Try and Fail. But Keep on Trying. (Week 4 of a Cast)

I've started working on repainting my son's room with him. Normally, such an activity wouldn't be a blip on my radar, but I've decided to take this task on with him while in a cast and knee crutch. Is it a bit too much for me and crazy? Some might say yes. Obviously, I'm ensuring that I'm safe and that I'm not putting myself at risk. I'm in my iWalk 2.0 and am getting around like a pirate who's lost his leg. Is it easy? No. But I am able to move furniture, lift and carry things and, most importantly, paint.

You Are What You Allow Yourself to Be

I have made a choice to continue to live as normal of a life as I can while I'm in a cast. I go to work, help with dinner, putting kids to bed, cleaning and the like. Am I doing all the physical activities that I normally would do in the summertime? No. I am not mowing the lawn and have kept gardening work to a minimum, but I want to set the example for my children and for myself: I am not an invalid. I am recovering from an injury and have chosen to be positive and to be active while I'm healing. I do not wish to be a lump or have people wait on me.

For those who are recovering from an injury, permanently injured and even trying to embark on a challenging task (like my fellow authors out there): It is extremely easy to give up. To say:

"I'm not going to exercise today. I'm not going to start my next book. I surrender. Woe is me."

I have not chosen that path. My choices don't make me better than other people. It simply means that I've decided to go a different route that works for me. In my mind, I am choosing to be active and to continue with my life in a way that will help me. I want my children to see that not only am I working on my next book, but I'm also continuing to help (as best I can) around the house.

It's all in my mind. I choose to be and do.

But Here's the Reality

Let me pull the curtain back so that you can see really what's happening behind the scenes. I became injured on June 26th. Today it's August 2nd. I went a few days of being in pain, doctor visits, MRI and the like, but I had made a promise to myself to start writing my next novel. I started doing that on Monday, June 30. Since that time, I've written 12,147 words. Not as much as I would have liked, but I'm 32 pages in. I'm expecting to write around 90,000 words so I've a long way to go.

Yesterday I woke up late and didn't have time to do any novel writing. I had been at work the night before until 6:30 and didn't get home until almost 8 pm. By the time I helped with kids, ate, caught up on email, it was time for bed. I was exhausted. Being on the knee crutch, walking around and trying to get places, tires me out. I woke up Friday morning late and gave myself the day off from writing the novel.

I've been grumpy at night and sore (knee hurts, upper body hurts from pulling myself up and down stairs). I still have at least 17 days until the cast is on. Honestly, I don't know what the doctor will find: Take cast off, reposition my foot and have cast longer, who knows!

The point is that I don't know the future. I don't know how much longer I'll be recovering. There isn't going to be a magical time in which the stars align and then I'm ready to go for my next challenge in my life. The challenge is now. If I don't write my next book, it's not going to get done. It just won't. I cannot tell you how many people I have met who have said that they want to write a book, but then change their mind or just never do it.

The world is not meant to create for you. You can create the world.

Instead of being passive, I struggle really hard on being active. Active in mind, spirit and heart. Does it get me in trouble? Yes, it does. I've lashed out in anger and frustration when I'm tired or weak. Last night my wife and I finished eating pizza with the kids and we went upstairs to paint. The kids were to take showers and we would paint. I got suited up, my wife went to finish sanding a part of the ceiling that I had spackled and didn't sand enough and I tried to pour paint into a red cup so that I could do the cutting in around the windows. I spilled the paint from the gallon and a big splash fell on my foot, ruining my old pair of shoes and getting on my ankle and all onto a towel I had on the floor.

My wife tried to help but I just wanted to be left alone. She was trying to be calm and reasonable and in my head I was tired, frustrated and just wanted to be out of the damn cast. But that wasn't reality. We argued a bit and I was an ass. I asked her to leave the room and did the work myself. I just wanted to have the space to not have anyone around me. To focus and to just clean up my own mess and be left to myself. Was it the responsible and adult thing to do? How I responded was not one of my prouder moments, but I wanted to share this story because I'm not perfect. I screw up all the time. What I want to do is learn, grow and be.

My son's room is about 1/3 of the way done. I imagined that he and I would paint it all. He helped a bit, but he's only 11 and can only reach so much. My wife has offered to help but, in all honesty, she had no desire to get involved in this crazy project that my son and I talked about a few months ago. The project has expanded to be more complex because I needed to peel off all the glow in the dark stars on the ceiling, take all the silly puddy like sticky stuff that held the stars on, clean the walls, prime them (2 coats of primer) paint the walls, do the windows and windowsills (I had forgotten that they are blue), put a coat of polyurethane on the hardwood floors and but all the shit back into the room. And I'm in a cast and can't bear weight on my left leg.

What was I thinking, right? I see goals and like to reach for the stars. I never thought I could write a book. I have written four novels and a good many short stories. I never thought I'd run a marathon. I've done three and about a dozen 10+ mile races. I never thought I'd amount to much in my life when I was little because of how shitty my upbringing was with a dad who beat my mom and abandoned his family, but after a lot of work on myself, I've turned out okay. Am I perfect? God, no. But when I see others with such adversity struggle to do better in their lives, those people give me hope.

And that's what I wanted to share. I wanted to share the dirt and grime of the back story of something as simple as "painting a room while in a cast." But forget the specific example, I'm hoping that you can apply what I've learned and use it to overcome your own challenges--whatever that might be. If my writing can help inspire even just one person, then I would be happy. Life is messy. It's complicated. It's always easier to see how nice someone else has it, but that's probably because you're only seeing what the person allows you to see.

You're not seeing (thank God!) when I'm in the shower and I am having a hard time getting washed. I have a medical chair in there with me, but trying to soap up and get parts of my body and not fall is difficult.

I miss putting both my feet on the ground and stretching up at the sun and taking in a deep breath and feeling the sun on my face. That natural balance, so easy, simple and pure, has been uprooted from me and in the most simplest of ways I have changed temporarily. But as life has thrown me a curve ball, so I'm learning to adapt though I keep screwing up along the way.

I will keep writing my novel. It might take me longer than I had hoped, but I will finish. I will finish painting my son's room though I might need help and it'll take longer than I expected. But more than all that, I'm becoming someone different from the experiences that I'm living and, for me, that's a good thing. I now know what it's like to limp around for weeks trying to go to work and live a normal life, but in some areas, can't. And for you, what do you struggle with and are trying to overcome? I truly believe that one step, one crawl forward, one mental change of pace is all that's needed to overcome the biggest obstacle in front of us. It won't be easy, it might seem impossible, but there is always a way. Never give up.

---

Ron Vitale is the author of the Cinderella's Secret Diaries series who hopes that his own children will overcome any obstacles in their way and find their own happily ever after.

Life Sucks and then You Die (Week 2 of Wearing a Cast)

Getting around on the iWalk 2.0.

For those of you stumbling on this page first, I'll recap: I tore my Achilles and am in a cast for 6 weeks. Week two is done. I've been thinking about what to write this week and I want to be open and honest. There's a catch phrase that I've used throughout the years when I was going through a rough time: "Life sucks and then you die." It's my attempt at a joke and allowing the negativity within me to get out. At the core, that's what I want to focus on in this post: Negativity and how to overcome it.

This was a long and difficult week. I'm in a cast for four more weeks and the experience that I'm sharing is about how I have felt. Yet there's some key points here that I believe can transcend my pitiful little problems. I'm in a cast for a good while yet and then will have go to physical therapy to learn how to walk/run again. Other people are dealing with cancer, their children are sick and a whole host of other issues. In the grand scheme of things, Ygritte would look at me, shake her head and say, "You know nothing Jon Snow." I get that. I totally do.

With that being said, it's still been a rough week. I need to say that and own it. I think what's sunk in is that I have a temporary disability. I am hindered and unable to do activities as I normally would. I cannot easily do my wash, take a shower, cook, go to the bathroom in the middle of the night or carry things. I'm in a cast and am either using crutches because I cannot put any weight on my left foot or I'm using the iWalk (more on that in a bit). Unable to do the activities that I normally could means that either: A) I don't do them at all and let them go. B) Ask for help.

I really hate asking for help. I like being self-sufficient but that's not possible in some circumstances. The challenges of getting around (up and down stairs), going to work, getting to meetings, etc. is wearing on me. It's eating away at my self-confidence and dealing with fatigue in trying to do things that take me three times as long is a pain in the ass. Putting my clothes away on crutches sucks.

But I did mention that I'm using the iWalk 2.0. It's basically a knee crutch. I kneel in it, strap it on my leg and on my way I go. What's surprised me is the amount of people who feel free to comment on me as I'm walking by: "Hey, that looks painful." Or: "I've never seen that before. You look like a pirate now." All sorts of people come up and make comments as though I'm their best friend. I've thickened my shell up and explain what it is and lumber on my way.

Yet having to keep dealing with people who come up to me (as I'm slow as hell trying to get along) does get draining. I'm having a hard enough of a time just trying to get to my car. I'm not really in the mood for a conversation.

The negativity of this week and of my injury has coalesced itself into a little ball and it's been a challenge to shake that negativity. I have my note in front of my computer at home:

I will be okay. One day at a time. Be positive!

Yes, it does help and along with the Alex's Lemonade Stand Foundation bracelet I'm wearing to remind me that kids are dying of cancer and they're still moving forward puts my situation in perspective. But the negativity is still in my head and I'm tired, beat and weak.

I've made a conscious choice to work on accepting the negativity and dealing with it. I could allow my inner voice to win and agree that life sucks and then you die or I can choose to be positive. To be honest, I've walked down both paths this week. There have been moments in which I'm trying to get to bed at night and look at the stairs as I sit on them and drag myself up them and just want to quit. To curl up on the ground and just throw in the towel and wake up in the morning and say, "Fuck it."

But that's not the whole story. I am working on getting my schedule back. In the morning I am alternating the days between writing and exercise. Sunday I will exercise, Monday write, Tuesday exercise, Wednesday write, Thursday exercise, Friday and Saturday write. I want to keep moving forward because I know that sitting back and allowing myself to have a pity party isn't going to solve my problems. Instead I want to focus on options that will help in moving forward. And that's what I want to share here.

I have a three step plan that has helped me move on. Ready?

Step 1: Admit How I Feel and Share those Feelings

Almost 20 years ago I wrote my thesis for my MA in English Lit on a Jungian interpretation of the works of Margaret Atwood and Alice Walker. I showed how the main characters in their books overcame difficult situations (rape, abuse, major family dysfunction dynamics) by telling their story, admitting their feelings and letting go. Here, let me try it now.

I feel helpless. I'm frustrated and tired of being on crutches and the iWalk. I want to be able to do things with my kids that I can't. I'm trying to be patient, but it's hard.

Just remember to set a time limit.

There, I did it. The key in this step, that I have learned, is to set a limited amount of time for this phase. If we get caught in The Loop (coined by Karen McGrane in here fantastically awesome talk "I suck! And so Do You!"), then we'll spin our circles and never get anywhere. When I was in therapy many years ago, my counselor told me about broken tapes in our head. There's a song playing and it keeps getting stuck on certain parts. If we allow ourselves to fixate on that part and never move past it, we'll be stuck ourselves. To overcome that, he recommended that I gave myself permission to allow the negative thoughts to roam free in my head. Start at 10 minutes, then focus on stopping them. Then maybe later in the day 5 minutes, then stop them, etc. Overtime I'd be learning to exercise my willpower and would learn to overcome the negative thoughts.

And for me, that's the key. My wife and I often get into discussions about this: She tells me that I'm often negative and I would argue realistic. The outside world sees me as positive, someone who doesn't give up and keeps striving to move on and do better. But my wife gets to hear my negativity, partly because I trust her and need to release the negative energy, embrace my situation and then move on. Sometimes it takes me longer to let something go. Broken relationships took me years to get over when I was in my 20s. The scars marked my soul and hurt me deeply. I trusted people with my most intimate self and was hurt and betrayed by them. Yet now I look back and realize that I was able to let that go. And a new thought has replaced it: Those relationships didn't last for whatever reasons (I wasn't mature enough or they weren't able to commit, whatever), but I can now say to myself: It wasn't worth investing my precious time with them. They didn't want to spend time with me and it wasn't worth my energy investment. I can choose where I spend my time and share my love. I'm not the victim.

And that's the key point: I am not a victim in being temporarily disabled to bring this back to my current situation. I had an accident, it happened, and it sucks, but what am I going to do about it? Fixate on it and complain all the time? Give up? No. That's not the best way forward.

Step 2: Get off My Ass

Once I admit how I feel and then let it go, now it's time for a plan. I already mentioned it early: I set a schedule for writing and exercising. There's a couple of reasons for why I did this. I've promised myself that I was going to start my next novel on coming back from vacation (6/30). I didn't know at the time that I would be in pain, a swollen foot and on crutches. I had a couple of options here. I could have blown the writing off and settled down when I had more time, felt better or when the green fairy would shine her light on me to awaken my muse. All of those excuses would be bullshit so I started writing. I was trying to write everyday, but found it hard to have time to plot, come up with ideas, and to juggle other things in my life. I started working exercise into my schedule because I wanted to work on strengthening my arms, stretching my back and to work on my core. Doing this in a cast is hard. Talk with your doctor about what you can and cannot do. Be sensible.

I'll be honest in that when I started my next book there have been days in which the writing was good and several that it just sucks. The scenes are flat, I don't know what the characters are saying or doing and I'm just going through the motions. But I'm not giving up. I'm writing through the hard parts and taking the off days to focus on exercise so that I can have time to not think about the writing. This off and on schedule helped me write the Cinderella's Secret Diaries series and I'm hoping it'll help me get through this next book (a science fiction one!).

It helps. Really.

Getting off my ass means that I stop having a pity party for myself and to focus on activities that I can do. I want to help around the house. I have cleaned bathrooms with my iWalk 2.0, gone food shopping by myself (just did that this morning in between writing this blog post and you never noticed I went away for a bit) and took the kids to several stores to go shopping. I will admit that none of this is easy on the iWalk. Yes, I can do it, but I have to be careful that I don't misstep and fall and that I'm balancing okay. I can't go fast, and if I'm on the knee crutch too long, my left knee starts to bother me a bit.

But the other option is that I get nothing done and sit around like a lump and I don't want to do that. I want to help myself and be helpful for my family. There are no house elves who come and clean up the house. Yes, I can't do everything that I would like and there's work, kids in camp, dinner, cleaning, wash, dishes to put away, trash to take out, watering the garden, mowing the lawn and lots of other domestic chores that have become the bane of my existence. But I try and can do some of the chores. My wife is doing some, my kids and our morning and afternoon babysitters. Work is getting done.

But here's a story: Last night my son was tired. It was near 9 pm at night and he wanted to go to bed. My wife asked him to go downstairs and transfer the wash into the dryer. As resistance and fighting was taking place, I walked downstairs on my iWalk and slipped the last two steps, landing, somewhat, on my hurt ankle. I've read blog posts from others who remember when they had fallen and landed on their bad leg. Well, the first time for me was last night. I should have just waited for my son and wife to work things out between them. I should have not gone down the stairs. Now I'm going through the process of beating myself and getting back into that negative loop. I can only let that go. I fucked up. I made a mistake. I tried to be superman on a crutch and could have gotten hurt really bad. Thankfully, I didn't (the leg feels okay today).

There's a balance between getting off my ass and trying to be a super hero. That's a hard line for me to balance because there's so much that I'm used to being able to do. Knowing when I'm tired and need to rest and being careful so I don't fall, can be a challenge. Something that seems simple, can be really difficult (walking to my car because the sidewalk is on a slight slant). The inner voice inside my head sometimes says: "Stay in bed, rest up, it'll be helpful for you." But at other times I hear, "Get up, do some writing, you're not helpless." Finding the balance between the two is an ongoing challenge for me. It's not easy. Some days I fail. Some days I do okay.

Step 3: Let Go and Be

I can't write a novel in a day. I can't magically jump up and have a healed leg. I can't solve all the world's problems. But I can learn to let go, ask for help, learn what I need to learn during this time and to share what I learn with others. This injury that I'm healing from is a bump in the road. A small bump but one that I'm learning a lot about myself and about those around me. I'm a writer. I can take this time and use it to feed my creativity and to also look around and share with others what I'm going through. Maybe someone might read this one day and be helped in a small way. Maybe not. I don't have a manual for living life. I screw up, make mistakes and all the rest just like everyone else, but I have found that these three steps help me get from "Life sucks and we all die" to a different place.

A place in which I can look at my life and see that I'm on a journey. Emerson wrote that "Life is a journey, not the destination" and that's so true. I don't know how long my journey will last and what I'll live through, but I can take stock of where I am now, today, and be thankful for that. I am writing a book, my fifth, and I look at that and am happy. I wanted to be a writer since I was around 8 years old. I'm 43 now. It's taken me a long time to get to where I am, to fall and pick myself up off the ground so that I can keep moving onward.

I know what my doctor has told me the date is for my cast coming off, but I'm not counting on that. I know that others who have had this sort of injury had to be in casts longer. I'm not looking at the finish line because I don't know what it all entails (how long will physical therapy take)? Five to six months before I can run again is a good amount of time. What am I going to do for exercise and to deal with the frustration I will encounter along the way? I don't know yet. What I do know is that I have family and friends who have offered to help me.

What I've learned during week two of the cast is that the biggest battle to be won is not the physical one, but the one inside my head. Negativity can pull you down. It can eat you up inside and crush the light out of your life. That's not good. I have chosen to fight against that and to use the skills I've learned from counseling many, many years ago to help me out today. I don't know what next week will bring. Honestly, I don't even know what the rest of this weekend will bring. But that's okay.

Yep, that's true.

We'll see what happens next week, but I'm doing my best to go with the flow. My biggest challenge is finding the balance between giving up and working too hard. I need to work on that. Sometimes it's better to put my leg up and just read rather than to push myself too hard an exercise. I need to work on listening to my inner voice and to give myself what I need so that I can heal and get better.

I wanted to share all of this because I'm hoping that maybe someone who has a similar injury might stumble upon this post and it'll help her. The journey that I'm on isn't really about me, but it's what I can share with others. Yesterday a colleague at work sent me a book by Karen McGrane. I recognized her name and remembered that I follow her on Twitter. I googled her and found her "I suck! And so do you!" talk and it was the right amount of kick in the butt that I needed. I thanked her for the honesty in her post and she wrote back:

"Hey, it makes me really happy to hear you got something from it. Thanks for letting me know!"

And that's the point of all of this: We can share and help each other. I like that. I like that a lot. Now I'm off and we'll see what week three has in store for me. Should be interesting. It always is.

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Ron Vitale is the author of the Cinderella's Secret Diaries series who hopes that his own children will find their own happily ever after.

Injury and Letting Go

Nothing like getting hurt on vacation...

It was all so innocent. I was playing racketball with my wife when I jumped up in the air and then came down hard on my left ankle. My wife told me that she had never seen such an animalistic look on my face before. For me, one minute I was up in the air, the next I felt this shooting pain in my left ankle and it hurt like hell. I limped off the court, tried to shake it off and couldn't. I was in pain. Lots of pain. My injury took place while on vacation last week. After going to urgent care, I had my leg wrapped up, given crutches and told to get see a specialist and not put any weight on my foot.

I'm a father of two, a runner and work full-time. The slow realization of my being temporarily disabled started to sink in. My wife and kids went to the boardwalk and I had to stay at home putting ice on my ankle and keeping it raised. When we came home from vacation, I realized that I couldn't do the simplest things: Carry a glass of water from the kitchen to the living room, cook dinner, do the wash, mow the lawn, go food shopping or even take a shower. My appointment to see the ortho specialist is later this week. In the meantime, I'm learning to relax, let go and adapt. And to be honest, I suck at all of that.

I'm the type of person who is up early, running 4 miles or writing each day and then heading off to work. Telling me to stay off my foot and then truly finding it challenging to do the simplest of things has been difficult for me. I just helped putting the kids' clothes away but balancing things on my head and around my neck so that I could use my crutches to get into the next room. Last night I hobbled outside with my crutches to cook chicken on the grill and I was more tired by the full day of upper body exertion than I've been after running 10 miles.

I've also had some time to reflect: For people who have a permanent disability or are sick and unable to help themselves, I look at my own situation and realize that I have no clue as to what true hardship is. I have taken for granted my ability to walk, run and get lots of work done. Now I'm being forced to slow down and re-evaluate where I can (and cannot) help. And worse, is that I have had to ask to help from my wife and kids. I grew up in a family in which the men (my grandfather and uncle) really didn't help out around the house. The women did all the cooking, cleaning, wash, etc. I vowed to not be that way and I will cook, clean, take trash out, put kids to bed, clean up after sick kids, whatever. It doesn't matter. I will do the job because I believe that it takes two to raise a family and run a household. Honestly, it takes a village because without help with the kids my wife and I wouldn't be able to get to work.

I have been trying to focus on the positive (thankfully there wasn't a fracture), but I do not yet know how severe my injury is and I wanted to write about this experience for myself but for others. I really don't know what tomorrow will bring and I am currently unable to do many of the things that I have taken for granted. I have some options: I can become negative, angry and frustrated or I can accept the help being offered to me and ask for help when I need it.

I expect that I'll be unable to run for weeks (maybe months). At this point, I simply want to be able to walk again. I do not like feeling helpless and I can understand why people with disabilities do not wish to be treated special. I like being able to do things for myself and to help others. But accepting help or asking for help, that's a whole different story.

It's difficult for me to ask for help because I see that as weakness and I also do not want others to think that I am taking advantage of them. I like to help rather than be helped. But for now, that's not possible. On Friday, I was watching the Today show and saw an interview with Amy Van Dkyken-Rouen. She is a two-time Olympian who has won 6 medals in swimming. About a month ago, she was in a near fatal ATV accident and is now paralyzed below the waist. Yet with all that has happened to her, she has chosen to remain positive and is working hard to relearn the skills she needs to be able to live her new life without the use of her legs.

I heard her story and compared it to my injury and several days of crutches and reflected on how fragile life is and how special. It also helped me put in perspective my small injury. There are times in life when we are at the top of our game and we feel invincible and then there are times when we fall (literally) and are injured and need time to recover. I hope that my injury will be one that I will heal from soon so that I can walk and run again. In the meantime, I'm trying hard to accept my condition and the help being offered to me. I am grateful that I do have family to help me, but I wish to make certain that I can repay them in kind in the future.

I'm scheduled to get up early and start writing my next novel tomorrow and I wanted to take this time to write this out so that I can capture in time when I was scared, tired and injured. I hadn't prepared for how difficult it would be getting around up and down stairs on crutches and how tired I've been at the end of the day (and how sore). When I write tomorrow, I'll have to relocate because I tend to sit on the sofa cross legged. I'll not be able to do that tomorrow and will need to write elsewhere early in the morning before anyone is up. I don't know how tired I'll be, but I was hoping to get some writing in before work. I don't know how long it will take me to write this next book and I surely didn't expect to be injured and have other challenges.

I wish I had something more insightful to share, but I wanted simply to show weakness, fear and to face it. I'm often told how impressive it is that I do so much, but I think it's just as important to share my darker moments and times when I fall. I am hurting, tired and worried. I admit and embrace that. We'll see what tomorrow brings.