I've tried to write this blog entry three times already. I just don't know where to start. Our world has changed so much in the last two months. I guess that's about right. Somewhere around the end of February, the first case of coronavirus showed up here. Today, we have 810 THOUSAND cases and 44 THOUSAND deaths. To be exact, 44,234 Americans have DIED. While I know how this happened, I watched it happen, yet I still cannot fathom this incredible LOSS.
New York has been hit the hardest so far and they have had to resort to using air-conditioned trailers to keep the bodies in until they have the time, the manpower, the energy, to process them and give them decent burials. This is happening here, in this country. The United States. I just can't believe it. It's like we're watching a movie. But we're not. It's real. Georgia has 19,881 cases today and 799 deaths. Hospitals are bursting at the seams, healthcare workers are working double shifts, without proper protection, using the same masks and coverings shift after shift, day after day, getting sick themselves, some of them dying.
I absolutely, completely and without any shame, blame Trump for this. Not the virus, of course, he didn't cause that. But his RESPONSE. Too slow, not serious enough, his severe mishandling, LYING to us constantly about testing and masks and every-damn-thing else, absolutely no empathy for anyone so no concern for the sick and dying. I knew this guy was garbage from Day One and I also knew that WHEN THE TIME CAME that we'd need a LEADER, he would fail us. But never in my wildest dreams would I have thought we'd have such a horrific tragedy as this and this unbelievable loss we're suffering.
I am a government worker so I am considered "essential" (although when I was furloughed every Friday for six weeks seven years ago, I was non-essential. Oy.) but the base decided to let those of us who have underlying health conditions (diabetes, heart disease, lung disease, immunity issues) go out on two months of administrative leave, they call it Weather and Safety Leave, in March, to try to protect those more fragile employees. I took advantage of this offer since I have three of the conditions listed on the form. I got my doctor to sign it, I turned it in to them and I've been at home since March 26th.
Larry, however, works for a company that believes itself to be essential so he's been working. We're washing hands, using Clorox wipes, Lysol and face masks. Doing whatever we can to stay safe and healthy. So far, so good.
It's horrible. The whole world is under quarantine. I follow a bunch of celebrities and influencers on Instagram and they're all sharing bits and pieces of their lives while stuck at home and it's comforting to see that we are, indeed, all in this together. As far as all of us trying to stay home and stay healthy, anyway. We're NOT actually all in this together. 22 million people in this country have lost their jobs. The government threw us all a $1,200 bone this month but $1,200 will barely cover April's mortgage payment and groceries for an average American family. Uncle Sam gonna have to do better than that!
I've spent my 26 days at home cleaning house, organizing things, keeping the laundry caught up, working in the yard a bit (we put fresh mulch in the front yard flower beds but we're out of mulch and are not going shopping for more any time soon), drinking lots of coffee, getting lots of rest, watching lots of Netflix. I have a TBR stack two stories high but I just cannot sit down and read. I did finish the book I was reading but that's about it. Mostly I just stay on my phone or watch 24-hour news and stress out. I've gone in to the office about once a week to catch up any work I have and check email and stuff like that. I have Kroger deliver our groceries every week and we practice social distancing with our neighbors. We watch church on Sunday mornings and we covet a double roll pack of toilet tissue.
Folks are doing all kinds of things to try and stay positive. There's the bear in the window thing where people ride around the neighborhood and see how many teddy bears they can find sitting on window sills. We have one in our front bedroom window. Of course we do. There's the rainbow thing, too, where everybody is drawing chalk rainbows in the street, their driveways and putting paper rainbows up in their windows.
We believe that rainbows are God's promise that He would never again flood the earth. We believe that He will send us one when this storm passes as well. In the meantime, we've got a driveway and we've got sidewalk chalk.
...for they remind her that SHE SURVIVED.
The final cast came off my foot yesterday. Thank you, Jesus! It feels so good to be free of that thing. My foot is still so jacked up and I don't know if it'll ever be "normal". I still have pain in the joint and burning in my toes. It's also popping and snapping like crazy and feels wobbly. I am done, though. It's just gonna have to get better on its own or get to some point where I can manage it and live a normal life.
It's ugly. Horribly scarred. Red. Still has a tiny opening. But it looks SO MUCH BETTER than it did. I'm using a vitamin E, coconut oil salve on it every day and I read that aloe helps fade scars, too. We have a massive aloe plant out on the patio. I don't know how much better it'll get but I'm going to help it all I can. My skin graft scar is probably as good as it's going to get but I rub that salve on it every day, too.
My scars are my battle wounds, beautiful in their own way. They show what I've been through and what I GOT THROUGH. All the nights I told Larry, "I'm not going to survive this" and the pain, oh my God, the pain. There were times, very dark scary nights, that I believed that I would not survive these wounds but I prayed so hard that I would. And it looks like I did. Or I'm going to! God is so good to us.
Here's my poor little war-torn foot. It's been through so much trauma and I'm not putting it through any more. No more cutting, no more messing with it. It is what it is. Whatever that turns out to be.
I'll wear these scars forever, as proof that our God HEALS.
No scary foot pics this time! It is getting better, though. Just a very slooooow process. When my home nurse uncovered it yesterday to change my dressing, there was actual NEW SKIN growing!! Just a tiny bit around the edges but I was SO excited!! Thank you, Jesus, for your precious healing hands!!
Today is three months since the last time I was at work. November 5th. And I was only there half a day. I left at lunch since I was SO excited about my surgery and I wanted to go home and get an overnight bag packed (Just in case. My mama taught me well about a lot of things and hospital stays is one of them.).
THREE MONTHS. I sure didn't think I'd still be recovering at home three months later. These days, I don't really mind it much. The pain is manageable now with the meds I'm on and I'm able to DO STUFF around the house. Light housework, laundry, that kind of thing. I give out so easily so I do a little bit and sit down, do a little more and sit down.
My high school friend, Kim, has been coming to see me and I have SO enjoyed her company!! Oh my goodness, I'm so happy to have her back in my life. We have missed decades but we're gonna catch up. She's moved back from Delaware and I'm trying to get her to move even closer, like our neighborhood. Ha!
Since I spend most days in my pjs and no makeup, it was so nice to go out for lunch with Kim last week (even though I was wearing my wound vac around my neck and folks were staring at me like I had something they could catch!) and then go get our hair done. I had not had my hair cut since the end of October (in preparation for my surgery) and I was looking like quite the shaggy dog. I got my bump back and I'm so happy! I've been getting my hair cut short in the back and stacked into a bump and kinda long and tapered in the front. That works for me. It's easy and it's cute, too!
I'm not making any long term plans but I am absolutely giddy about that little bit of fresh new skin that's so pink and pretty around my wound. It's the little things, you know.
Thanks for your prayers. Keep 'em coming!! They're working.
***Fair warning!! Bad foot pic attached. Watch out!!***
When I taglined this blog, I thought that was the perfect way to describe my blog. My blog that shares my walk through life and because I'm almost always barefoot, I do this walk pretty much always without shoes. I love being barefoot. I love the feeling of cold tile on my feet, beach sand between my toes, cool garden mud on the side of my foot, I love everything about NO SHOES. I hardly ever wear them, even at family functions. I'll kick my shoes off in a corner. I've always been this way.
This nightmare with my foot has me worried. I went back to the doctor yesterday and he told me he'd see me again in four weeks. If this wound has not closed up by then, he's going to have to do a skin graft. And take skin from my thigh. This freakin' nightmare just keeps getting scarier and scarier. I did not sign up for this! I don't like this ride. LET ME OFF.
This was my foot yesterday in Macon. It's awful. It's so very painful. It's really, really trying on me, emotionally and physically. I just cannot see it closing up. So I am facing a THIRD surgery.
I don't think I'll ever be barefoot and free again. I can't see past today and today, I just don't see my foot ever being the same. Dear readers, whether you're someone who knows me personally or if you're a reader who has never commented and I don't know you, I would really appreciate your prayers over my foot. God knows who we are, whether we know each other or not.
