Day 33 - Happiness is a Self-Propelled Wheelchair

I'm afraid John Lennon and Paul McCartney got it a little bit wrong - happiness is not a warm gun, it is in fact a self-propelled wheelchair!

After two miserable days of intense boredom and feeling rubbish I begged my sister to take me out today. There's a garden centre about 10 minutes drive away from us which has a nice cafe to get lunch and a good play area for my nephew - it also has wheelchairs and motorised scooters that you can borrow so the perfect place for taking out little old disabled me!

When we arrived my sister went off to get the wheelchair and came back with a self-propelled on so I could push myself round. This was AMAZING! Sounds so arbitrary but it made such a difference to be able to move around at a decent pace and look at what I wanted, not to be at the mercy of anyone else. It was really easy to get the hang of too in terms of steering. I now wish I'd rented one of these early on as it would have given me a few more options for getting out of the house. This lifted my spirits immensely so I'm hoping we'll go back soon so I can have another opportunity. I also let my nephew sit on my lap for a while (he's only three so still small enough) and he loved it. I also loved using my arms to get around, there were a couple of uphill ramps which actually got my heart rate up - it was great!!

Check out my wheels! 

I found the below picture online a few days ago which I thought summed up the recovery process so well. I am definitely one who expected to just have a few tricky days of pain, followed by five weeks or so of glorious sitting around doing whatever I want, watching lots of TV etc. This couldn't have been further from my expectation - so many ups and downs! Today I'm feeling more up which is good but the picture is definitely a good representation:

My toes are still getting more flexible. I'm slightly concerned I'm being a little too rough with the joints, but the surgeon did say to cause pain and so here's hoping his word works and that I'm not damaging myself by flexing them too much - I definitely don't want to end up with stiff toes however!!

Tomorrow is the one week countdown to my appointment with the consultant. Keeping everything crossed that those x-rays will be ok, I am holding out every hope that it will be the day I am finally allowed to walk with shoes and everything!!!