#SOL17

When you release your expectations, you are free to enjoy things for what they are instead of what you think they should be. ~Mandy Hale

I have been using the walker for just about two weeks now, and will be using it until at least March 17th. I have learned a lot about myself over these last couple of weeks.

Having to use this walker makes everything more of a challenge. I try my best to think ahead and know what I want and what I need to get before I go into another room. I have learned that before now I must have gone up and down my hallway from my bedroom to the bathroom at least ten times a morning. Now I try to make that trip just twice – once to get into the shower and once to hang up my robe, brush my teeth, and spray my hair.

Having to use the walker makes simple tasks like bringing the mail in from outside or retrieving the newspaper much more difficult. Getting breakfast, making lunch, packing up my school bag all take so much more time.

I have learned that even though I often put off doing household chores, now that I can’t do some of them I am frustrated. Who would have thought that I would miss dusting or vacuuming?

It has only been five weeks since I first felt the pain of my pelvic fracture. From everything I have read it takes at least six weeks to three months to heal from this type of fracture, but waiting is so difficult. I have learned that I am impatient, and I think that I should be feeling better than I am feeling. Instead of taking one day at a time, I am fretting about whether or not I will be able to be pain free by March 17th. If I’m not I will have to stay on the walker.

This experience is opening my eyes to the difficulty that people with disabilities face each and every day. While this is definitely hard for me, and I have the right to any feelings that I am having right now, I can at least see a light at the end of the tunnel unlike those who have no chance of leaving their walkers behind.

I do my best to be upbeat when colleagues inquire about how it is going, but I need to be upbeat with myself. This challenge is slowing me down, making me stop doing some things, and I need to learn how to embrace the moment and let go of what I can’t control. I need to stop expecting and just experience.