Bazzie Doodles

Unexpected

     Well, as usual life happens.  Not much we can do to change that except to roll with it.  I had been experiencing back pain for about a month.  Then my leg started to tingle and go numb.  I decided I needed to go to the Doctor and made an appointment to be seen.  He confirmed my suspicion that it was sciatic pain and  gave me pain meds, muscle relaxants and the symptoms to look for to go back and see him.  Nine days later I experienced one of those symptoms.  Foot drop is the inability to dorsiflex your foot.  I wasn't sure but I couldn't walk without my toes dragging on the ground.  I really had to lift my knee to walk without tripping and that made it really difficult to do my job.  I quickly insisted that I needed to see the Doctor,  (they wanted me to wait 5 days for an appointment) all the while knowing that this was really bad news.  He arranged for an urgent MRI and I ended up having surgery 4 days later to remove a herniated disc that was pressing on my nerve.  
     This all happened 16 days ago.   I am happy to say that my back is feeling much better, but my right foot is still not functioning.  At this point it is a wait and see to determine how much recovery of the nerves will be seen.  I am still restricted to no bending, twisting or lifting and I have a silly boot to wear on my foot that keeps it at a 45 degree angle to stop my toes dragging.
     Of course this means that I didn't get much done for a week.  More importantly I missed my Son's Marine boot camp graduation in California.  I am also unable to drive my new car that I picked up the day before the foot drop occurred.

Robert Williamson

Finally home!

I get my hug.

    Moving on, 

     I did have part of a blog post written, I encountered several problems getting the pictures from my iPhone to the computer though, the post is lost somewhere, so here I go again, hoping everything is working now and just short descriptions since this is long enough already!
     I started to work on my altered composition book.

Acrylic paint I had on hand

Best painting tools ever!

Looks good

Paper border that I am defiantly going to change.

When the family left for San Diego I had them put everything I might want at waist height so I wouldn't have to bend or stretch to reach it.  At that point I was only 4 days post surgery and still very sore and immobile.  My craft table was a disaster!

I found out about Smash books about a week before, I must have been living under a rock, or at least in Nursing School!  The idea was awesome for our trip to see my son, so I ordered one for both my daughter and myself and one extra of course.  Then I saw one at Walmart and got that in case the others didn't arrive.

 

They did!

My hospital page.

My new car page.

My Marine page.

   
     As you can see I have to add pictures still to these pages I have started.  I have also some others that I didn't take pictures of that I have planned out.  I like this because it is lots of fun and there are no rules.

While I was shopping I bought some other things, I don't know why I have been avoiding clear stamps.

Washi tape (how much fun is that. Like I said rock, me, living!) and other supplies gathered from the house.

My pen drawer.  What can I say?

My beautiful boot.  The long end is so I don't hit my toes on anything.

     There is one more thing I want to mention.  Well one more person actually.  I was surfing the web and I stumbled upon these you tube videos that made me laugh AND were so inspiring.  I love them!   Shannon Green has made my recovery so much easier you have to check her out.  I feel an affinity to her because it seems like we create the same way, flying by the seat of our pants!  I also love that she picks things up because she likes them then "I'll do something with it" just as I do.  The main difference is that she actually makes wonderful art and I just think about it or start to make things.