Lingering gratitude and a rude awakening

Last night as I was trying to get to sleep, I thought over the events of the day, and the past month, and I was still so overwhelmed with gratitude that I couldn't fall asleep! I was experiencing such an abundance, that I almost felt a certain lack - a lack of ability to fully express how grateful I am. I kept thinking, "I need to say thank you again!" but also felt that no number of words could possibly ever do the trick. Pretty good problem to have, I guess!

This morning when I woke up, I felt pretty good, good enough to go for a little walk with my pooch. But alas, his leash was nowhere to be found. (Later discovered in Michael's car - drat!) In our previous walks, I have felt like I am probably to the point where I could even run a little, if Klaus's little legs were able to keep up (they aren't, and/or he's too lazy). So since I couldn't take Klaus with me anyway, I thought, "Today is the day! I'm going for a run!" I put a podcast on my phone, and off I went. And it was glorious! I would run for 7-8 minutes, then walk for a minute, then run again, and so on. It was about 20 minutes, and I thought that was probably enough for my first day hitting the pavement, so I headed toward my house. I passed a lady with her dog going the other way. I could see my house - I was across the street and a couple houses down from my final destination, still feeling pretty good.

And then I tripped.

The uneven sidewalk. It'll getcha every time. I thought I had it, that I could just run through it. Keep my momentum moving forward, and I would find my balance. I stumbled past a parked car, but decided not to use it to catch my balance (slamming into neighbor's parked car seemed a bad idea).

And then I was sliding into home, face first.

Ugh.

The lady walking her dog turned around. "Oh my gosh! Are you okay?!" I stayed still for a moment, trying to figure out what happened, but I realized both the dog lady and the yard work guy across the street were eagerly watching to make sure I hadn't broken anything. So I rolled over and got up, brushed myself off. "I'm okay. Just my dignity is damaged," I shouted back. "You sure??" "Yeah, I'm okay." I turned toward my house and started walking, trying to get a better sense of the real damage. My phone, which had endured a long scrape on the pavement, actually looked fine. Just the screen protector, which had clearly served its purpose, needed to come off because of all the dirt under it. Nothing was bleeding too bad, just scraped and bruised - both elbows, especially my left, my left hand and thumb especially, and a gigantic bruise on my left hip. A hole in my shorts.

Then I realized, "Oh my gosh, I just had surgery on my left side! Am I okay?" I looked down, and no damage done. With some pride, I noticed that my newbie boobie didn't hurt at all - I hadn't even noticed it! (Of course, it doesn't have any feeling, so maybe that's why...) But it still stood, looking artificially perky as ever, no damage done. Good job, boobie!

I limped (more in ego than in body) back to my house, the few more steps, feeling pretty discouraged. Here I'd felt so good, was getting a good start on the day by exercising, and the adventure ends with a face plant in sight of my house. What am I supposed to take from this??

Michael's mom has been staying with me, and she was up and about when I got in. "I biffed it," I said. "Oh no," she said, with appropriate motherly concern. She helped me get cleaned up, helped me get set up with some ice. After I'd calmed down a bit (between the pain and the frustration, there were some tears), I took a shower and got dressed, and asked her to help me get some bandages going. I pulled out the hydrogen peroxide and she tried to clean the biggest scrape... but holy CRAP that hurts! I said, "This hurts more than the mastectomy!!" which really is true, I think (though it didn't last as long). We gave up on that after a while and iced it some more, than put some neosporin and a big bandaid - at least I had plenty of those from my biopsy days. I took some Advil.

Now I'm at work, grumpy that I didn't get here until much later than I'd planned when I woke up feeling so good and energized. Boo. :(