250 days and the light is looming.

I received an email last week from a work mate saying ‘Rosie you’ve hit 250days away’!!!

It was not because he had a tally running on the wall in the office (a little disappointing really😜).. Microsoft Outlook/Lync has been silently tracking the days since I was last logged in..

That’s a long time away – and one hell of a fringe!!

TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY days since I’ve been at work!  This has happened twice before when I was on maternity leave with Lilli and Stella! 

Those days were filled with pjs, crying (mostly babies), eating and regular disbelief at the size of my belly! 

Truth be told quite a LOT of similarities to my current experience!!  I cannot remember what it was like returning to work all those years ago but I’m really hoping my brain is not too mushy….it has been a while.

Eight months today in fact – another surgiversary clocked up!

I still find it hard to believe what has happened in my life over the past eight months. Even harder to believe I actually chose this path at times. 

I have had a lot playing on my mind over the past week as I prepare to head back to Brisbane this Friday. Friday is D Day for me.  Ivan will review new X-rays to determine if the bone has enough growth and strength for the frame to be removed on 31 January as we had tentatively planned. 

I am both excited and if I was to honest a little scared.

The frame removal is going to signal the change of everything I have adapted to these past 8 months. Don’t get me wrong I cannot wait to be free of the steel cage and all of its associated discomforts.. I can almost touch the light at the end of this tunnel however with that comes a lot of new expectations that I have created for myself. 

I have always thought as soon as the frame is off I would throw away the crutches, walk, start swimming, return to work… the list goes on and I impatiently want it all now but in all honesty I really have little idea of what life ‘beyond the light at the end of the tunnel’ will bring. I am fairly sure however that the activities listed above will not happen immediately.

I think this fact has had me a little off kilter. I have felt frustrated, useless and generally down the last few days – not like me at all. 

Why now have I started to feel like this?! I think it’s because I’m genuinely scared I’ve gone through all of this for…. what?! I still don’t feel the positive change I keep waiting to be hit with.. there’s a whole lot of what ifs.. the biggest one.. What if everything I’ve gone through (and dragged my family through) doesn’t deliver the outcome I had hoped for?  I have felt like somehow I’ve lost sight of the reason behind my decision to even start this journey as I’m so busy just trying to take the next step…sounds a bit silly I know.

Tonight I was lying in bed beside Stella chatting about her first day back at school. As we chatted I lifted my legs straight up in the air side by side. 

‘They’re not the same‘, I said to Stella.

‘You were never going to have them ‘the same‘ mum, you knew that‘, she said in a matter of fact tone not skipping a beat. 

‘Yeh but…‘ I began. 

‘No mum you seem to have forgotten what you had. Think back.. it was like this.’ (*insert Stella awkwardly trying to show me how much shorter one leg was than the other on herself while lying on her back with her legs in the air*)

She looked ridiculous. I giggled. ‘Oh gee I suppose I never saw my leg as being so different!’ I said.

‘Oh look actually it’s probably worse now I mean you’ve got all of those scars and that bump on your shin, but you know what? It is longer and THAT is what you wanted‘, she smiled cheekily at me.

Ah the voice of 11yr old reason. She was spot on.