Sunday, July 22, 2012

A little bit too slowed down

In my last (orderly) post, some 29 days ago, i claimed to be slowing my lifestyle down a bit--read:getting more sleep. In "The Princess and the Pea," written some 177 years ago, the princess cannot. These two written works (while one is, admittedly, more well read) are, tonight, inextricably linked. By a pea (or some 177 of them).

Let's start from the beginning, some 18 days ago i developed a rather large and puffy blister from wearing canvas shoes on the farm that inevitably soaked through from rummaging through the hip high, still wet from the overnight sprinklers, weeds in search of, as the case may be, broccoli. I bandaged the heel of my foot and continued on with life, running each morning, working all day/night.i chalked the growing pain in my foot/legs as muscles weary from running and working a bit lopsided to compensate for the right side blister. I drained it twice, quite positive it would heal itself, and my leg would be back to normal. But Wednesday some one Wednesdays ago the pain became incredible. Greater than anything i had ever felt before (and i have lost a front tooth to a ninja spin gone wrong against a coffee table corner, and taken a lawn dart--before they were outlawed--to the head). There were plenty of swears, tears i could no longer hold back while cooking through the hurt, and at the end of the night, an ankle--cankle rather--that was twice the size of its partner, and questionably reddish purple. The next day after work--yes, work, but i skipped the a.m. run...--i went to the walk in clinic where i my foot caused a bit too much of a legitimately fearful reaction from the dr. who sent me to emerg. I spent the next four and half hours there, than two and half the next night, then three and a quarter on Sunday night, when they took the I.V out of my arm and started me on oral meds for the gnarly infection created from the gnarly blister (which, ps, healed quite nicely, and was not, itself, infected, only the tissue around it). Needless to say, i am not currently running at all.
Nor am a yoga-ing, or even farming. I have been physically forced to slow (ohohohohohohohohoh) it down. It is odd, and somewhat welcome. I am able to get alot of things done that would otherwise be saved for days off (laundry being the first to come to mind), and my "rainy day" list has suddenly become my "let your foot heal completely so that you do not re-infect it and have to have it amputated and there in never be able to run again" list. Artsy things get finished, books/articles/magazines get read, friends get called, movies get watched, and peas get shelled.

Ok, so it was one artsy project, about one page of a book, one whole article, and far too many magazines, one friend (and she called me), one movie ("The Vow" so good, so intelligent, so lovely), but alot more than one pea.

Propping my sad little (well, actually, still rather large) foot up some one day into IV treatment, i had quite the cozy night with a movie and a bag each of peas and favas to shell and freeze for winter. It has been a perfect spring for these shellers, rainy and not too hot. I had overflowing grocery bags and colanders of each, yet all shellled and done, there was probably only two cups of each. And to get these four cups total took me the entire movie and then some, calling it a night at two thirty a.m...good thing i am off the five a.m picking until the drugs run out and the blister seals up.

Which brings me to the end of this story, where "the princess and the pea" meets the story of my life: though the bag of peas (and the movie and the foot) provided an opportunity to plunk down and rest, it was the very thing (that and not having done enough during the day to requit myself of my daily energy surplus) that kept me up to the wee hours. I am no more catching up on sleep while out of commission that i am working late then getting up early to work and run.

But at least my ankles are the same size again.



(ps, i do not know why there is this ginormous white space here and to follow...i probably fell asleep on the space key after writing this...sigh)