Where I’m At

It’s been an odd week and I think I’m in a weird place right now. I’m at a point where my Grandfather’s death hasn’t reduced me to lying on the couch like a useless lump. But, I don’t think I’m cried out yet. I haven’t seen anyone from my family in person and there hasn’t been a service of any sort, so I think I’m in denial at this moment. I know I’m sad, but it’s a general malaise that manifests itself in poor sleep and a general sense of feeling off. I wake up several times a night and I have a hard time falling back asleep again. I’m tired all the time and I just can’t muster up much enthusiasm for the things that usually make me excited.

Thank you all for your comments, emails, tweets, reaching out, etc. I need to get my butt in gear and acknowledge and thank all of you individually. I’m still feeling out of sorts, but that’s no excuse for not thanking you all properly for helping me out when I’m feeling so crappy.

A high point has definitely been everything that I’ve been able to do for PAWS New England. Your generous donations have brought in over $200 (and feel free to keep them coming!). And our benefit gig brought in another $400 (and was a raucous afternoon of excellent music). The money from the concert was enough to save the lives of two dogs and words can’t even begin to explain how happy that makes me right now.

The show, itself, went really well. I was originally in a tizzy because the crowd was so small. But, by the time my band went on, the place had filled up pretty well. Our set was well-recieved and we even earned some new fans from the bar. For the second time in my performing life, someone started up a chant of “one more song! one more song!” Talk about an ego boost. Luckily, we had a song that we’d been rehearsing that we’d cut due to time restraints. We played the shit out of it.

I have some ideas about how to promote the band better and to get more gigs. I’m thinking about offering house concerts. I need to do some research. Would any of you be interested in having me come to your house to play and sing for your friends?

I think I’ve finally turned a corner on my plantar fasciitis. I’m still in pain, but I’ve got a good system for rehabbing my foot and I’m confident that things will improve. Just by sleeping with a Strassburg Sock and doing some stretches while I’m still in bed in the AM, I’ve been able to get to the point where I’m no longer in pain first thing in the morning. Now, I just need to get the pain to stop building during the day! My foot is still full of scar tissue (I’ve been told to massage my own foot and it feels decidedly crunchy to the touch), but I’m slowly improving.

I was gearing up for a fight with my insurer, because I was told that my PT benefits would run out on the 25th. Yeah, not so much. I, apparently, have awesome insurance. The administrator at my PT office? Not so awesome. Instead of calling to find out what my benefits were, she just assumed I had the same benefits as everyone else. If I’d listened to her, I would have been cheated out of 2 whole sessions (medically, you’re supposed to have 10 ultrasound treatments, but I thought I would only get 8 in). This might not seem like a lot, until you do the math and realize that’s 20% of my treatment that I would have missed out on. That’s kind of a big deal. Especially when your quality of life is impacted like mine has been. I’m so glad that Kristian encouraged me to advocate for myself. If I hadn’t called my insurer, I would have done a serious disservice to myself.

I had a vivd dream, last night, that I ran a half marathon. It was amazing. My body felt great and I finished strong and with no pain. I can remember in clear detail how it felt to receive my finisher’s medal and to realize that I was healed. I grumbled about the lack of schwag that you usually get at the post-race expos, but I was happy to have been able to finish. I hope that this was my subconscious’ way of telling me that I’m closer than I think. I’m signed up for a half marathon in February and it would be a pleasant surprise if I was able to start training in time to run it. I’ve started using the elliptical machine at work and I’m hoping that this will build up my cardio-vascular strength to the point where it won’t be impossible to start running at a higher level when my foot’s better.

So, that’s me in a nutshell. Things are better than they could be but not as great as I’d like them to. The good news is that they’re getting better.

How have you all been?