#Blogtober20 – Day 6

As I sit here trying to type this, my multiple personalities seem to get in the way. No, I don’t really have a condition where I have multiple personalities, but sometimes my bipolar disorder makes me feel as though I have more than one character running the ship, up in my head.

It’s almost like my brain is on a spectrum: on one side is the mania and on the other is the depression. Since bipolar disorder is actually a spectrum, my brain can fall in the center or in any position on this infinite line. There are certain characteristics that come out to “play” depending on where my head is at for the day, the hour, or even the moment.

Today I was in a decent enough mood. Today was the day I was going to go to my post-op appointment and finally get out of the house! My mom drove me to my appointment; not that I couldn’t drive myself, but it was easier if she did so. I turned the music up loud, and rolled down the window so I could vape. The crisp, Autumn air felt amazing as we made the thirty minute drive to the orthopedic surgeon.

I used my crutches to make the 100 foot dash to the front desk. Afterwards I was completely wiped out. My mother got me a wheel chair so I wouldn’t have to exert so much energy and I was very relieved. The medical assistant escorted me to the x-ray room, which I found interesting because this didn’t happen the last time I had surgery.

Once I saw the pins and screws in my foot from the x-ray, I knew that was why I got the x-ray to begin with. I quickly snapped a picture of it because I thought it was neat.

Next step was to get the 10+ stitches out of three incisions in my foot. The biggest incision (being the fourth) was above my knee cap, but they used dissolvable stitches for that one since it was much larger than the incision pictured above. Getting stitches out is never pleasant, but it felt so good to get them out so they would stop itching me.

Next the doctor came in and showed me pictures from my surgery. She said I was doing a great job with icing my knee and the swelling wasn’t too bad. She said it was normal for my knee to hurt more than my ankle. My foot was very tingly in sensation, but I could feel her touching my foot, so that was a good sign. She said my x-ray looks perfect and the pins and the cartilage from my knee is where it’s supposed to be in my foot, which is right below where the vertical pin ends on the x-ray.

Doc said this may not be my last surgery depending on how the cartilage and scar tissue grows out. But it really depends on how my foot feels after recovery is complete and I can make the determination if I want to have a third surgery or not. She did say that since she wants me to move my foot around, I could take off my first cast and go into a walking boot, but I cannot bear weight on this foot for a total of four more weeks.

This was great news considering I thought it would be a 10 week recovery rather than a 6 week recovery. I also thought I would go into another annoying cast rather than the comfortable boot so I was thrilled! Well as thrilled as one gets during major surgery recovery… I can bear weight on Election Day, November 3rd. I can also start physical therapy soon to get the mobility in my foot up and going.

Then I get the news on my way home from my doctor’s appointment that I may potentially lose my job because my leave of absence was not approved by HR. In my defense, if I had to call HR to get time off for an unpaid leave of absence, I would have. But my supervisor didn’t tell me I had to call HR, nor did any of the upper management that I talked to in regard to my surgery. HR told me that no supervisor had the authority to approve a leave of absence that was unpaid and I asked her if that was the case, why didn’t the plethora of supervisors I talked to about my absence tell me they lacked authority to approve it then. She didn’t have an answer for me.

The HR lady then told me she would tell me tomorrow if “she could continue with my employment or not”. So I gotta have one sleepless night before I know if I have a job come Monday. Nothing is more frustrating to me considering I didn’t do anything wrong; I did everything by the book, as far as my knowledge and supervisor’s knowledge went.

I mean, I don’t even remotely like this job, but I liked that it gave me a decently sized paycheck every two weeks and yeah, that’s literally the only thing I liked about it. I wanted to tough it out until January so I could then quit and focus on my education full time. But if I lose my job tomorrow, I don’t really see it as much of a loss because it didn’t do anything for me. But if I get to keep it, I would be highly surprised and would try to at least leave on good terms so I could put it on my resume.

My day went from great to subpar pretty damn fast. I feel rather bitter and a little resentful, which is unlike me even with how crazy I am. I kind of went off topic because this post was originally about how I drive myself crazy with my multitude of feelings and emotions, but I figure getting my feelings out here was more important than the integrity and organization of a blog post.

I’ll see what happens tomorrow, but in the meantime, I’ll be looking at job posts and applying to what I can.

Much love,

Dani