Better Than Expected...Now to Try Some New Things

When I last wrote, my future was very unclear to me. At this point, my future is still unclear, but I know that I will NOT be having to rearrange all sorts of stuff to accommodate surgery. Turns out that I have a partial tendon rupture in my left middle finger to go along with a fractured left ring finger, but my hand specialist thinks that three months of splinting will heal things up a bit.

Now, while I am grateful that I am not trying to juggle two interns and significant time off from work, I am still a bit scared about what this hand injury means for my future, but I am going to try to focus on other things now. Thank you for reading about this. 2020 has really been strange, hunh?

So, me and my very strong left-side dominant self are trying to figure out how I am going to do even the most basic of things. My recent self-care practices are on hold because I can't use my left hand to do much of anything. Writing is out, typing is difficult, but I still need to be engaging in self-care as well as in my other goals for the year. Everything has to be done with my right side these days, so I feel like I am having to relearn EVERYTHING!

After my ACL replacement in 2015, I stated that I thought that every helping professional should go through therapy as a client at least once in their lives to experience what it feels like on the other side of the relationship. I'm now back, experiencing that role again, and I hope that it will be as enlightening now as it was. We will see.

The most interesting part of all of this is trying to figure out how to do things when half of my body has severe restrictions. I did not realize how much my hands work together until I was restricted from lifting more than one pound with my left hand. There isn't much in my world that is less than one pound, so I am having to tuck that hand into my side to keep from using it in ways that will be detrimental to my recovery. I will be very cognizant of this current limitation because I need a functioning hand and set of fingers again.

I have figured out some music therapy hacks for my upcoming sessions - I have a keyboard that has Casio Chord on it - such a great little invention from Casio! With it, I can control the accompaniment with one or two fingers on my right hand and get music that will do. I usually use guitar exclusively, so three months of playing the keyboard will be good for me! I have set out my session strategies for the next two weeks of sessions, and I have a list of visual aids that I need to make to use with clients next week. I can design digital files without having to use my left hand too much, so I'm thinking that may be my main creative outlet for some time. I can't use scissors or play with paper or crochet, so it seems that digital creations and reading will be my self-care practices these days.

I think there may be another Persephone story coming soon, but who knows? Thank you so much for being here!!