Reflecting on 2014, Part 3

My birthday present was the confirmation that yes, my ACL was torn, along with needing some of my meniscus trimmed.  I drove to Lincoln, to Lincoln Orthopedic Center to see Dr. Lawson.  He's a pretty goofy guy, but a good doctor, and honest.  While I was in Lincoln, I also got myself some crutches.  I'd been borrowing some, and they were about 3-4 inches too short and very old.  I still could not really walk, so crutches were a necessity.  I also made a stop at a home improvement store to get a chair for the shower.  Not being able to stand for showering wasn't fun at all.

The main thing I needed to do was keep my knee elevated, iced, and wrapped.  I couldn't work on my house, or walk, or stand on both legs, so I watched a LOT of TV (mainly the combine and NFL draft prep type videos via the NFL Network and YouTube), and played lots of a game that I'd purchased, DayZ.  It's a zombie apocalypse survival game, which means it's 'survival' and player vs player.  I play it, mainly, for the PVP.  If I want to learn or practice survival skills, I'll do that in real life.  With my house, that's sort of what it's become!  I joined a group, the "Reddit Rescue Force", 'RRF' for short.  Doing this, you run around helping people who have gotten hurt.  I had a local plumbing company do some work, though, to help me get my washer hooked up.  They did a great job, and I learned another valuable lesson: Get a quote first, every single time.

So, back to life.  Usually we have a supervisor review our time sheets to be a check for errors, and keep you from putting too much time down.  Because of when I'd torn my ACL, I only had a few hours on that pay period on my check prior to being off shift.  They didn't update anything (and I didn't check), so I got a paycheck in April for less than 30 hours over the previous two weeks.  I had to call my mortgage company and get my payment moved back to the end of the month because 30 hours minus taxes, retirement, and healthcare wasn't even close to covering my house payment, much less the mortgage in addition my utilities and other expenses.  Luckily, it's not like I'd spent much the previous two weeks, and I could cover my utilities, and gas to doctor appointments, but that was definitely an unneeded stress.

I wanted to return to work on crutches prior to surgery, in a light duty capacity, and was denied.  I knew I'd be cutting it close to running out of all my paid time off (vacation/sick leave), but once you ask and are denied, there's not much else that can be done.  So, I kept waiting, and resting, and gaming.  I should have done more reading, looking back.

By the time I had surgery on April 17th, I could nearly walk without pain, even though I wasn't supposed to be putting any weight on it.  I wasn't awake for the surgery, but from what I'm told it went well.  I don't mean to brag, but I'm a very good patient when I'm knocked out.  Afterward, I woke up in short stints about three times in the recovery room, but fell right back asleep.  Thanks to the wonders of modern medicine, ACL reconstruction surgery is out-patient and I was able to go home that night, as soon as I ate my mandatory 'meal'.  I had my brace, a cool-pack with a detachable large thermos to circulate the water, the On-Q medicine drip IV, and my crutches.  That On-Q was AMAZING, I barely felt anything those first days, unless I turned the line down too much.

That very next Monday, (the 4th day after surgery) I was already in physical therapy!  They unwrapped my knee for the first time since surgery and we worked on simple things like stretching and bending the knee.  Obviously, my knee was pretty stiff, and getting it to bend even 30 degrees felt like quite a strain.  I needed to get it limber fairly soon, I was supposed to be in a wedding that weekend.  Thankfully, the bride would allow me to wear shorts instead of trying to figure out how to get dress pants over my brace and cool pack.  That cool pack was my main source of pain relief at that point; I could tell when it was warming up because my knee would begin the dull ache of inflamed tendons, and ligaments.

The day before the wedding,  I met the guys at the airport where we picked up the best man, and headed up to Coleridge, Nebraska, for the rehearsal dinner and bachelor party.  The rehearsal went well, from what I could tell, apart my my slightly slow gait.  The choice for the bachelor party was bar hopping back towards Norfolk with the groom and best man wearing squirrel suits.  Only in part due to my limited mobility, I cut myself off early and got to drive the car back to Norfolk. Somewhere in the hoopla one of my crutches got bent, but I don't remember when. The wedding went great the next day, and the reception afterwards was a blast.  They had a picture booth and tons of props, so we got some good pictures from that.  Needless to say, I didn't dance, unless you consider making ice runs 'boogying'.

That next week would be my last week off from work before going back on light duty, so I tried to enjoy it.  Other than physical therapy at the hospital, I didn't have anything scheduled for that week, and I didn't try to change that.  My body was probably healthy enough to do light duty activities, but I had been told that I couldn't go back until the first full week of May, so there was nothing I could do.  As it turned out with my paid time off, I had to take 20 hours of 'PTO' unpaid.  In addition to losing an OT spot, and getting a super short check a few weeks prior, finances were tight. 

That was one of the tougher areas of 2014 was dealing with lost income.  Another valuable lesson that I had known, but hadn't taken the time to put in action was to save money, and save it intentionally.  Before I purchased the house, I'd had a few thousand dollars saved up, but after I'd bought the house, and seen how much work I'd need to do to it, I emptied my savings working on the house, and hadn't bothered even attempting to refill it.  I'd spent just about every penny I could trying to get tools or work on parts for the house.  I hadn't known I'd be missing work, and losing money like I did, or I would have done something about it.  Prepare yourself for the unexpected.

Looking Back at 2014, Part 2

The first few days back from France were largely spent recovering from the jet lag, as well as the 7-hour time difference.

                I got settled back into my routine at work, for the most part. My goal at work is to have good working relationships with the people on my crew. We see each other more than we see our families during the shifts that we work, so we have to get along. In 2013, we'd gotten a supervisor from a different crew, and he really ruffled people's feathers when he first came over.

                He and I have similar personalities; we like to get things done, we're very proactive, we don't take criticism well, or at least not at face value. Then, there are the parts of our personality that aren't similar... When he gets bored, he tries to find things to entertain himself, and sometimes it's at other people's expense. If I'm bored, I'll pull something out of the back of my brain, and start chewing on it until I can get it advanced in some way. I enjoy a good time messing around with co-workers (if I trust them), but I try not to make or take anything personal, and I don't enjoy conflict.

                I'm sure you'll find this everywhere, that you have people who are invested at different levels of commitment to their workplace, and their quality of work. This supervisor and I are both pretty dedicated to doing our best, regardless of the task, but this is where a fracture started to develop. I was a little jealous of the attention co-worker A was getting, as well, and it felt like a slap in the face that he was getting so much attention and bravado, while it felt like I was being tossed aside (with nearly everyone else on the crew). 

                My first approach was to have direct conversations with the supervisor about this, which didn't really go anywhere. Co-worker A started getting teased a lot by everyone because of his ambition in a promotion when they felt like he really didn't know his current job well. In the past, I'd gotten similar ribbing, but it seemed more harsh with him, perhaps because I didn't care that they were saying it. I tried helping co-worker A for a while, but it didn't seem to matter.

                The relationship with the supervisor came to a head in late February and early March. We had some heated discussions, and as the subordinate, it's pretty hard to come out on top, regardless of the issue. In line with my personality, my next response was to simply clam up. If I couldn't get my opinion across, I wasn't going to make waves, and I didn't want to sound like an ungrateful wuss, so I wasn't going to say anything to him if I didn't have to. That went over about as well as you'd expect, and things didn't improve. I worried that I would be targeted for termination or punishment, and was pretty stressed out just going to work. That next weekend off, I tore my ACL in an alumni basketball tournament. It was a curse financially, but a blessing in disguise just getting away from work.

                My left knee has given me issues since training for Iraq in Camp Shelby Mississippi back in 2006.  I spun around in the barracks and ended up on the floor. The more I learn about my body, I think I actually did something to my hip, which caused strain in the ligaments and tendons around my knee. At no time did my knee actually feel bad, but the tendons/ligaments in the back of my leg. After several doctor visits, I'd received a cortisone shot in December of 2013, and felt pretty darn good. The orders from the doctor had been to, strengthen [my] knee, whatever that meant.

                I started out the year on a physical mission. I was going to strengthen my legs so much that my knee wouldn't have any excuses, and lose a few pounds above my waist to help out. Unfortunately, I had no clue how to 'strengthen my knee'. I worked out 4 days a week, doing as many leg curls and extensions as I could, often working my legs until I could barely walk. Rarely did I experience muscle soreness the day after working out, and I'm not gonna lie, my legs looked pretty darn good.

                OK, back to the torn ACL. My year's team was going it's 'normal' alumni performance the past few years, not trying real hard despite having some pretty darn good athletes. I decided not to wear my brace because of that cortisone shot making my knee feel good, though it may not have made much of a difference. Somehow during the second game we'd gotten a pretty quick break and they tossed me the ball a few steps outside the 3-point line. I got the ball in stride, took a dribble and pulled up for the shot. *Swoosh*, it went in nothing but net, we were going to make a comeback!

                Unfortunately for me, I didn't land right. My left leg took an extra stutter step, then collapsed outward against my problematic hamstring. I felt the pop before I hit the floor and knew it wasn't just a strain. It took people a few seconds to realize I was hurt because they were all watching the ball. I mean, a 300-pound non-basketball player just drained a '3' like it was hot. By the time anyone noticed, I was already dragging myself to the sideline and our bench, which was thankfully not across the court.  I have some really awesome classmates.  They got me some ice right away, and helped pull my truck up closer to the school so that I could hop on my good leg to it. Some people can walk on a torn ACL, but that issue with my hamstring made that not possible for me. I couldn't put any weight on it, regardless of the position of my knee.

                First, I let my parents know what had happened. I'm remodeling a house, and that would be on hold for a while. I was supposed to work the next 5 days, as well, with the first shift being an OT shift (read big money). I had to call work and let them know that I'd be missing that OT shift the very next day, and at least the day after that while I went to the doctor. I ended up missing just a few more than that.

                I'd bought $200 worth of home supplies the day before, as well, if missing work wasn't enough. I ended up getting confirmation on my birthday that I'd torn my ACL, and purchased crutches of my own that were tall enough. I was supposed to be in a friend's wedding in a month, and I was planning work days on my house. A lot would be changing. 

                How you deal with change is more important than the change itself. Being joyful through trials is hard to say, and even harder to accomplish. Not just being happy, but joyful and trusting that God has a plan. It's easy to look back now and see it, but at the time, I was just relieved that the stress from work was off the front burner.

A few scriptures that have been on my mind a lot the past few months have to do with this very topic. 

Romans 5: 1-5

Therefore, since we have been made right in God's sight by faith, we have peace with God because of what Jesus Christ our Lord has done for us. Because of our faith, Christ has brought us into this place of highest privilege where we now stand, and we confidently and joyfully look forward to sharing God's glory. We can rejoice, too, when we run into problems and trials, for we know that they are good for us - they help us learn to endure and endurance develops strength of character in us, and character strengthens our confident expectation of salvation. And this expectation will not disappoint us. For we know how dearly God loves us, because He has given us the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with His love.

Hebrews 12: 1-9(which quotes Proverbs 3:10,11)

Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith, let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily hinders our progress.  And let us run with endurance the race that God has set before us. We do this by keeping our eyes on Jesus, on whom our faith depends from start to finish. He was willing to die a shameful death on the cross because of the joy He knew would be His afterward. Now he is seated in the place of highest honor besides God's throne in heaven. Think about all he endured when sinful people did such terrible things to him, so that you don't become weary and give up. After all, you have not yet given your lives in your struggle against sin. And have you entirely forgotten the encouraging words God spoke to you, His children? He said "My child, don't ignore it when the Lord disciplines you and don't be discouraged when he corrects you. For the Lord disciplines those he loves, and punishes those he accepts as His children." As you endure this divine discipline, remember that God is treating you as his own Children. Whoever heard of a child who was never disciplined? If God doesn’t discipline you as he does all of his children, it means you are illegitimate and you are not really His children after all. Since we respect our earthly fathers who disciplined us, should we not all the more cheerfully submit to the discipline of our heavenly father and live forever.

A Lament

     I met you ten years ago. I was visiting with a college buddy who was dating your sister (and would eventually marry her). You were too young for me to pursue, then, so I didn't really give it much thought other than occasional thoughts about how pretty you were. I asked you to dance at their wedding, and it's a fond memory, even if it's not particularly one that I like to pull out of the back of my brain because of how things are, now.

     When I did decide to 'pursue' you, I did it in probably the worst and most awkward way I could because I didn't know any better. You see, my parents split up when I was 14. I'd grown up going to church, and had only been baptized two years earlier, right before the marriage and my father's spiritual life started crumbling. We never really had conversations about women, and how to pursue them, to fight for their hearts. I'm not so sure that last year or so of my parents' marriage he would have known what to say or wanted to say anything at all. I grew up believing that I shouldn't date a woman I couldn't see myself marrying, and that sex was out of the question until marriage, but I'm also not sure where those ideas came from.

     So, I 'grew up' the worst way possible, unguided by an earthly father. At the time, I didn't know anything about protecting a woman's heart, or how to pursue, or why the example of Christ's relationship with the church as our guide for marriage is important. With how I act sometimes, I'm still not sure I understand just how important the correlation is. I've made mistakes in my relationships with other women, too, so it isn't something particular to you, I just don't have a clue what I'm doing and no confidence when it comes to the opposite sex. It's an area of my life that definitely needs to be left in the hands of God.

               

     I'm certain that most of my attempts at pursuing you were nothing more than destructive and painful, and I'm very sorry for that. Things are pretty awkward between us, and I take full responsibility for that. I'm never too certain that I should approach you, now, because your words, "There will never be anything between us", still haunt me. This was your response to the ill-conceived note I gave you quite a few years ago with a book I was hoping would help you spiritually. It was far too much far too soon, especially for a time when we really didn't talk much in person. 

     It's really not any different than now, I guess, with regards to how much we talk. Occasionally I'll talk to you on social media, but if I ever invite you to anything, I get a quick 'no', usually work or a boyfriend. My impression is that you want nothing to do with me, and with my actions in the past (and present), I can understand. When we happen to be in the same place, you've never been anything but polite, but that's you. That's one of the things I really have liked about you; you're positive, polite, gorgeous, modest, hard working, funny, and one of those women who gets more beautiful as you age. I don't say much in person because I worry about how a potential conversation will go. When I see you, my heart is usually going a million miles an hour, and I immediately worry about rejection, about how I look, about perceptions.

     I don't believe in 'the one' beyond marrying 'one' and committing to her for the rest of my life. I don't believe that we're soul mates, or in soul mates at all, for that matter. I generally don't take rejections well, but yours hurt more. I intentionally try not to think about you because it seems like there's no hope, and it physically hurts in the middle of my chest. I know other beautiful women, and I don't believe we're destined for anything, but for some reason, I won't give up, I can't give it up. Every time I see you and say nothing, it bugs me for quite some time.  I know that men are supposed to lead in relationships, and I'm not; I give in to fear. 

     Fear and a lack of hope are absolutely brutal when it comes to life. People do crazy things when they lose hope: they jump from burning buildings, knowing the result, but not wanting to suffer; sometimes they withdraw and shut people out; sometimes they hurt themselves; sometimes they lash out and take their pain out on others. Without hope, there is no faith.  Introspection, especially like this, is only worth a salt if you are learning from your mistakes, though.

     God is sovereign, despite our sinfulness, despite our lack of faith. I shouldn't worry about this because His Will, not mine, will be done.