~as times goes on~

Good Sunday morning everyone out there and it's a kind of "early" one from here on the Western Slopes.  It's 5 a.m. our time and I woke up, bright and early at 4 a.m., just like I used to back home in Kansas.  So instead of tossing, turning and waking up the neighbourhood, here I am with cup of coffee in hand.  I've actually been an early riser all of my life and people have questioned me for years as to why I get up before the sun comes up each day.  You know, I'm sorry to say that I really don't even have a good answer for that one friends.  In this world there are the folks that love to sleep in and those that do not.  I guess I belong to the latter here, not the former.  When you think of it, just the simple blessing of awakening, no matter what the hour, is an important thing to remember.

I've been writing this blog, "Peggy's Bucket List Journey of 2011" since, well since 2011.  It's been an interesting thing to do and actually as I look back, it has turned into a virtual diary of my day-to-day existence in life.  Originally, I started it with the intention of doing so for only a month with its sole purpose being to chronicle my journey (now ill-fated) on the Bike Across Kansas in the summer of 2011.  But funny thing happened along the way, I didn't stop writing.  Now as I look back at the more than 500 posts that I have made since then, I'm actually very glad that I didn't.  Writing has been a fun way to help me think about things as well as a very therapeutic manner in which to cope with life sometimes and all of us have to do that every once in a while.

I remember so well the dark and dreary days that initially followed my accident back in the summer of 2011 and how depressing things were at first.  Yet, with "old lefty" in a cast for 9 months, I would sit at this very computer and "one-handed" would pound out my blog posts.  Painstaking as that turned out to be, sometimes taking more than an hour to make a simple post, it was worth it to me to be able to get my feelings out, my frustrations acknowledged to myself.  Weird thing was, whether anyone saw it or not, I didn't care.  It didn't matter.  What was important to me was that I read it and realized that everything would end up being ok.  Now looking back, I see the real value in what it provided me.  Some people get through the trials of life by pouring their "medicine" out of a bottle or pill container.  As for me, this has ended up working out a whole lot easier and a whole lot cheaper...well that is until I have to buy another computer.  :)

In just a few weeks, the second anniversary of my infamously ill-fated bicycle "issue" arrives.  As I look back on it, I cannot believe where the time has gone.  Truly, it does seem like just yesterday or at least only a month or two ago.  I wrote a lot of entries on this blog page during that 9-month recuperation period, entries that helped me to cope with the accident and the trials that would follow.  I think one of my favourite ones to reread as the time has gone on was written just after my third surgery back in December of 2011.  I decided to reprint it today if you would so care to read.  Me and "old lefty", well we get along together pretty well these days.  Its appearance might look a little on the "different" side of things but it IS still attached and for that and a whole lot of other things, I do so give thanks.  Have a great day everyone out there~I am thinking of you.

Saturday, December 17, 2011

feeling like I've been here before

I wasn't going to post anything today but you know friends this has been the roughest "third day out" that I can ever imagine.  And oh wow, dying laughing here as I look at the red squiggly mark underneath the word "third".  My trusty spell checker has shown me that I left the very important letter  'H' from third but as I stop now and correct it, well really wouldn't need to do that anyway because that's how I HAVE felt today.  


I had kind of forgotten that a person could sleep most of the day away but that's what has happened to me today.  Using what few available "sober" brain cells I've got left, being unable to count on the ones under the influence of my new "best friend" Percocet, I figure I have been awake about 3 hours since I got up this morning at 6 a.m.  That may well mean that I'm sleep-deprived to begin with OR, surprise. surprise, that my body is demanding to know "what the heck is going on Peggy?"   Either way, I know that I won't be up much longer.


As is always the case with me, when I feel frustrated and kind of low, as I do now...if I can just get my fingers on this keyboard and pound out my thoughts, one stinking key at a time, then I feel so much better.  That's the "good medicine" that I'm taking right now....can't be poured out of a pill bottle...has to be poured from the heart.  


Friends, I am making it and yes, it is most certainly a feeling of "deja vu" all over again.  Believe it or not, doing things one-handed  seems to be just a tiny bit easier this time around.  If I work at it, really concentrating, I can still tie my own shoes and make a fairly decent attempt at combing my own hair.  With my shower chair, I can give myself a bath and dress myself one-handed.  I learned last time how to squirt toothpaste onto a toothbrush with very little mess to deal with and if I should need help in washing my hair then I'm going to call my good friends and able-bodied assistants, Haddie and Ella, to come give me a hand.  So, guess that I'm not in such bad shape after all, given the real shape that I'm in.  Keeping the "focus" on getting well again is going to expedite the healing process....feeling sorry for myself, "sure as shooting", will only slow down my recovery time.  Since life is precariously short as it is, please feel free to give me the proverbial "swift kick in the seat of the pants" if you should ever notice me sitting on the "pity pot".  


One last thing, and then it is REALLY time for nap #7 today...I think I recall telling you that when I got my first tattoo on my birthday back in October, that it would be my only one.  I was wrong-it wasn't.  Two days before my surgery last week, I decided to honor the memory of the person who donated their bone to me in August.  I had just learned, the day before, that it came from a 45-year old man from Missouri who had died perhaps as early as 2009.  I still do not know his name, but how grateful I felt to even know those tiny bits of information about him.  That unknown man will forever be a part of my life from now on.  And if my getting a tattoo helps not only to honor his memory and serve as a visual reminder to me of his sacrifice but also to promote the cause of organ and tissue donations for transplant, well then that man's death will not be in vain.  It looks like this, on the inside of my right lower calf and I say God bless him for what he did for me and countless others.

Surgery date to receive his transplant, his home state of Missouri to my home state of Kansas, and one of the most meaningful Bible verses I know of now.  Tremendously and overwhelmingly blessed my dear friends.  That is how Peggy Miller feels right now.  My prayer for all of you has been and will always be the same....peace and blessings given to you all beyond measure from our dear God above.  Good night all...time for me tozzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.  :)