8:20 am: Left my apartment 20 mins behind schedule. It is so tough to get myself together with my stupid feet. Gear: Left ankle brace/tennis shoe, right foot in boot, walker.
8:35 am: Caught the train to school.
8:40 am: It started to rain while I was still on the train. Panic started to set in.
8:50 am: Arrived at school and realized that with the rain and relying on the campus shuttles that I wouldn't make my 9 am meeting with dissertation committee member #1 on time. I frantically sent an email hoping that she would understand. I needed her signature on my paperwork that was due a week ago, and I was going to miss her, since she said she was leaving her office at 9. I decided to try anyways.
8:55 am: The shuttle arrived at the stop. One person got on and the bus driver closed the door without even seeing me. I knocked on the door, she opened it, and said that the lift was broken. I was staring in the face of 4 steep stairs and not a hope to get up them. A rider lifted my walker up the stairs while I had to rely on my left foot to jump myself up the stairs one by one...
When I finally got myself on the shuttle, I sighed from the struggle, and tears started to stream down my face...MELTDOWN #1.
9:05 am: Arrived at the shuttle stop closest to where I needed to meet my professor. It was still raining. I had to crab walk down the stairs to get off the shuttle. Then, I pushed myself to cut through two building parking lots to get to the building I needed to go to.
9:10 am: My professor was still in her office! I collected the signatures I needed and picked up the rest of my paperwork from the office assistant.
9:30 am: Made it back to the shuttle stop. While I was waiting to catch it, I was trying to figure out a way to get to the building I needed to go to that doesn't have a stop anywhere near it. After making that same trek on Friday, I knew that I would be paying for it for days if I did it on my own. I called the campus parking and transportation department. They said they don't provide any services to help disabled people get around campus where the shuttles don't run. Tears started to fall. I was so frustrated. The next call I made was to the office of disability services. She said that they expect disabled people to have their own wheelchair or motorized devices and they don't provide any transportation assistance...MELTDOWN #2. I am disabled enough to need assistance beyond my assistive devices to get long distances, but I am not disabled enough to have an electronic scooter or actually be proficient at using a wheelchair. Besides, I wouldn't be able to get on a shuttle with STAIRS with either of those!
9:50 am: Got off the shuttle at the stop closest to where I needed to go. I told my other committee member that I needed to meet with that I would meet him around 10 am. I had 10 mins to get a quarter mile. I had to take it one sidewalk square at a time to make progress. I literally had to give myself a pep talk every 10 seconds.
10:05 am: Arrived at committee member #2's building. I stopped at the bathroom before going to his office. I looked at myself and I looked absolutely exhausted and like I had been thrown away. I splashed some water on my face, straightened my clothes, and sprayed myself with body splash. I gave myself a pep talk and walked to his office.
10:10-10:50 am: Listened to committee member #2 pick at the "threads" of my dissertation. The whole time I had to smile, keep a positive attitude, and promise him that I would address his concerns before my defense. At the end of the meeting I collected his signatures on the forms that I needed.
10:50 am- 11:15 am: Trek to my department's main building to our lab to meet committee member #3. This is probably the longest segment I have gone on the walker yet. I was supposed to meet with her at 11:00, but I couldn't get there any faster without the help of shuttles. By the time I arrived, I was dripping in sweat, even more exhausted than I was at stop #2.
11:15 am- 1:05 pm: Listened to committee member #3 put my dissertation in a blender and select the highest speed. By the end of the meeting, it was beyond recognition. There were more marks on the paper than text. I smiled right through the whole thing while inside I felt like my guts were being ripped out. The hardest thing for me to hear was how my dissertation proposal was so good, that it had flawless writing, that it was so focused, that I have such a high GRE score, that I was the one that landed a prestigious outside fellowship...and this is what you turned in??? Guess what...the girl that wrote that proposal and the girl that collected all those pre-grad school accolades is not this girl. NEWS FLASH. When I landed that killer GRE score and doctoral fellowship, I didn't have a care in the world. I focused solely on enjoying my senior year and setting up my future. When I wrote the proposal, that was a year ago. I was in a boot with my initial running injury but had no idea the next year of my life would include two ankle reconstructions...MELTDOWN #3. Why did she have to compare my current self to my former self? If that wasn't enough, then she had to bring up my feet and ask me why I had to get the second surgery. She said, "You know, it was really bad timing." In my head: DO YOU HONESTLY THINK THAT I PLANNED ANY OF THIS?!?!?! I had two choices, (1) go forward with my life not being able to walk without pain and having difficulty with activities of daily living as a 25 year old, or (2) get another surgery and hope that my future situation will be better than the present one. And really, all of this drama with my dissertation is because I have been caught between all of my committee members not agreeing on what they want from me. I am 6 days away from my defense, and now they want to stir up all of these "concerns" over my manuscript?!?!?!?! At least she signed the approval form to officially schedule my defense.
1:30-2:00 pm: Ran into another doctoral student that I haven't seen all summer. It was nice to catch up, but hard to suck up all the emotions that I had already been through today to focus on our conversation.
2:00-2:30 pm: Printed and signed my lease for my new apartment. Our lab secretary is a notary, so she notarized it for me. I scanned it in and emailed it to my new landlord. The last thing I have to do is go into their online system and pay my deposit.
2:30 pm: Got told that my advisor won't be coming in to sign the form that I needed to turn in today! I had spent the whole day collecting signatures from my other three committee members, and now he won't be in to sign it????? Seriously???? I called the office secretary that I needed to turn it in to, and luckily since he already sent a copy of the form with just his signature on it earlier in the week, she would accept the form I had with three signatures and attach it to that one. Crisis averted.
3:00 pm: Started making the trek to the other side of campus via the shuttle system to turn my form in. I realized that I hadn't eaten anything all day, not since I ate breakfast around 8:30 am. This morning, I packed a PB & J, just in case I found myself in this situation. I was so hungry at that point that the sandwich literally disappeared in my mouth.
3:20 pm: Arrived at my shuttle stop for the same building that I started out in today. I had to again trek through two parking lots to get to the building I needed. I turned in all of my paperwork to the office worker, and she said that I am all set for my defense and that my doctoral program of study is all in order, except for one small thing that I can fix by filling out a form. I think this was just about the only good news I got today. Graduation still on track.
3:30 pm: I had to get back to the shuttle stop and catch it to the stop closest to my PT clinic, which is conveniently located right across the street from my school. Of course it was the shuttle with the stairs again. This time there weren't any friendly riders to help me. The driver had to begrudgingly get out and help me. Like that wasn't humiliating. I hate feeling like I am a nuisance. I just can't help that I am disabled right now and I need assistance.
3:50 pm: Arrived at the shuttle stop across the street from my PT clinic. I had to cross a 6 lane highway and had just under 30 seconds to make it safely across in the crosswalk time. I pushed my walker with my right knee on it as fast as I could and I made it with 5 seconds to spare.
3:57 pm: I ran into a woman with a boot in a wheelchair and her husband holding her walker coming out of the PT clinic. They had tons of questions for me and we swapped surgery stories and compared X-ray pictures. That was the second ray of sunshine to come into my day.
4:00 pm: I arrived to the PT clinic 30 mins before my appointment so that I could fill out some paperwork. I was anxious, scared, and excited all mixed into one to be walking into the PT clinic again. With the tough day I have had, it was just one more reminder that I am disabled and that I need professional help to get me back to normal activities of daily living. On the other hand, it was another new beginning for me. Once I started PT last time, my recovery sped up exponentially. It will be no different this time, as long as I commit to it and do the work. PT is useless if you don't do the exercises they tell you to do at home. Consistency is the key.
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4:30 pm: PT SESSION #1
It was really nice seeing my therapist again. I am working with the same one as last time, well only for the next 3 weeks, until I move. I am really trying to ignore how I feel about not being able to finish my full recovery with him. In a few weeks, I will be with some new foreign therapist in my new city. I will have to exhaustively fill this person in on the last 7 months of surgeries and their recoveries, and of course take them all the way back to my original injury over a year ago for the person to understand my history. Can you tell I am not looking forward to that? This person is going to be like a head coach that inherits another person's team and wins a national championship with them in their first year. They are going to get to see me FINALLY get back to walking normally with both feet, get to do high impact activities...and eventually, get back to running. So not fair, considering all the work my therapist has put in on my recovery. And you know what, it won't mean nearly as much to them because they won't fully understand everything that I have been through. It also won't be fair for the new therapist, because the whole time, I will be like the annoying kid in the classroom that says, "My old teacher used to do this...and say that..." In my head I will always be comparing this new therapist to my current one. Good luck new therapist...this is your warning!
Back to my session today. My therapist and I have been on such a long journey together and the next chapter began today. We first had to do the evaluation. He started by asking me about the history of this injury and wrote down the surgery procedures. Then, I took off all my feet contraptions and socks so that he could get some measurements. He was measuring for swelling and ROM between my left and right foot. All in all, my right foot wasn't too bad and ahead of schedule than my left was when I started PT at week 7...and this is only week 5! After the eval, he stretched my foot and we did a few exercises. I had to move my foot up and down trying to max out my range of motion in those directions. Then I had to move my foot slowly in circles clockwise and counterclockwise, alternating sets of 10 in each direction. After that, my old friend...a yellow thera band returned to my life. I had to do some plantar flexion reps with the band. Those are the only exercises I can remember doing. Then it was GameReady time. I wondered how my foot would take to ice with compression, but it was just fine.
Just like my first PT session last time, it was really uncomfortable. My right foot has been fairly untouched for the last 5 weeks and my therapist was all over it. With every transition, pain comes back into play. The next session should be better because it is in the morning and I won't have been at school all day. My feet were already irritated before PT, which made it hard to tolerate more irritation.
My therapist gave me some home exercises that I am supposed to do at least twice a day. I will do them, because I have 2.5 weeks to get back to some semblance of walking and being able to drive before I move.
5:45 pm: Caught the train back home.
6:15 pm: Home sweet home. Shower. Eat. Ice. Elevate.
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Reflection
I am continuing to realize that I am getting some of my old resiliency back. I used to be able to take struggle and defeat and brush it off without it affecting me too much. Today, I had THREE meltdowns, yet I kept moving forward with everything that I needed to do. Tomorrow, I will keep making corrections to my dissertation and continue preparing for my defense. No use in taking my committee's comments personal, I just need to make the corrections they want and get on out of here!
That was certainly a packed up day, isn’t it? And it’s amazing that you had three meltdowns but still carry on with your task. You really know how to write a phd dissertation and do what must to finally filed it for a defense. Anyway, I do hope everything would be fine for you!
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