My Bucket List and Taking Something Back

A year ago, I wrote in this blog post:
Josh Bleill's Book: One Step At A Time, Good/Bad Medical Care, War Trauma, PTSD, and Child Abuse Trauma
and revealed some of what I deal with after having my hand/arm seriously injured, not taken care of properly by the medical community, ultimately leaving my hand/arm with limitations, pain, and disabled. What I didn't reveal was how much was taken away, as far as what I did, but in this post I am going to state that I have taken something back fourteen and a half years after being injured.

I wrote about having to rehome my horses, one I had for eighteen years, the other, a miniature who kept my Tennessee Walker company, I had for eight years. It broke my heart to have to go through this, to watch them leave in a trailer, to never see them again! My horseback riding activities ended.

Also, I am a very creative person, with a need to express that creativity. I had done leather tooling, even entered items into contests. I also did Native American style bead work. All that came to a stop.

There are other things that stopped as well, but I am not here to write about all of these things. I am here to tell about taking something back. Being an active person, I have searched for something I could do, despite my hand limitations.

I have watched, with fascination, paddle boarding on TV. I have seen Brandon on Lucky Dog train a dog to ride on a paddle board. With that, my desire to try this sport grew.

I couldn't sink money into something without knowing whether I could do it or not. I had searched online to see if there was any places that rented, but found none. While hiking with my co-worker/friend a few weeks ago, we went to a park and found out that they rented paddle boards. I was as excited as a kid on Christmas morning.

Plans were made twice to go, but cancelled due to the weather reports, which ended up being wrong. They say the third time is the charm, and we finally went last Saturday. That's the reason for no blog post last weekend.

All the time I had watched and waited, I had a plan in place on how to deal with my hand situation. I would keep my left hand on top of the paddle, which would help with balance. It wouldn't have to do the work. I had a guy tell me, this might not work because I would have to shift my weight to paddle on the left side, and this could cause me to fall into the water.

I was determined that I could do this. I needed to be able to do this! I needed to "take something back" after all that was taken away from me with the hand/arm injuries! Can you say victory to me, and check one off my bucket list?! I did do it. I paddled off, with Alane in her kayak beside me, and her husband watching from shore, telling the guy who helped me with my paddle board, "She's never done it before. They will probably stay in the idol zone for a bit to practice." I didn't stay. I paddled off, kept my balance well, and felt pure happiness and joy flow throughout my body!

My idea for paddling did work. I didn't have to adjust my weight or footing to paddle on the left side, like the one guy thought. The only problem I had was the paddle handle couldn't be adjusted. It was stuck. It was actually too long for how I needed to paddle. I did endure pain, but knew that if I had my own, I would be able to correct this problem.

Yes, I did fall off, but due to some bigger waves from the boats and jet skis that were close by. I did find that if I stopped paddling when waves came in, and just stood on the boad, I enjoyed rocking on the board as the waves went by. Towards the end of four hours, I was clowning around when Alane said I should do a trick. I tried to stand on one foot while waves from a boat came in, and I went in for a dip. It made for a funny video!

A very grateful thanks to Alane Lovell, who went with me and took these photos, and her husband Pat, who was official chauffeur.