I remember being exhausted when Jacob was a baby. Little sleep, constant breast-feeding – I thought I was going to lose my mind. The first night Jacob slept through the night in the crib in his own room, I was beyond ecstatic. Finally, I could sleep and believe me, I was a much nicer person to be around!
What I feel now, isn’t quite the same. I sleep, but not like I used to. Like clockwork, I seem to wake up at 3AM, and I can’t seem to really sleep passed 7:30AM if I fall back asleep. I don’t really nap now that I’m doing better, but I definitely have times when I feel like I could. For instance, I literally fell asleep after doing some more difficult physical therapy exercises at home recently. My PT calls it “Superman”; it looks like swimming in the air and it is incredibly challenging. In fact, I had to work my way up to it with prep exercises. Mom said she came to check on me because I’d been gone so long, and there I was, out cold. I don’t even remember falling asleep.
Mom and I try to go out to stores and malls so I can walk and get exercise, but some days, I swear I can barely pick up my legs because my knees are stiff or my balance is off because my legs feel like jello. My lower half is just not as strong, but I know I’m improving based on my PT. I still can’t get off the floor without having to get on all fours and grip a wall. Bending still remains an issue too, but doing the PT exercises that involve squats and lunges are helping me to build up my endurance and strength.
A lot of this I believe I’ve mentioned before, but after dinner with Andi’s family the other night, it really hit me that my stamina is not where it once was. Mom and I were only at Andi’s house may be 3 hours, and when I got home, I was so exhausted, I ended up going to bed early and sleeping through most of the night. I still can’t believe how tired I was. I didn’t have to do anything. I just talked to the adults and tried to entertain the kids, but it’s not like I had to chase them around – mostly it was talking and showing interest. It seemed easy, but I guess my poor body found it exhausting. So this made me think… how am I going to handle taking care of Joshua – let alone going back to work? I didn’t have to take care of Andi’s kids, but with Joshua… he’s going to require lots of attention. I have a feeling grandma and abuela are going to be helping me out for a while until I can do it myself without the need to fall asleep. As for work, if a few hours of eating, talking and watching kids draw, tuckered me out, I know there’s no way I can handle 5 classes of demanding teenagers. I probably couldn’t last much over an hour. I hate to admit that because it makes me feel weak and vulnerable, but I need to be realistic. I need time to recover – whether I like it or not.
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Then this is what I'll pray for you this evening and every time the Lord puts you on my heart. Keep that chin up and do continue to be realistic because you do need to let your body heal before conquering the world again =).
I used to have a job that required me to be in interviews for a full day at a time, and I remember that I was always exhausted after those days of interviewing. I think active listening and responding is just draining for some reason!