Snow and snowflakes

[cornerofmadness]

So we're getting 1-3, 4-8 or 5-12 inches of snow depending on who you listen to. With my luck and location I'll end up with no power and stuck down in the holler so I prepped for that. I have a whole roasted chicken (not that good, the rotissiere chickens are always a crap shoot), half a pizza and half an order of fish and chips left over. I baked off a pound of bacon, hard boiled a dozen eggs (and have some avocados for egg/avocado sandwiches). made a pot of chicken dumpling soup, a pot of ham and cabbage soup, have jars of peanut butter, a pound of turkey lunch meat and two loaves of bread. I think that counts as prepped for no power. Of course I'm more likely to freeze but I have plenty of blankets and if we get that level of snow (no rain please, no ice) I'll not be able to get out and get to somewhere with power but I think I'm on it.

Challenge #8

In your own space, celebrate a personal win from the past year: it can be a list of fanworks you're especially proud of, a gift of your time to the community, a quality or skill you cultivated in yourself, something you generally feel went well.

Okay so the regular readers of my blog know this but for everyone else, a year ago this Feb. I fell. I STILL don't understand how this fall happened. I can surmise that I tired myself out on a 3 mile hike the day before and my legs were numb from the back issues. But I didn't fall over anything. I tipped over almost as if in slow motion. I can still see my legs going up and when I bounced off the couch and landed my knee was bent 35 degrees in the wrong direction, completely dislocated. (I will say today gave me a hint of how it might have happened. My heel hit wrong and my knee tried to bend backwards again) I can understand how I did the soft tissue damage (ruptured both cruciate ligaments and the lateral collateral, tore the medial meniscus, destroyed the biceps femoris tendon). I still don't get HOW I broke three bones (tore the head off the fibula, broke straight through the tibial plafond and a communiated fracture of the femoral condyle) the trauma surgeon doesn't know either, this is a motor vehicle high speed sort of injury, not tip over and hit the couch), destroyed the popliteal artery and most of the nerves

So I ended up in an external fixator for 3 week, then another 3 weeks in a long leg brace before having six simultaneous surgeries to repair the knee (on top of having the blood vessel repair). I was 8 weeks bed bound in the hospital/ rehab nursing home. From there I had to learn to walk again on a numb leg. I have done so. I've been living on my own doing everything for myself since August. I'm pretty damn proud of it and I'm still going to the gym to keep the leg strong but not as much as I need to.

Now let me talk about the things I'm proud of in addition to this. Within a week, I had my laptop and taught all my classes from the trauma unit and then the nursing home. This wasn't about me not being able to take time off. I could have. To me, this gave me something to do and kept me sane.

I wrote 360K of fan fic and about 65 K of original fiction in this time including four short stories. I sent out 3 of those and one was accepted for publication. I wrote three novel length Prodigal Son fan stories and one script for a virtual season (soon to be released)

I took part in and 'won' my 17th nanowrimo. I am still trying to get the novel moving forward (you have seen some of this for the snowflake challenge.

2021 was hard. I cried a lot. It hurt a lot but I made it through and I'm proud of myself.

Comments

[muccamukk]

That is so much physio! I've done those year-long recovery things, and I really very much did NOT write that much during them. Seriously impressive!

[cornerofmadness]

Sorry you had to go through that kind of recovery too. I've been through so much PT. Luckily my brother IS a PT. Thanks

[corvidology]

And so you should be. That's really bloody impressive!

[cornerofmadness]

Thank you.

[svgurl]

Congrats on all those accomplishments! That is really incredible, especially everything that you went through with your leg. I can only imagine the effort you had to go through. Also congrats on the writing too as well as being published! Definitely a lot of words and the virtual season sounds really cool.

[cornerofmadness]

Thanks so much. It was a rough year

Yep

[dauntless_heart]

That weather sounds like all the reasons I left Ohio!

Re: Yep

[cornerofmadness]

haahaha I don't mind winter at all. I just don't want the entire season in one day

[enemytosleep]

You had a lot of obstacles in 2021, but you always kept moving forward, which I admire a lot about you. I hope 2022 is full of more successive wins!

[cornerofmadness]

Thanks so much. I appreciate it

[deifire]

Those are some incredible accomplishments! I hope 2022 is kinder to you

[cornerofmadness]

Thanks so much

[tsuki_no_bara]

oh my god, your poor knee! i broke my ankle in november 2020 and while the recovery was a pain in the ass it wasn't nearly as bad as having to be in a trauma unit and a nursing home. i'm glad it's better now, because yikes. and the fact you wrote anything at all during recovery is impressive, never mind upwards of 400k. that's insane in the best way.

[cornerofmadness]

Thanks. Yeah it was bad. I shattered an ankle as a kid but this was way way worse. I still might have to have the joint replaced.

Anything on AO3 between March-June was written while on a LOT of narcotics

[spikedluv]

Just catching up on January posts and I wanted to offer you both kudos and *hugs* because you really did have a shit year and you handled it so well. It's amazing that you were able to do so much from your sick bed. And hard to believe it's been a year now! *more hugs*

[cornerofmadness]

thank you so much and thanks for all your support last year