Out of the immobilizer, able to walk (slowly) without crutches. However the knee still doesn't bend to 90 degrees, and sometimes not even to 45 degrees. It's like one of those folktales where witches turn part of someone to stone or wood.
Also yesterday my calf and foot swelled up like a pork sausage in the frying pan (though without the pleasing brown colour). Today it's better, though I had to take an NSAID which my doctor doesn't want me to do because, kidneys. But he couldn't figure out why it was happening, so I feel some justification in choosing my own treatment for it.
The hardest part is not pain (which isn't that bad) or awkwardness. It's the irrational flashes of terror that my leg will fold sideways if I put all my weight on it, as one does going up stairs etc. Even though I've been putting my weight on it up and down the front steps and just walking, and it has not folded. That vivid memory of my knee bending in the wrong direction as Mark helped me to the van after my fall, it just keeps popping up randomly. The first time I tried going upstairs to the bedroom, I had to sit down on the third step and cry for a while, because I could not find the courage to step up with one leg. Then of course I despise myself for being a coward, which doesn't get me on my feet either.
But! I have a physio referral, so I just have to find a physiotherapist reasonably close to home or to work, and see if I can get in.
On the writing front, I've been twining Storyline Two into Storyline One, and tightening Storyline One. I'm pleased to see some resonances developing between the two, though I'll try not to get too attached, because there's bound to be revision and scene-shifting to come.
A tricky aspect of this blending is that I don't have a clear-cut system for how the two intersect. It's not the good old structure where each time something odd happens in the present day, someone digs out a plot-relevant ancient document that explains it or adds on to it. It's more like the 'zipper narrative', where you have two concurrent storylines with characters who are going to come together in the last part of the book.
On the good side, I'm seeing how to fix the episodic nature of Storyline One because with Scrivener I can pull scenes and fit them in earlier, so the beginnings of a later plot thread will have already been laid in, rather than waiting for the first one to be done before being introduced.
Now I will go away and research physiotherapists.
3 comments:
You know, your terror is just your brain being brainy. What happens is this: You fall, you remember, a fold in your brain keeps that memory front and center so that you won't make the same mistake again. The more you fear, the deeper that fold becomes, and that's how phobias are born!
So you know what you have to do? You have to unfold your brain. Do that thing that scares you most. Dot it again and again. It really does unfold! Because it will go back to being a normal function you do daily, and not OHMYGODTHATTHINGTHATHAPPENEDAHHHHH!!!
Brains are funny creatures.
Everyone loves Scrivener these days! I might just have to try it sometime. But you know how I hate any sort of NEW technology.
A big part of my Scrivener-love is that it lets me do big-picture revision, by virtue of the outliner. I can move scenes around without massive c&p and the risk of losing text.
So it really depends how you work, though it's pretty customisable.
Ok...I did see all this! Whew! I thought I missed a whole bunch, but I see I just missed that earlier entry. Yay!
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