Learning To Walk Again... I Believe I've Waited Long Enough. Where Do I Begin?

It's been exactly 5 months since my surgery and I am finally starting to feel like a functional member of society.  I still have quite a bit of healing to do before I'm back to the way I used to be, but my life is exponentially better than it was just a few short months ago.

I was non-weight bearing for 3 months, after which I started going to physical therapy 3 times a week.  It is time consuming, painful, and frustrating most of the time, but it is making a world of difference.  To be able to watch my progress is an amazing thing.  To see the amount of weight I can lift with my leg increase every week and actually see the muscles slowly forming again is very motivational.  I don't have all of my mobility back in my ankle and it may never get back to the way it was before the break, but it's getting there.  I haven't started running yet, but I am walking on my own (no boot, crutches, or cane) with almost no limping.  I still have pain, but it's tolerable most of the time.  I love the physical therapist office I go to.  The people working their and even the patients are very friendly and encouraging of everyone else.

Swimming in the ocean with my family in St. Thomas

Since I last wrote, I finished up Fall quarter at school.  I somehow managed to get A's in my classes, although I'm somewhat convinced my professors just felt bad for me.  I flew to Florida right after my last final to meet my family to go on a cruise to St. Maarten, St. Thomas, and Nassau, Bahamas.  It was a wonderful trip.  It was frustrating at times, because I was still on crutches, but overall it was relaxing and really great to spend time with my family.  I tried not to let the crutches get in the way of having a fun.  We swam in the ocean, ate so much delicious food, and saw some fantastic shows (Blue Man Group, Cirque du Soleil, Legends in Concert).

After the cruise, I flew back to New York to spend 3 weeks with my parents on Long Island for the holidays.  I haven't spent that much time at home since the summer after my freshman year of college.  I am usually anxious to get back to school after about a week at home, but I had so much fun this break, I was actually sad when I had to leave.  I spent a lot of time with my family and caught up with a lot of old friends from high school.  I went into New York City several times, which is surprising considering how difficult it was on crutches.  Laura, Nevin, and Pat (friends from RIT) came to visit for New Year's Eve.  That was a blast.  I was so unbelievably happy to be able to spend so much time with Alex, Amanda, Emily and Lauren (friends from Long Island).  I miss them all so much when I'm not with them, but I'm glad we are able to keep in touch when apart and reconnect so easily when we're together.
I came back to Riverside the second week of January and started classes and research.  I also started walking on my own.  Classes are difficult, but I like them.  I am starting to get my motivation back to do school work (although I am currently procrastinating doing work by writing this blog entry).  The professor whose lab I was supposed to work in the second half of last quarter was kind enough to postpone the rotation until after break, so I could actually do wet lab work instead of the computer work I was confined to during my first rotation.  Lab work is time consuming and somewhat tiring, but it's what I love about science.  I wouldn't have applied to grad school if I didn't like it.  It's definitely been good to get my feet in the lab and my hands on some experiments.  I just finished a lab rotation working on a project that looks at expression levels of different genes in Arabidopsis plants that have been infected with bacteria.  It's very cool work.  Next week I will start a new rotation in a lab that looks at plant interactions with insects.  I'm not sure how I feel about working with insects, but it should still be interesting.  I'll let you know how that goes.

Me and my lovely derby wife <3

I've still been very involved with the roller derby team.  I go to their events and try to get to practice to watch scrimmage nights.  I just love the whole team so much.  We went to a Girl Scout event, where they were teaching the little girls how to hit and block.  It was so cute!  There were definitely some future derby girls in the making.  I tried not to let any of the parents know that that's how I hurt myself.  I also now have a derby wife.  She is amazing.  She offered to drive me to my first doctor appointment without ever even meeting me and it was as if we were destined to be friends!  I love her to pieces.  I am both excited and terrified to get back on skates.  I can't wait until I am healed enough to, but I am also pretty sure I am going to have a panic attack when I finally do.  I am just going to make sure I don't put on skates until I (and my doctors) am absolutely certain I am ready, and when I do, I will take it extremely slowly to build up my strength and endurance.  I can not go through this again.

Trombones!  After our concert

In other news, I have joined some new groups on campus that have been keeping me sane outside of school work.  About a month ago, I joined all the bands on campus.  That's the concert band, the jazz band, and the pep band.  I love and missed playing my trombone so much!  The concert and jazz band performed a concert 2 weeks after I joined the bands and I'd say I did very well for only being at 4 rehearsals before it.  The pep band plays at the men's and women's basketball games and even though my school's teams are terrible, it's always fun to play in the band and heckle the opposing team.  The pep band is a lot smaller than the massive RIT band I got used to playing with, but I still love it.  The band is mostly made up of undergrads, but I feel almost like I belong more with them than I do the other grad students in my program.  I certainly have been spending more time with them.  We played at 4 basketball games this past week.  Also, through someone I met in the jazz band, I learned about Hillel on campus.  I am going to try to go to more of their events.  Today, I went to see an Israeli film playing at the Riverside Jewish Film Festival.  It was a great experience.

UCR Highlander Pep Band

It's been a really tough recovery and I know I still have a long road ahead of me, but I'm glad I can start enjoying my life in California.  I can't thank everyone in my life enough who has helped me get through this difficult time.  Hopefully, I will have more enjoyable experiences to write about in the near future.  Keep on truckin'.