Susan Speaks: Thirty-Six and Still Counting

It’s been a whirlwind around here as the clock keeps moving forward. Thirty-six weeks since the accident and I’m still counting.

Therapy’s helping, but slowly. Feeling’s starting to come back to the fingers of my left hand. My strength is coming back even faster — just in time for snow shoveling season!

Being concussed is, quite frankly, a total pain in the ass. I liked it better when I didn’t know I was concussed and was just living my life, full-speed ahead. To go from full speed to a crawl has been the hardest part, although the isolation is hard, too. Remember your chronically ill friends, folks, and try to keep the support coming. Sometimes, the longer things drag out, the more they need you. I’m learning this one through experience.

Since I was cleared almost two months ago to wear contacts, I piggybacked an appointment for my son to have his eyes checked with an appointment of my own for a valid prescription for contacts. The little computer they made me stare at said my prescription has gotten better and the tech asked if my strongest glasses were too strong, but then she had me read the eye chart and yep, the doctors were right when they said the cataract would make my vision worse, not better.

I see the surgeon in another month, and we’ll see what he says. On the one hand, I want my retina as healed as possible before we tackle the cataract. But on the other, I’d like the surgeries behind me. I’m eager to get on with living, not healing.

This surprises no one.

What will probably surprise all of you is that my September editing calendar is now completely booked. Depending on work, therapy (once a week, I have three hours of therapy, between the pinched nerve and the concussion work), kids, and life, it might spill into October, which is hard for impatient clients. But it’s super for me. And it’s not just that dates are booked, either. It’s that manuscripts are here, all files open on my desktop, ready and waiting for me. This is job security, man.

I have missed this. Having manuscripts waiting, being in demand.

This is what happens when you are good at what you do.

So keep it coming. Keep counting with me; I’ll be fully healed one day (maybe) and on to something hopefully with less risk and even more personal fulfillment. If you can consider anything about the past thirty-six weeks to be in any way personally fulfilling.