Alcoholic Interrupted II
Member
Join Date: Mar 2008
Location: Norfolk, MA
Posts: 792
Yeah, Susie was originally a sort of "charity case" for us. She was
surrendered when her family decided they had allergies-after 13 years!
I felt that no cat should have to end its life in a cage after living in a
home all its life. We adopted another cat, Stella that day also. A few
months later, 2 more cats, Tiger and Ginger joined the family.
Well, as fast they all came, they all left! Ginger to go with my daughter
to the states, Stella with my step-daughter when she moved out and Tiger
to a new family that could enjoy his eccentric behavior. That left us with
Susie. She became our third. She went on vacation with us, she rode in
the car with us, looking out the window at the drive-through ladies and
Canadian border guards. She was never far from us.
I suppose that's why the loss is felt so deeply and why the house is so
empty without her. And I suppose also that because of that love, we so
want to adopt another cat, or two, and feel that bond again. I know
Susie would be happy about it.
surrendered when her family decided they had allergies-after 13 years!
I felt that no cat should have to end its life in a cage after living in a
home all its life. We adopted another cat, Stella that day also. A few
months later, 2 more cats, Tiger and Ginger joined the family.
Well, as fast they all came, they all left! Ginger to go with my daughter
to the states, Stella with my step-daughter when she moved out and Tiger
to a new family that could enjoy his eccentric behavior. That left us with
Susie. She became our third. She went on vacation with us, she rode in
the car with us, looking out the window at the drive-through ladies and
Canadian border guards. She was never far from us.
I suppose that's why the loss is felt so deeply and why the house is so
empty without her. And I suppose also that because of that love, we so
want to adopt another cat, or two, and feel that bond again. I know
Susie would be happy about it.
instant
Join Date: May 2011
Location: Australia
Posts: 5,711
Robby sorry for your loss coming so soon after surgery. You are an inspiration. Next they'll be signing you up for the Mars launch.
I watched a great movie (Cuba Goodings, Robert DeNiro) the other day about the guy who was the first african american underwater diver in the navy. He lost his leg in an accident and fought to be allowed to stay in the navy. Another great story of determination.
I watched a great movie (Cuba Goodings, Robert DeNiro) the other day about the guy who was the first african american underwater diver in the navy. He lost his leg in an accident and fought to be allowed to stay in the navy. Another great story of determination.
Its_me_jen
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Salina, Ks
Posts: 8,547
Great movie instant! I loved it. 
Robby and Melissa - so sorry to hear about Susie passing. Losing a pet is so hard. It sounds like she had a great life!
Robby - glad to hear you're doing well and are happy! Keeping that sense of humor is so important!
Robby and Melissa - so sorry to hear about Susie passing. Losing a pet is so hard. It sounds like she had a great life!
Robby - glad to hear you're doing well and are happy! Keeping that sense of humor is so important!
Adventures In SpaceTime
Thread Starter
Join Date: Jun 2008
Location: Ottawa, Canada
Posts: 5,827
Yeah, that movie with Cuba is awesome. Well acted. Thanks, Instant, and PaperDolls.
Melissa and I like to keep moving on, and the best cure for missing a pet is a new pet, and so we adpted yesterday to short-hairs from the shelter. Dave and Lucy, both just over 2 years old. Lucy is an orange calico with tons of affectionate energy, and Dave is a grey and white conservative type, friendly but a bit aloof. The new additions to our family go a long way to feeling comfortable again. We still miss Susie, but the gnawing hurt is much less so now. Thanks again for all the caring thoughts for Susie and us.
Every two days a nurse arrives to change out the bandages. I have the next visit in an hour or so. My stump pain is steadily reducing, and last night, I was able to half-dose my 2AM. I can sit up alot more, and I'm getting stronger and quicker with my walking around on crutches.
I'm looking forward to end of next week being the last few days of the serious healing cycle, and I'll be off the pain killers. It will be awesome to get out and about. The weather here is fantastic this time of year, and I want my share, lol.
Our offer for the new house is now completed and accepted, and so we close on October 1, and move in that same week. We've already started to get the paperwork done to have our current home listed, and alot of our personal belongings have already been boxed, and moved downstairs. The house here is becoming de-personalised as we start to have it staged for the sale we hope is quick. We don't want to carry it thru the winter.
What a time to move, hahaha.
I can't put into words enough to express how wonderful it feels to not have my paralysed leg and fused hip dragging me down and further. Just be able to move freely around in bed is awesome enough to keep me smiling. Sitting up straight, such a simple thing, is like a total achievement, since I haven't been able to do so the last 43 years. And when I stand on crutches now, I can stand straighter as well. Such a simple joy.
The old physical pains, from the leg and hip, and my back, have not returned. My confidence with this grows daily, and its what we all hoped for as a goal to my surgery, as I spoke about in early posts. My sense of self is changing. My awareness is sharper, I think, because I'm not having to dull my physical senses down to moderate and grey-out the chronic pain I was having for decades before this surgery. I feel myself again, physically, and for me that is saying something about just how successfully this idea for surgery is quickly being reaffirmed daily.
Emotionally am in paradise, hahaha. I present as one who is much too happy to have just gone thru such drastic corrective surgery. People that know me take it in stride, and those that don't are somewhat uncomfortable with the clearly happy disposition I extend even while they are giving me their sympathies for the amputation. It can be awkward sometimes, lol. Their just not able to process the happy/sad emotions quickly enough to stay ontop of the moment as I energise the air with my happiness for losing the leg, and with this kind of surgery, there is no hope for a fitting of any artificial device. Its only crutches and wheelchair going forward now.
Gotta get ready for the nurse visit. See ya.
Melissa and I like to keep moving on, and the best cure for missing a pet is a new pet, and so we adpted yesterday to short-hairs from the shelter. Dave and Lucy, both just over 2 years old. Lucy is an orange calico with tons of affectionate energy, and Dave is a grey and white conservative type, friendly but a bit aloof.
The new additions to our family go a long way to feeling comfortable again. We still miss Susie, but the gnawing hurt is much less so now. Thanks again for all the caring thoughts for Susie and us. Every two days a nurse arrives to change out the bandages. I have the next visit in an hour or so. My stump pain is steadily reducing, and last night, I was able to half-dose my 2AM. I can sit up alot more, and I'm getting stronger and quicker with my walking around on crutches.
I'm looking forward to end of next week being the last few days of the serious healing cycle, and I'll be off the pain killers. It will be awesome to get out and about. The weather here is fantastic this time of year, and I want my share, lol.
Our offer for the new house is now completed and accepted, and so we close on October 1, and move in that same week. We've already started to get the paperwork done to have our current home listed, and alot of our personal belongings have already been boxed, and moved downstairs. The house here is becoming de-personalised as we start to have it staged for the sale we hope is quick. We don't want to carry it thru the winter.
What a time to move, hahaha.
I can't put into words enough to express how wonderful it feels to not have my paralysed leg and fused hip dragging me down and further. Just be able to move freely around in bed is awesome enough to keep me smiling. Sitting up straight, such a simple thing, is like a total achievement, since I haven't been able to do so the last 43 years. And when I stand on crutches now, I can stand straighter as well. Such a simple joy.
The old physical pains, from the leg and hip, and my back, have not returned. My confidence with this grows daily, and its what we all hoped for as a goal to my surgery, as I spoke about in early posts. My sense of self is changing. My awareness is sharper, I think, because I'm not having to dull my physical senses down to moderate and grey-out the chronic pain I was having for decades before this surgery. I feel myself again, physically, and for me that is saying something about just how successfully this idea for surgery is quickly being reaffirmed daily.
Emotionally am in paradise, hahaha. I present as one who is much too happy to have just gone thru such drastic corrective surgery. People that know me take it in stride, and those that don't are somewhat uncomfortable with the clearly happy disposition I extend even while they are giving me their sympathies for the amputation. It can be awkward sometimes, lol. Their just not able to process the happy/sad emotions quickly enough to stay ontop of the moment as I energise the air with my happiness for losing the leg, and with this kind of surgery, there is no hope for a fitting of any artificial device. Its only crutches and wheelchair going forward now.
Gotta get ready for the nurse visit. See ya.
Adventures In SpaceTime
Thread Starter
Join Date: Jun 2008
Location: Ottawa, Canada
Posts: 5,827
So the nurse has done her work, and no indication of infection. Sweeet. She noted that a large fluid blister has developed, along with a second, smaller blister. This is normal, and makes a mess when they pop. Ive been instructed to call their 24/7 number and request a bandage change. Nice, lol.
My brain still has phantom sensations, some stronger than others, none of them lasting longer than a few minutes. Interestingly, I'm having whole leg and foot sensations, weird, because my foot was amputated back in 1982, a year after I sobered up. This was elective surgery too, the idea of removing the foot at the ankle, so as to have room to fit an artificial foot to the custom orthorsis full length device. Before the foot surgery, I had like a 4" cork lift, and the boot was permanetly attached to the steel double-upright locked knee brace. The boot did not rotate, having only forward and backward limited movement, and the artifical foot which was attached following the Symes surgery (foot amputation at ankle) had 360 degrees of adjustable movement. My walking really improved with that adaption, and so that surgery was successful too.
I'm able to flex my hip and buttock muscles now without flooding myself with pain, since the hip is now unfused, and these flexings are bring back interesting sensations of how I was before the surgery when I was a boy aged 12. It feels awesome to have my hips move independently. I feel whole and healthy. The fusion had forced me to feel disabled and unfulfilled. My drinking alcohol took on a singular purpose of numbing me out from the harsher realities of what the hip fusion and the hardware attached to my femur forced me to feel. Unfortunately, alcohol worked so well, that I was completely already a chronic alcoholic by age 15. My alcoholic mind called the shots ongoing until I finally quit age 24. By then, I had did a jail stint, and a mental hospital 3 night lockup, and I still drank and drugged for several years there after. Severe consequences did not help me to quit drinking, although they certainly caused me to withdraw from society, and hole-up with my drinking. I simply dropped out to stay out of more trouble. Lonliness is such a cold, barren, unrelenting existence when one desires the pain more then the cure. Again, alcohol solved my problems until they didn't. It was in the last year or so that i simply could not drink enough to numb me out anymore. I would black out before the joys of numbness was reached. I was really getting to the end of the end.
My detox at 24 saved me. I didn't want sobriety, i didn't want God, and I didn't want "a better life", I just didn't want to die drunk because I had come to hate being drunk more than hating being between drinks. I finally asked for help, and with the detox came a three month rehab, AA, and gestalt therapy. I began my detox with promising to myself I would not never get drunk ever again, no matter what, I was done. My detox was hell for three weeks. When i started to get with it, I really took off like a rocket, and I recovered within three months, moved out of the rehab, and graduated from AA. Its been a wild joyride ever since, including the good and the bad trips in those rides, and I'm still sober and clean, as promised, and lovin' it, lol.
My brain still has phantom sensations, some stronger than others, none of them lasting longer than a few minutes. Interestingly, I'm having whole leg and foot sensations, weird, because my foot was amputated back in 1982, a year after I sobered up. This was elective surgery too, the idea of removing the foot at the ankle, so as to have room to fit an artificial foot to the custom orthorsis full length device. Before the foot surgery, I had like a 4" cork lift, and the boot was permanetly attached to the steel double-upright locked knee brace. The boot did not rotate, having only forward and backward limited movement, and the artifical foot which was attached following the Symes surgery (foot amputation at ankle) had 360 degrees of adjustable movement. My walking really improved with that adaption, and so that surgery was successful too.
I'm able to flex my hip and buttock muscles now without flooding myself with pain, since the hip is now unfused, and these flexings are bring back interesting sensations of how I was before the surgery when I was a boy aged 12. It feels awesome to have my hips move independently. I feel whole and healthy. The fusion had forced me to feel disabled and unfulfilled. My drinking alcohol took on a singular purpose of numbing me out from the harsher realities of what the hip fusion and the hardware attached to my femur forced me to feel. Unfortunately, alcohol worked so well, that I was completely already a chronic alcoholic by age 15. My alcoholic mind called the shots ongoing until I finally quit age 24. By then, I had did a jail stint, and a mental hospital 3 night lockup, and I still drank and drugged for several years there after. Severe consequences did not help me to quit drinking, although they certainly caused me to withdraw from society, and hole-up with my drinking. I simply dropped out to stay out of more trouble. Lonliness is such a cold, barren, unrelenting existence when one desires the pain more then the cure. Again, alcohol solved my problems until they didn't. It was in the last year or so that i simply could not drink enough to numb me out anymore. I would black out before the joys of numbness was reached. I was really getting to the end of the end.
My detox at 24 saved me. I didn't want sobriety, i didn't want God, and I didn't want "a better life", I just didn't want to die drunk because I had come to hate being drunk more than hating being between drinks. I finally asked for help, and with the detox came a three month rehab, AA, and gestalt therapy. I began my detox with promising to myself I would not never get drunk ever again, no matter what, I was done. My detox was hell for three weeks. When i started to get with it, I really took off like a rocket, and I recovered within three months, moved out of the rehab, and graduated from AA. Its been a wild joyride ever since, including the good and the bad trips in those rides, and I'm still sober and clean, as promised, and lovin' it, lol.
Adventures In SpaceTime
Thread Starter
Join Date: Jun 2008
Location: Ottawa, Canada
Posts: 5,827
I'm now like 9 days out from my surgery, and feeling good. I'm only doing half-doses now of my pain meds throughout the day, so things are really improving with the post-surgery pain. Soon enough, I'll be done with those pain meds. I still can only get out of bed for less than 15 minutes at a time and feel comfortable, although I can do so several times a day. I'm getting there.
I'll have to have all my pants tailored, lol.
I've gotten a bit irritable being housebound, and as soon as I can manage, I'll go for a ride about town, and get some fresh air. I don't always accomplish being a good patient, and I'll need to check myself a bit more, and be a bit more tolerant.
I've read thru the thread several times now and again, and I'm comforted. Thanks for that, it helps. Even having 31 years of sobriety dosen't make time fly by any faster, lol. I'm an impatient patient.
I still can only get out of bed for less than 15 minutes at a time and feel comfortable, although I can do so several times a day. I'm getting there. I'll have to have all my pants tailored, lol.
I've gotten a bit irritable being housebound, and as soon as I can manage, I'll go for a ride about town, and get some fresh air. I don't always accomplish being a good patient, and I'll need to check myself a bit more, and be a bit more tolerant.
I've read thru the thread several times now and again, and I'm comforted. Thanks for that, it helps. Even having 31 years of sobriety dosen't make time fly by any faster, lol. I'm an impatient patient.
Self recovered Self discovered
Join Date: Aug 2011
Location: Toronto Canada
Posts: 5,148
It's a beautiful day today, Robby, and I have a strong feeling that you know this very well. So great to hear about the success of your surgery, I was pullin' for ya.
SoberOutlook
Join Date: Mar 2011
Posts: 3,089
Robby, I am so happy for you for your relief. And I thank you for sharing what you are going through and what you've been through.
I really hope you will consider counseling. Not going to one, but becoming one. You could help so many people with your experience. Your judgment, insight, and intellect is spot on, as is the compassion in your heart, from what I read.
Thanks again for sharing!
I really hope you will consider counseling. Not going to one, but becoming one. You could help so many people with your experience. Your judgment, insight, and intellect is spot on, as is the compassion in your heart, from what I read.
Thanks again for sharing!
Member
Join Date: Dec 2010
Location: San Diego
Posts: 4,451
No kidding, Lofty. I'm just waiting until the staples come out before I ask him to be my life coach...
Rob, congrats to you and Melissa on bringing home two new cats. Seems like a pretty sweet deal all the way around.
Rob, congrats to you and Melissa on bringing home two new cats. Seems like a pretty sweet deal all the way around.
Adventures In SpaceTime
Thread Starter
Join Date: Jun 2008
Location: Ottawa, Canada
Posts: 5,827
I'm feeling tall, proud, and humbled, guys. Thanks for that. Your messages of encouragement and affirmation speed my healing, I'm sure.
Another day begins for us to do it right, and for those on the otherside of the sea waters, another day having done right.
Another day begins for us to do it right, and for those on the otherside of the sea waters, another day having done right.
Adventures In SpaceTime
Thread Starter
Join Date: Jun 2008
Location: Ottawa, Canada
Posts: 5,827
Thanks, Pam, the furbabies are doing just great with us. They sometimes sleep together at the foot of our bed, and are getting more playful with each other. They are becoming friends. For us, it really takes off the sharpness of our loss of Susie. Cats being cats, they do similar things, and we are reminded of Susie in many ways, and this too comforts us. There is something to be said with how sincere and powerful is the instinctive companionship and love experienced with pets of all kinds. Life is a wonderful, beautiful, amazing thing made even more so without alcohol dumbing it down.
Just had another bandage change, and the wounds continue to heal. Almost dry now, no more fluid blisters, so we'll change out the bandages every three days instead of on every second day. Next week on Tuesday, my surgeon examines his work, and my progress, and hopefully removes the staples along the two incisions. That would be way cool, and marks the end of the wounds procedures. Internal healing continues and my hip and femur will be out of the danger zone in another 6 to 8 weeks. Then the danger of wrecking the whole thing in a accidental fall will be greatly lessened. Awesome.
I continue to have increased movement and decreased pain. Way awesome! Melissa and I drove for take-out pizza Sunday night, about 30 mintues return, and although my stump pain spiked, it did have a ceiling, and so, its manageable. Now two days later, the ceiling is even lower, and this is a great improvement. My stump can now clearly feel hot and cold, and sensations when touched. Last week, I felt nothing but numbness, so this is great! I'm still steadily reducing my pain meds even in the face of increased movement. Awesome.
Going to go for another short drive today. Feeling better to be able to get out of the house, lol. Looks like next week will be the last of it, and my recent surgery will be another paged turned on this remakable happy ending journey. Thanks everybody for your comments, and encouragements.
They sometimes sleep together at the foot of our bed, and are getting more playful with each other. They are becoming friends. For us, it really takes off the sharpness of our loss of Susie. Cats being cats, they do similar things, and we are reminded of Susie in many ways, and this too comforts us. There is something to be said with how sincere and powerful is the instinctive companionship and love experienced with pets of all kinds. Life is a wonderful, beautiful, amazing thing made even more so without alcohol dumbing it down. Just had another bandage change, and the wounds continue to heal. Almost dry now, no more fluid blisters, so we'll change out the bandages every three days instead of on every second day. Next week on Tuesday, my surgeon examines his work, and my progress, and hopefully removes the staples along the two incisions. That would be way cool, and marks the end of the wounds procedures. Internal healing continues and my hip and femur will be out of the danger zone in another 6 to 8 weeks. Then the danger of wrecking the whole thing in a accidental fall will be greatly lessened. Awesome.
I continue to have increased movement and decreased pain. Way awesome! Melissa and I drove for take-out pizza Sunday night, about 30 mintues return, and although my stump pain spiked, it did have a ceiling, and so, its manageable. Now two days later, the ceiling is even lower, and this is a great improvement. My stump can now clearly feel hot and cold, and sensations when touched. Last week, I felt nothing but numbness, so this is great! I'm still steadily reducing my pain meds even in the face of increased movement. Awesome.
Going to go for another short drive today. Feeling better to be able to get out of the house, lol. Looks like next week will be the last of it, and my recent surgery will be another paged turned on this remakable happy ending journey. Thanks everybody for your comments, and encouragements.
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