Sometimes my left knee just gives in. It doesn't really happen that often when I walk anymore as it used to recently, but it isn't infrequent either, especially when I'm dancing. It hasn't ever fully collapsed; I always catch myself in that split second, but there are no guarantees as to how reversible the damage would be if it actually happened. Once again, it comes down to whether I should take the risk and push myself so that one day it's strong enough to hold all of my weight while I'm on my toes or not. This is the way I did it the first time, so I'm very familiar to this route and was lucky to not be terribly injured back in those days. In return, the reward for going outside the lines and trying things harder than those recommended for me was huge. I cut the estimated recovery time in half, if not more, in terms of getting strength back in my bones and muscles. Most importantly though, my "dead" (meaning loss of nerve control due to trauma and chemotherapy) feet started to come alive much faster than what the doctor told me. His estimate was something I was not willing to compromise with, so I pushed the boundaries not even knowing whether it was worth it. In retrospect, those were the days that I worked hardest towards a goal, which was to get my life back, and I achieved it. This is going to be a big repeat of the same process. I guess I must be too good of an example of how to go from rock-bottom to the top for them to not ask me to do it all over again.
How does it feel to go from being extremely weak to normal again? If feels amazing and scary all at the same time, because I've done it before and I know the amount of effort it took. Every day that I wake up in pain from having overworked my bones and my muscles, I feel more accomplished than I ever have before in my life. A lot of times at night though, when I feel cramps in my body, it wakes me up and I hope so desperately that it's exercise related and not a signal that something is starting to go wrong. The two kinds of pain is not highly distinguishable and this is why it's very hard to know whether you're going in the right direction or not while on the road of recovery. I must say, it's almost miraculous that your body can sustain so much damage and has the ability to undo a lot of the damage over time. At least this is what I felt when I was almost back to 100% before the relapse. We'll see in the next few months if it's possible to get as close the second time around where the toxicity was at another level and the length of traumatic experiences was longer.
Anyway, this is what I've been doing since I got out of the hospital, for those who have been wondering. I've been making all kinds of progress from being able to control my body better to getting the control back in other aspects such as finances, etc. There's always something to fix in the house or some paperwork to fill out for my insurance company or financial aid. Most of my days are consumed with this busy work, but recently I've added a lot of opportunities to get out and get used to the outside air again. I'm working towards making the real world match the expectations I've developed from being deprived of a normal life. This match is often misconfigured as deprivation lasting months long leads to unrealistic expectations. Missing even the most basic interaction with other people on a daily basis creates the need to rely on memories of such interaction, and we all know memories tend to be much more pleasant and dream-like than actuality. Every single event that you miss, every single day spent without going about your normal routine starts adding up to the never refillable gap between when you had control of your life and your current situation where you're at the mercy of your circumstances. The emptiness that I'm referring to as the "gap" is what the expectations mentioned above are used to fill. Unfortunately, the problem with this approach is that once "normal" life starts to seem closer and closer to your reach again, this is when you really realize that the expectations you've developed for it are actually way too high.
Therefore, you start to become somewhat desensitized to new experiences as you encounter more and more disappointment. All of this happens at a subconscious level of course and only in retrospect is it even noticeable, let alone explorable. I think I figured it out just in time, so that I can at least be aware that this is happening and try to revert to the hopeful outlook that I'm so good at conveying.
