Strange Reunions

Last night I was reunited with my old friends, my second family really, from the place I used to work.  In some ways it was bittersweet, because I miss them all so much and had been so saddened that this roller coaster I'm on forced us to separate.  But mostly it was sweet, and even surprisingly exhilarating.  I was out of the house, with my husband and kids, in our own car!  How is this possible, you ask?  Well there have been some major progress steps taken, I can assure you.

Let's see.  When we last left off, I had just started walking in the parallel bars.  Of course that could only satisfy me for a limited time, I mean it's such a short distance and then you have to back up and start again.  I wanted more, as I always do, so we simply had to move on.  To get out of the bars and walk with a walker.  As usual, I had mentally prepared myself to be patient, to expect great struggle and not be too hard on myself when it didn't go as well as I'd hoped.  And it was a great struggle, every step was a struggle, and yet it went better than I'd hoped, I walked a combined total of 87 feet the very first day of trying it!  Each therapy day after that I pushed to go farther.  125 feet.  140 feet.  

Then there was the invitation to this party at work.  I talked to my therapist, and we decided to try practicing car transfers, to see if I could walk away from my chair a few steps and pivot my way into the space between the car door and the car, and then sit down into the car and pull my legs in.  It went very well in therapy, we practiced it twice to make sure I was comfortable with it.  Then we approached the curb, since we were already outside.  I was at first really gun-ho to try stepping up onto the curb, but when I was actually standing in front of it, trying to balance while I lifted the walker up on the curb, realizing how hard it was going to be to push up onto a step at least four inches high, and probably closer to six, I had to admit I wasn't ready.  We would need to practice shorter steps in the therapy gym first.  So instead we went around to the ramp part and used the walker to go up the curb ramp, my first time on an uphill slope since I started walking again.  It was very difficult and I felt great to get that done, even though I hadn't been able to step onto the curb. 

From therapy I headed home to rest until party time.  I knew I'd need my strength back to do a couple more car transfers.  After hubby came home from work, we got ready to go and headed outside.  Getting into the car takes at least twenty minutes from start to finish.  I have to drive my chair up to the side of the car, use the walker to get into the doorway, and get in.  Then hubby loads all the kids in, and buckles them.  Then we back the car down the drive way because the driveway slopes down too far at the back of the car to load the wheelchair.  At the flat space in the culdesac, hubby can put the ramp down and load the wheelchair onto the trailer hitch mount on the back of the car.  Then he straps and buckles it down securely, making sure all the loose pieces like the legs and seat belts are either buckled or stowed inside the car.  Then we were finally ready to leave the house.  

I could tell people were really surprised to see me at the party.  But more than that, they were really surprised to see me looking so... normal.  I mean aside from sitting in a large power wheelchair.  I think when people hear that you have cancer, and have gone through radiation, they build up an image of you in their minds, a sad image.  I think maybe they were expecting me to look more frail, wasted even, and to have less hair and appear more...sickly.  I have lost some hair, but not that much, and I'm gaining strength all the time, not getting weaker.  So it was oddly affirming to see the happily surprised looks on people's faces, to give them that sudden hope that maybe I'm not so badly off after all.  And fun to tell them of my walking progress, to reassure them that I haven't given up on anything, I'm still pushing myself every day to get back the life I want.  

In some ways, seeing them was a sad reminder of all that I'm no longer a part of.  But mostly it was just really, really good to see them, to share those hugs and handshakes and reconnect with people I've really cared about for a lot of years.