i'm bedridden.

immobile.

practically paralyzed.

at this moment in time, i am the embodiment of useless.

i can barely stand up or sit down without assistance from a motorized chair, and i am NOT looking forward to my first poop since the surgery.

but allow me to back up for a moment and talk about what it took to get here.

five weeks ago, i tore my meniscus.

pretty bad, too.

wasn't doing anything fancy. nothing fun. nope. i was just warming up at the climbing gym.

and apparently that's all it took! one nasty bend of the knee, and it ripped right through the thickest cartilage in my body.

for those that don't know: the meniscus is the bit of padding that cushions, uh... basically everything your knee does. without it, your femur and tibia grind on each other (not in the fun way), and eventually you need a full knee replacement (also not super fun).

so i spent four weeks barely being able to walk and being shuttled through the medical system.

which actually worked out really well for me. i'm blessed to have pretty good health insurance, and i live in a city with some of the best sports medicine doctors in the world. i went from initial diagnosis to specialist to MRI to surgery in four weeks, and honestly i did not know that kind of thing was possible.

to be REALLY honest, things could not have worked out much better for me than they have, and i'm trying REALLY hard to keep that in mind because as i said before,

i am completely fucking useless.

which is a really interesting position to be in.

and so far, i'm not really enjoying it.

at all.

i'll go ahead and clarify that i'm really only physically useless. i can still type, and talk, and complain, and occasionally make jokes that nobody else finds funny.

so i can still DO things, but...

...walking is definitely not one of them.

"sitting up on my own" is barely on the list.

but,

Caden on Warpcast

THE HORRORS PERSIST AND SO DO I

Farcaster

so we stay on that "i can do this" mindset, and try not to let our expectations poison our reality.

this is my new full-time job. every moment of every day for the next four months is going to be about recovery.

every decision has one criteria: will this support the invisible miracles happening beneath my skin?

because i absolutely refuse to let this stop me.

i asked God to make me tough and he said "tuff" and now the ball is in my court.

so, for now, i am completely fucking useless.

but four months from now, i will be completely fucking unstoppable.