Category: Personal

Trying to be normal

Personal

A few weeks ago Steve and I finally started going out versus staying here at my house. I’m able to transfer into a car with ease versus being unable to previously. We haven’t done too much yet as I haven’t wanted to go too crazy. We’ve done the usual like driving around aimlessly, going out to dinner (Oh Chilis how I have missed you!), grocery shopping at Walmart or Target, or running to Tiger Direct to replace a mouse of mine.

I haven’t been too enthused to try going to the movie theaters yet. I already get bitchy enough when people stare at me. Oh boy don’t even get me started on that! I’ve had people literally just stand and stare at me while I’m getting into/out of the wheelchair and car… It’s an awkward feeling but at the same time ridiculously infuriating. Unfortunately not much I can do about ignorant folk but just deal with it for a little while longer.

Aside from the general woes my only issue right now is my financial status (read: broke). I’ve been busting my ass off with trying to land some remote gigs but have just not been able to hook any real good offers. I’m laying myself out there for just about everything but as I should have expected the job market is still bleak. I would just like to be able to have money in my pocket to ensure that I’ve got cushion should I have an emergency I need to fund.

Please 2 be given me j0bz peeps!

Breaking out of the mold

Personal

For almost a year I have been relying on premade themes from places like WooThemes and Elegant Themes for my personal site. I just didn’t have the time nor patience to devote development work to my own website. It definitely showed as I just didn’t feel like updating my site.

A few days ago I randomly felt inspired to work on a new theme and I actually stuck with it. I’m known to work on something and get as far as coding out the header and then quitting on the rest of it. I just don’t like working for myself as I start to hate it a few days later. I’m very pleased with myself as I’ve finally gotten a theme done that isn’t just tweaking a premade.

I decided to go more on the CSS3 route with some features (eg: rounded corners) as I am an ass backwards developer. I am still trying to force myself to work in Photoshop to get a PSD going then to code it up. Unfortunately I prefer the code out the framework then shove in colors and images. Truthfully it’s a method that’s worked out okay for me so I suppose that’s why I still stick with it.

Oh I almost forgot! I have finally? switched domain names. I was ridiculously bored and hated atourworst.org. I had registered a few other domains along with icupcake.org, but ultimately this was my winner. Atourworst.org should now entirely redirect to iCupcake.org; There are going to be some errors here and there but I have it set to log and email them to me so I can fix as I see them. The biggest will be images in posts, so I’ll get around to that momentarily. If you spot any problems, let me know. For what it’s worth, this was not designed to support >IE7. Don’t bother checking in there 😉

Patience is a necessity

Personal

On Tuesday of next it’ll have been three months since my accident. It’s so weird to see the progress I’ve made, which is a lot, but that I still have a lot more to go through in the upcoming months. Thanks so much to everyone that left comments, it meant a lot to me!

Today I had my 30 day follow-up with my orthopedic doctor to get my wrist cast off and to check on my hip and tibial plateau. The good news is that my cast came off, and I had a little more mobility than he expected. The bad news? Looking over the xray for my wrist he noticed that I have about a 4.5mm gap by one of my carpels. He said this is because I have some sort of torn or damaged tendon. Either way, there’s a high chance I’ll be referred to a hand surgeon to have it repaired or reconstructed in the next few weeks. This is all pending though since I go in next week for an MRI on the wrist. I’m hoping it’s not too bad but seeing as though it’s been 3 months, surgery seems likely.

My knee is doing perfect as far as healing goes. The only noticeable thing is some calcification forming over one of the pins, but it won’t affect any mobility as it’s on the inner side of my leg. The biggest disappoint during my appointment was my hip’s poor recovery. It’s been 11 weeks post-op, and the piece of broken femur that’s re-attached with three pins is still not fusing with my original femur. As such, I have to wait another 30 days for my next checkup, and still cannot do any physical therapy to start walking again. I’m also stuck wearing my hip brace for a long time, as he mentioned he’ll have me wearing this while I’m going through PT.

The only real good news was that he was comfortable enough to allow me to increase the weight-bearing status of my right leg. I can put up to 30lbs of weight (or pressure) on the leg. So while it wasn’t what I wanted, it’s still something I can deal with. I was really just hoping to be able to start PT this month, so by October 6th (my best friend Amy’s birthday) and October 11th (Steve‘s birhday) I’d be able to go out and have some fun to celebrate their birthdays. But alas, my extreme dance moves will have to be put on hold for awhile!

Other than that I’ve been quite busy with my hosting company, and two other side projects of mine. My goal right now though is to start getting back into freelancing full-time as my cast is now off. Reason being is not only has my money dwindled quickly (insurance, bills, yadda yadda) but all of my bills from being in the hospital have been coming in like crazy. I do have health insurance now which thankfully covers almost 90%. I still have a lot of bills to be processed but my biggest one ($235,000) is actually being processed right now so this is my main bill I’m worried about.

Well, this post is long enough so I’m calling it quits! 😛

My Road To Recovery

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This post is long overdue, but I’m finally putting aside some time to write this. On July 9th I was finally released from the hospital after 32 days. 32 days that I can never get back, but 32 days I’ll never regret.

I don’t remember my accident at all. However, for clarification, my use of the term “accident” implies the impact of Robert Slager’s (of Slager and Son Masonry) truck against my car and the time from impact until I was conscious moments later after a grateful bystander came to my side to keep me calm and whom also called 911. I remember 10 minutes beforehand where I had been at a stop sign answering a call from my sister Morgan. I told her I was on my way home and that I’d talk to her in 10 minutes or so since I wasn’t too far away. Next thing I know I’m waking up and hearing a man’s voice praying to the Lord for him to look over me. Then a huge wave of pain spread throughout my body. I couldn’t open my eyes, but my “guardian angel” noticed I was conscious and asked for my name, then phone numbers for my parents. He told my I had been in a bad accident and that the paramedics were on their way.

Everything else was a blur that night. From the time I was removed from my car to getting to the ER, it felt like 15 minutes had gone by. In actuality it took 1 hour to extract me from my car, and another 15 minutes to drive to the hospital. I had been in so much pain that I was in and out of consciousness. After a short time in the ER, I was finally able to open my eyes and at that point just kept asking for my parents. I then remember the nurses telling me they were going to cut my clothes off, and I said the least expected thing. I told the nurse she couldn’t cut off my tops because they were my favorite t-shirt and undershirt. It’s a bit of a blur trying to remember everything that night. I finally got to see my parents, my sister Morgan, and Steve. My best friend Amy wasn’t there yet, but she came while I was in surgery.

Forewarning: the rest of this post is unbelievably long. Continue reading “My Road To Recovery” →

Broken bones and a totaled car

Personal

On June 8th around 9:40pm on my way home I was in a car accident. I was turning left when I was tboned by a truck being driven by Robert Slager (Slager and Son Masonry) going 55mph.

I’d go into so much more detail but I’m typing this from my iPhone right now.

I suffered a fractured left wrist, a fractured left foot, a severely fractured right tibula and knee, and a displaced and fractured hip ball. The right side of my face had deep lacerations.

I’ve been in the hospital since the accident. Have had three surgeries for my hip so far with one of those fixing my wrist and foot fractures, and stitching my face.

In an hour and a half I’m going into my fourth surgery to fix my fractured hip. I’d write more but my tummy hurts and I’m thirsty (but I can’t eat or drink before this surgery).

So until then.. Wish me luck.