Moving (Carefully) Forward

Remember the days when I couldn't wait to take a shower?  All of that changes when getting undressed turns out to be the biggest challenge of getting clean.  God bless Rod; on Thursday night he helped me do the peeling off of the ultra-firm tube and peeling on a clean one, and I hope never to have to ask him to do that again.

Talk about killing the magic.  (Ladies, I think you can picture it.  Gentlemen, please don't.  And bless you if you help your female loved ones with things that result in sights they'd rather you not ever, ever, see.)

So, I've worked hard to be able to undress and re-dress myself, bottom (haha, yes) to top.  Saturday morning was my first outing, to represent our Board at a Bar and Bat Mitzvah of two students I had been working with over the summer.  Little stiff, but the "please rise" and "please be seated" episodes were not nearly as bad as I had anticipated and the service was more than worth the work it took to get there.

And then, because my priorities were probably still a little valium-influenced, Rod picked me up at the synagogue and drove me to the house of our friend Chris, hair guy extraordinaire of our entire family for over 25 years and who himself is still recovering from a back surgery in early August.  Which means none of us had haircuts since August.  Rod was looking positively shaggy and Ari resembled one of the Chicago 7.  I was getting a little Peter Frampton.  I am grateful he could work his magic on the 3 of us; Andrew and Alex will have to wait until he feels better still.

Sunday was carefully planned to have no plans beyond rest.  A little light lifting to cheer on the home team in some post-storm yard cleanup, and a lot of sitting on the steps directing the work.  Some unfortunate health issues have surfaced among my staff, so I spent a good bit of yesterday "arranging" personnel.  Silly me, making plans.

Today is my first day driving and the "long" work day and I've so far stayed put until I have to actually get moving towards going to work.  The plan is to stay for most of the usual 5 1/2 hours of school, with the option to leave before I get too weary to drive myself home. But I've got my Advil!

Tomorrow is (conveniently) the "last" day of religious school for the week until Sunday, and Wednesday we go to see Ari and his choir sing at Radio City Music Hall, which entails a bit of a haul, but walking seems okay and sitting seems okay.  It's the getting from one position to another that's a little dicey.  Wednesday also is my first post-surgical appointment with the surgeon, so I'm a little apprehensive about whether I'll be praised for my adherence to the whole undergarment endeavor, or lectured on why I should go out and buy tighter ones. I expect by the time we go in and out of the city, visit the doctor, and return Ari's tux to the mall, I'll be, as they say, "knackered" for a bit.

Biggest kvetch (complaint) at the moment is that my back is really suffering from being slept on so I can't sleep more than a few hours at a time; I'm going to offer to the surgeon to wear the hated longline bras (which, absurdly, I still have) at night in exchange for being able to sleep on my side.  Wish me luck!