A different shaped heart conversations about disability awareness
Welcome to A different shaped heart conversations about being awesome with a disability and raising awareness at the same time and absolutely Yes sometimes you have to say F…..CK you to your own mindset and especially your disability!
A different shaped heart conversations about disability awareness
From Hip Surgery To A New Path In Counseling
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The first night home after surgery always tells the truth. We’re honest about the itch you can’t scratch, the cast you can’t ignore, and the stubborn hope that keeps you showing up for PT when the bed feels like the only safe place. This update pulls back the curtain on what recovery really looks like—two incisions, a knee immobilizer, and a plan to earn back each step with patience and grit.
We walk through the rehab blueprint: outpatient PT to rebuild strength and mechanics, home PT to reinforce safe movement, and the messy admin that comes with clarifying diagnoses, negotiating PT vs OT, and threading the needle of insurance and scheduling. Along the way, we pivot our academic path toward counseling with a focus on disability, caregivers, and families—because lived experience belongs at the therapy table. That choice comes with real-world fights for tutoring and accessible support, plus the mental load of tracking paperwork, classes, and energy on days defined by pain.
On the home front, we simplify: moving to an all-Apple smart speaker setup to cut friction, planning repairs and device resets for after the cast comes off, and building routines that save willpower for healing. We cap it with a promise—new episodes every Tuesday and Thursday—because consistency builds community and community makes the hard days doable. If you’re navigating recovery, disability advocacy, or just trying to design a home and school life that fits a changing body, this one’s for you.
Subscribe, share with a friend who needs a boost, and leave a quick review to help more listeners find the show. Your support keeps us moving—one careful step at a time.
Welcome to a different shape talk, you guys. Number one, I'm home. Number two, my hip is still good, meaning my hip is still in place. And so that should be good until well, good until the rest of its life, unless I throw it out of socket, where it is, but it's not going to happen because I love it and respect it. So as soon as my hip precautions come off, then we'll be rocking and rolling. But I don't think they come off um until they might come off February 27th with my cast, I don't know. Or um they may come off at a later date. I I don't know. I've I forgot to ask these things. Now the problem is with all my surgeries, things get itchy. And when I mean itchy, I mean itchy. So that's the problem because the incision is not really itchy. There's two incisions. I don't know why they did two incisions for my hair, but I'll figure that one out on the 27th, but the bigger one, the skin around the bigger one is itchy. And itchy is a sign of healing, but itchy's annoying. So what we did is put Benadryl on it. We put it on the surrounding skin that they did not open. Seems to be effective. I don't know. I have an itch down there, so it is effective. As long as you don't put anything on the incision per se, then we're good. But it's itchy, it's annoying. It's yeah, it's just itchy, it's annoying, but more annoyingly is this cast that because I can't move my leg right now, do well I can sitting up, but due to a leg emo due to a knee immobilizer on top of an uh ace band, they that my doctor put on and said don't take off for six weeks. Um yeah, so that's the update on me, but I made it home on the 13th and of February. And so Danielle and I are going to try our hardest to produce this podcast twice a week. So we'll see how that goes. Tuesdays and Thursdays, but we'll see how that goes. And um everything is good except this cast is super annoying, and um and I just want to move. I just want to learn to move again. I just want to walk, I just want to move. And so, yeah, I just want, I mean, the whole point of this new hip is for me not to have a defective hip, even though it's not natural. Um it's going to be interesting how we'll do it with PT. P my PT starts tomorrow, which is the 20th. I have outpatient. Well, I have go to the um PT, then I have a PT coming to my house so that she can do a home sort of a home PT with me to keep up with the PT I'm doing outside this house, which they consider outpatient. So am I still up to give an update to my trust and people which I haven't done. So it's it's a lot because I have this annoying freaking cast on that will not let me move my right leg, which is annoying, because I just want to go up in the mall and go to sleep without this heavy cast on and without the amount of payments I've been taking. Yeah, that's a little annoying. Um and let's see, school starts again March 3rd. I'm actually transferring my degree to counsel to become a counselor because yeah, obviously, um there needs to be more counselors that truly focus on disabilities and the disabled people and the loved ones and caregivers and all that monkey business and all that great monkey business. So I'm switching my degree and have to pass two of my classes, which I'm planning to do, and then um I can switch my degree. The other option which I'm not doing, I'm not doing. So we'll see how that goes. We'll see. I am having a fight with them about tutors, and I now have to involve my trust fund to help me find a tutor because apparently school tutors are not working on my behalf. They don't understand that I need a tutor for all my classes and yeah, so we'll figure this out. We'll also figure out um I'm also switching out the Amazon smart speakers to Apple Smart speakers. I have one that's not working. I just saw it in tomorrow, one from my kitchen and one from my bedroom. So we'll be exclusive Apple House. And um, and so I gotta set those up on Monday or maybe the weekend, I don't know. But we'll figure that one out. I gotta take my phone in to Apple to replace this cracked screen that I'm dealing with. And I got I got to take my other home mod, my old home mod into Apple to kickstart it, to put it on my back on my desk in um my living room. So that's my next project. All these projects will have to wait until after my cast comes off, so I can bend my leg to help carry stuff. Great. And yeah. And so that's going to be fun. Not because yeah. PT's gonna be interesting. They actually said spinal cord injury, which is not true. I do have uh I'm not considered a spinal cord injury, I'm considered cyberpalsy. So I do have a fused back, but that's not a spinal cord injury per se. And I will be contesting that once I get up there, because they want me to do PTOT, physical therapy, and occupational therapy, and they don't get it. So what I'm gonna do is bring the referral um up with me and let them see the referral. So they have to figure out they have to figure out what is going on because and I'll tell a PC, I need OT and because of CP, or he might just say you need PT and that's it. I hope he says you need PT and that's it. And they want me to do it two to three times a week. We hope that it's two and two and three times a week, but we'll see. We'll see what insurance pays and we'll see what they want to do, and it's battle with insurance, it's a battle with them scheduling because they want OT, they want PT, and yeah. And I've been through this before. So I went um with my back. I had battles with my knee, not necessarily, because I went to a PT closer to my house, but I remember having battles about my back, so and that was in 2024, so I yeah, they just wanted to fight with me on that one. So, and it's not the insurance thing. The insurance hasn't fought with me, they've covered everything. So they um it's the outpatient PTs and the outpatient OTs that uh I've been trying to owl up there. So we'll see what they say and we just open play in the midst of all this craziness. I get OT and I get PT. So Danielle, do you wanna take us out? Yeah What the cute Bonnie said. Thank you for following us. And I will catch you guys I guess we'll record another episode this week or this weekend. It's probably easier to record this weekend so we can make it Tuesdays and Thursdays. So from now on out, a different shape talk will be coming out on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Like I promised many, many, many, many years ago, and for those of you who have listened to this podcast for many years, I promised this many years ago when it was formally asked when, and we did it once upon a time, and now I want it back. So because the more downloads I have, the more ad revenue I can get. I'm not interested in revenue yet, even though it's nice to see, but I don't do it solely best for the ads. Um, I do it for you guys, but the ad revenue helps a lot, so that's why we're turning it into a Tuesday and Thursday mess. So Daniel and I have to figure out offline what um what the next step is to make that magic happen. But we're gonna try it for you guys, and we're going I'm gonna say thank you for following us. And so thank you for following us, and we'll let you guys know what is happening with the podcast. Bye you guys. Bye.
