, putting out one finger and finding the *exact* place where pain was at its worst.

"Exactly!" I said, relieved.

"Let me look at your X-rays," he said. "Avulsion fractures are common in CP."

(Keeping in mind that the X-rays he's referring to are the same ones everyone else has been looking at)

He came back in shaking his head in disbelief. "Yes," he said. "That's broken. It's on the side, so having it out of cast hasn't been detrimental to its healing... just painful for you. I'm so sorry."

I assured him that I didn't blame *him*, not in the least. We discussed casting it again, but decided against it for now. We will be looking to do a fusion in late May, early June so that I can heal properly and this won't happen again.

Frick, frick , frick... Breathing in and out, because it seems to be the only thing I can do right, lately.

So okay. Big brain dump in the post the other day, and I really, really bigtime appreciate all the loves. But right now I'm kinda mad and need a safe place to jump up and down (figuratively, I mean, having never actually jumped up and down in my 24 years on the planet.)

I work with a fantastic, yet underfunded, organization. I do presentations for them. I occasionally get a stipend for doing said presentations. It's brilliant.

A week or so ago I went to meet with a second organization about doing a presentation tacked on to, or perhaps in to, their Paralympic events. So I was given two evening slots, told that they'd do some of the promotion for me, and that I was to do some on my own.

Now, I *did* do some on my own, but I've also had the world coming down about my freaking ears. So I thought "Okay, I'll just go with organization #2s kids, it'll be grand, and get my foot in the door with them."

Not *once* did someone from Org. 2. check in with me to see how things were going or to tell me that registration for my first talk (tonight) was going *infintessimally* slow. (I don't even know if that's spelled right, but it looks...kind of right.

As they were handling, on their end, registration for this event, I feel that someone could have at least dropped me an e-mail, though I admit that I could have done the same.

Just now, I called to be all responsible and get a headcount.

I've got 1 person. 1. Maybe.

I acknowledge that I didn't have a whole lot of success in promoting this, but I also got no help or contact. And Org 2 was the one I was hoping to work for full time in the very near future!

There's got to be a break in these clouds somewhere. There's just got to be....

I'm having a hard time being nice to myself right now

Long talk with my (favourite) professor yesterday, and we decided that a "strategic withdrawl" from this semester, and from academia in general, is a good thing right now. I just can't do it. I'm smart (I swear) but my brain is covered in some kind of clingfilm. I just... I can't absorb academics right now.

I bombed at Public Speaking class- and that's, essentially, what I *do* for a living, and what I *want* to do for a living, so there went *that* class before I turned myself altogether, and then this month-long stint of hiding in the house, hiding from everything, and I just can't come back from that right now- I could promise to, but I wouldn't be able to follow through.

So now I'm sitting back and looking at my options- I've applied for some jobs, I'm using my networks. I might even be able to work in disability advocacy, which is where my heart is right now. I won't lose the apartment, that's secure, and I just... I need some time to find myself. I haven't told my Mom, or anyone, yet really, except Lady.

That's so hard. I wish I could explain to you how smart I used to be. When I was little, school was a *breeze*- I was literally smarter, by 4 or 5 grade levels than everyone else . Whatever was going on at home, abuse, the fighting, the locked doors and the days when Mom would come in and take me in her arms, holding me tighter than I needed to hold her, ever, and tell me that *everyone* was having a day off from school today and we'd curl up in the big bed because my bio dad had hurt her worse that day than she could hide with make up and a smile. All of that didn't matter- once I was in my desk, I was in *the zone* and I was top of the class, every year, for 13 years.

First two years of university were easy too, but I was *so* young. I was 18 years old with no real idea of who I was in the world, or what I wanted to be.

And now, now I'm just going through the motions and the anxiety is crushing and those last 10 courses seem like a long, tortuous road that I'm never going to find the end of, and right now I just can't.

But everyone else expects me to be *so* smart.

And it's just not enough anymore.

Snazzy things

March is still tough, but I think it's tough on everyone!

Thanks to the incomparable Lady for my very girlie blog makeover- I *love* pink!

Mackers has his own album on Facebook now so I'm hoping the link works here!

March is kicking my butt

But it's only so long, right?