SORRY!!

Hi all,

I am sorry it has been more than a week since I posted. I definitely underestimated how badly surgery would suck and since my shoulder joint ended up having to be tightened...I have 6 weeks in a sling and a much longer road to feeling better and mobility. It is also pretty impossible to type one-handed in a sling (I feel like I have never used a computer before), but that is just one thing in a list of actions that you wouldn't realize are hard one-handed until you try them, and then it takes you 5 times the time it normally would to complete the task. These annoying tasks include:

• Putting on a shirt. At first I could only put one arm in, but as I have gotten better, I can now shimmy the skirt up over my legs and onto my arm, or can put the arm hole in over my arm when it is straight down. This requires a lot of energy, and has prompted me to go shopping in a store for people who prefer lose fitting clothing, or...well...fat people.
• Putting on and taking off a bra. The bra clips are just too tight to maneuver and I have to now buy ones that clip in front. 
• 99% of showering. I usually wash my hair and take shampoo, conditioner, and face wash out of the bottle using both hands...and now that is impossible. I also cannot wash my back with soap...or really clean off the good arm. I have been relegated to the days where my mother has to help me clean.
• Shaving. Obviously when you can't lift your arm it is pretty crazy to under arm shave. I have to do it with a straight arm and blindly guess what is going on under there. It is pretty intense.
• Putting on contacts. For me, this is a two handed job (one hand for the opposite eye), and it is just a pain now. I have been wearing glasses a LOT more.
• Ripping toilet paper. Yes, I am serious.
• Pulling up pants. I wish I was kidding with this one but one handed pulling up pants cannot occur in one swooping motion. Instead it feels like that thing in math where if you do half of something, and then half of something again, you can never actually get there.
• Opening a pill bottle. I cannot deal with child proofing for the life of me.
• Swallowing pills. Since I cannot carry water in one hand and the pill in the other, and have to take a lot of pills, this is complicated.
• Doing hair. I usually wear my hair in a high ponytail and this is pretty impossible now. I have just now begun to be able to brush it myself, but I definitely can't put it up on my own for 6 weeks at least. I then chopped most of it off to help my mother (she has short hair and thinner hair and I think my hair is a nightmare for her to have to do).
• Tying shoes. This is SO hard one-handed that I have decided to buy velcro or slip-on sneakers. Are these still in style for "adults"?? If not, I should probably just get ones that light up.
• Cutting my food. This is absolutely a two-handed job and it further makes me feel like a little kid.
• Driving. It is illegal to drive in a sling and I therefore can't drive until 4 weeks from today. When you live 30 minutes away from your friends, this limitation is particularly challenging as you feel <16, and well, lame.

So, now that you know how completely useless and basically Benjamin Button-ized I have become, you will understand why my blogging will not be as frequent as it was for at least 4 more weeks. But, in good news, I am headed to Yale next year for medical school! I got the call I got off the waitlist post-surgery and I actually told the dean I needed time to think about it because I was "a little off and drugged up" from surgery. Sometimes I wish I had a filter....