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1:49am April 9, 2013

I think it took me between two and four days to go from zero independent bed mobility to full independence.

I did it with no coaching from anyone except someone pointing out how to breathe to minimize pain.

After a day of total rest, today I sat up on the edge of the bed with minimal pain.

I accomplished all this by myself. Nobody told me how to do it. Nobody held me as I turned to the side of the bed. Nobody was even there.

I should have had physical therapy there using their expertise to teach me ways to do it. Celebrating each tiny improvement. Telling me that I could rest now and learn a little more tomorrow.

But my physical therapist was an ass who prizes hares over tortoises and therefore would have prevented me learning any of that by pushing me to collapse.

I think I’m going much faster as a tortoise.

Maybe sometime I will post every little step I took. Every single one was an accomplishment. And nobody was around to congratulate me, because to them quitting PT is giving up. They only started congratulating me after I accomplished the entire bedpan routine with no assistance moving myself. And they were surprised, when I had been working under their noses all along.

Really, really, nobody is so lazy they’d prefer a bedpan without some serious impairment that prevented them comfortably using other kinds of toilets. Patients aren’t all going to remain on bedpans the rest of our lives if we aren’t pushed. WTF.

Last year I was so sick and weak I shit the bed copiously. The nurses were frantic. They thought that if I did that I’d get used to it and never use a commode or toilet again. Get an effing grip, people.