On healing slowly, letting people back in, and discovering there’s still room in the Den.

Content Note: Disability, chronic illness, chronic pain, surgical recovery, medical trauma, anxiety around healing, and discussion of relationships returning after long absences. As always, take what you need, skip what you don’t, and be gentle with yourself here.

🏡 Welcome to The Den

Welcome back to The Crippled Cryptid.

Disability.
Chronic illness.
Service dogs.
Survival without the performance.

If you’re new here…

Hi.

I’m Sky.

Professional Cryptid.
Writer.
Advocate.
Bookworm.
Professional collector of strange facts.
Keeper of extremely loved dogs.
Human being with a nervous system that occasionally wakes up and chooses violence before breakfast.

By the time you’re reading this, one of two things is happening.

If I’m lucky, I’m waking up from a nap after taking the Yard Yeti to the Farmer’s Market.

Because that’s what we do Thursday mornings.

It’s our routine.
How we live our lives during this particular part of the week.

Drop him off at the ass crack of dawn.

Everyone who’s been in my life for approximately 2.5 seconds, or knows anything about my summer routine, knows how this goes.

We do 5 a.m. drop-offs.

I come home.

I sleep.

Or try.

Sometimes I just lie in bed with Luna and scroll TikTok or Facebook until the noise in my head feels a little less noisy.

Only now…

When I wake up, there’s a puppy who needs to go potty.

There is coffee brewing.

The dogs are about to have breakfast.

And somewhere in there, I have to remember that I am still recovering from surgery that happened three weeks ago.

Or…

I’m still nestled beneath an impressive fortress of blankets, just barely three weeks out from surgery, reminding myself that healing isn’t laziness.

It isn’t failure.

And it doesn’t happen on anyone’s schedule.

Least of all my own.

Pain medication makes time fuzzy.

The steroids don’t help.

Neither does the haze they leave behind afterward.

Everything still aches.

The dishes can wait.

The words will still be here tomorrow.

Healing asks us to move slower than we’re used to.

I’m still learning how to say yes.

Either way…

I wasn’t about to miss Thursday.

Or Blitzy’s potty schedule.

And I still have to get up later to retrieve the Yard Yeti from market.

But don’t worry.

There will still be coffee.

🌲 The Porch Light

Thursday has quietly become one of my favorite days around here.

Not because life magically gets easier.

It doesn’t.

Bodies still hurt.

Appointments still happen.

The weather still insists on arguing with my nervous system.

Constantly.

One moment it’s hot.

Then we get gorgeous almost-fall weather.

Sometimes the sky gets smoky because of Canadian wildfires.

Then, when you least expect it, the sky opens up and multiple tornadoes rip across Illinois simply because apparently, they can.

Illinois appears to have misplaced the concept of a season entirely.

But Thursdays have become something different.

A pause.

A porch.

A place where nobody has to pretend they’re doing better than they are.

You don’t have to knock.

You don’t have to explain where you’ve been.

Just come in.

There isn’t any inspiration porn here.

No “everything happens for a reason.”

No expectation that you’ll transform your pain into a motivational speech before you’re allowed to sit down.

Just people.

Doing their best.

Sometimes that best looks like celebrating.

Sometimes it looks like surviving.

Sometimes it looks like getting out of bed, drinking a glass of water, and making it back to bed again.

Sometimes…

It comes with saying “fuck” every step of the way because that’s just how things go.

That is the victory.

That’s what The Den has become.

Not because of me.

Because of all of us.

Every comment.

Every story.

Every “me too.”

Every Thursday we’ve spent reminding one another that we’re not wandering these woods alone.

That no matter how strange life gets…

There’s always another chair waiting on the porch.

🌿 What’s Carrying Me This Week

This week feels a lot heavier than last week.

And a lot lighter at the same time.

Which, frankly, doesn’t feel like it makes all that much sense.

I’m one more week away from surgery.

One more week toward recovery.

But healing apparently doesn’t believe in straight lines.

Sometimes we make big improvements.

Some mornings I can get up, make it through the dishes, sit down with my coffee, and feel almost semi-human after taking the puppy out to go potty.

And sometimes…

It feels like we’ve taken two big-ass steps in the wrong direction.

Especially when those steps come with steroids that make me feel worse before they do their job.

It’s hard to believe that three Thursdays ago, around this same time, I was being wheeled into an operating room to become one less part cyborg.

There’s anxiety.

I’d be lying if I said there wasn’t.

There’s a lot of relief, too.

Because every time someone, whether in my online life or my real one, hears the whole story of what happened, their eyes widen.

And usually the first words out of their mouth are some variation of:

“What the fuck? That should have never happened to you.”

Usually followed by the word:

LAWYER.

The truth is…

I agree.

I still cannot believe I lived through it.

And I continue to live through it.

Heal from it.

Every day.

I’ve waited a long time for this.

Healing has been slower than my brain would like…

…and faster than my anxiety expected.

I think that’s probably a healthy place to be.

M&M has spent the last few weeks gently reminding me that “feeling a little better” does not mean reorganizing my entire life.

Undertaking 300 new projects.

Or remodeling the house.

Apparently, that’s still not doctor’s orders.

Who knew?

But that’s the cruel little trick of disability sometimes.

The body is struggling.

The mind works fine.

My brain says:

YES. WE CAN DO THE THINGS.

My body sends back:

Request denied. Please try again in 7–10 business days.

Only 7–10 business days came and went.

And when we finally get the request approved…

Sometimes it still complains.

I want my life back.

Maybe that’s the part I’m learning to hold differently.

Wanting my life back doesn’t have to mean declaring war on my body to get it.

This is the year things are changing for me.

I have a car again.

I have a puppy.

I have places I want to go, stories I want to write, people I want to see, ordinary mornings I want to actually be awake for.

I want to soak in every second of it.

But I’m learning that soaking it in doesn’t always require standing up.

Sometimes life comes to sit beside you.

I’m also learning something I wish came easier.

Accepting help isn’t failing.

It’s allowing the people who love you… to love you.

That’s harder than it sounds.

I’m practicing.

And apparently…

Sometimes healing brings people back through doors you didn’t realize you’d missed having open.

Friends visiting.

Family stopping by unexpectedly.

Little things that don’t look particularly monumental from the outside.

Until they are.

🐾 Meanwhile, Luna Has Concerns

Then there’s Luna.

She’s been hovering.

Not snack hovering.

Not ball hovering.

Mostly…

“Save me from my new baby brother” hovering.

Now that Blitzø is home, he wants to be everywhere Luna is.

Doing everything she’s doing.

Investigating everything.

Her toys.

Her ears.

Her paws.

Her personal space.

And I allow her to give him all of the appropriate dog corrections.

Because he’s a puppy.

And his primary source of investigation right now is:

MOUTH.

Frankly…

I wouldn’t want Baby Shark trying to put my giant satellite ears in his mouth either if I were Luna Bean.

Speaking of Baby Shark…

Blitzø, even though the ø is mostly silent unless he’s doing something he shouldn’t and temporarily forgets because he’s only a little baby, is officially eight weeks old.

And here’s something funny I realized recently.

Binky was born shortly after I bought my Jeep.

A new little life starting right around the same time mine finally started moving forward again.

I don’t know.

That feels special, doesn’t it?

🐾 Luna’s Weather Report

Current Illinois Forecast:

Hot.

No, wait.

Cold.

No, wait.

Smoke.

No, wait.

Rain.

No, wait.

TORNADO.

No, wait.

Nice outside?

Suspicious.

Mumther says Illinois has four seasons.

I have reviewed the evidence.

Mumther is incorrect.

Please check back in twelve minutes for updated conditions.

🐾

🐾 Under Our Roof

If you somehow missed the paw prints all over the blog this week…

The itsy bitsy Blitzy is home!

Although, to be honest with you…

He’s already grown.

A lot.

And he’s learned so many things.

Blitzø came home two Wednesdays ago.

Earlier than expected.

One more surprise.

One very spotted surprise.

With beautiful baby blue eyes that have since started to turn caramel macchiato colored!

The Potato™ has entered the field.

If you’ve been wandering these woods with us for a while, you know we’d been counting down the days until he joined our little family.

As it turns out…

Life had other plans.

Although if I’m honest with you, I do not hate these plans.

Not even a tiny bit.

Sometimes plans change because life gets in the way.

Sometimes they change because life quietly hands you something wonderful a little earlier than expected.

Maybe because it knew this was exactly the thing you needed to get up and start moving again after surgery.

This was the second kind.

He’s still settling in.

Still figuring out where all the best nap spots are.

Still discovering that absolutely everything deserves a thorough investigation.

Blankets.

Leaves.

Shoelaces.

Luna’s ears.

His own paws, which I swear arrived at least 7–10 business days before the rest of him and are growing approximately twice as fast.

He’s wonderfully awkward.

Wonderfully curious.

Wonderfully…

Potato.

Luna has officially been promoted to Big Sister.

She’s handling it exactly the way I hoped she would.

With patience.

With curiosity.

With appropriate corrections.

And with the occasional expression that very clearly says:

“Excuse me… why is the tiny cow touching my ball?”

She’s showing him the yard.

Wrestling with him in all of the inconvenient spots.

Teaching him the household rules.

Reminding him that some toys are shared…

…and some are absolutely, positively hers.

Watching the two of them begin to learn each other has been one of the brightest parts of a week that otherwise asked a lot from all of us.

And sometimes learning each other apparently involves Luna putting Blitzø’s entire head in her mouth when he’s being a brat, chewing on her ears, and refusing to take no for an answer.

But even then…

She’s gentle with him.

Patient in a way I’m pretty sure I wasn’t with my own little brother.

Because let’s face it.

Before the Yard Yeti became one of my favorite people in the world, he was my sparring partner, my baby brother, and the person I fought with like we were going to war.

And let me tell you something:

No matter who “won”…

We both always lost.

The Pack feels a little fuller now.

So does the house.

And apparently…

So does our circle.

Healing is still happening.

The pain is still real.

But joy has a funny habit of showing up anyway.

Sometimes it arrives with oversized paws.

Sometimes it sends you a Facebook message after almost ten years.

Sometimes it sits down at your dinner table…

And somehow makes the whole house feel bigger.

You know what?

That’s exactly the kind of energy we need around here.

🐾 Luna’s Official Big Sister Report

Subject: Potato
Legal Name: Blitzø
Status: Still here.

Additional findings:

🐾 Potato does not understand ear-space regulations.

🐾 Potato believes all toys belong to Potato.

This is incorrect.

🐾 Potato follows me everywhere.

Everywhere.

🐾 Potato has repeatedly attempted unauthorized access to my personal bubble.

Corrections have been issued.

🐾 Potato remains very small.

And dumb.

Mumther says “baby.”

Same thing.

Despite numerous violations…

Potato has been approved for continued Pack membership.

I suppose I will teach him things.

Someone has to.

🐾

🐮 Moo Memo

HI.

AM BINKY.

LUNA BIG.

LUNA FAST.

LUNA HAVE EARS.

I LUB EARS.

LUNA SAY NO.

I FORGET.

DEN BIG.

MUMTHER COFFEE.

I POTATO.

AM BABY.

OK BYE.

🐮

🌿 Your Thursday Check-In

Enough about me.

How are you?

Really.

Not the answer you’d give someone in passing.

Not the automatic:

“I’m fine.”

The real one.

If today feels heavy…

If your body feels loud…

If your mind won’t stop racing…

Let’s make the question a little smaller.

🌿 One word for today.

🌿 One thing your body needs.

🌿 One thing you survived this week.

That’s enough.

It all counts.

If your body allows, find one place you can make things a little easier.

Relax your jaw.

Drop your shoulders.

Unclench your hands.

Shift into a position that’s kinder to you.

Or support something that’s tired of holding itself up.

Take a sip of water.

Take one slow breath, if that feels good.

You don’t have to solve your whole life before dinner.

You only have to get through today.

Sometimes…

That’s the bravest thing we’ll do all week.

One of my favorite things about Thursdays is that this isn’t really my check-in anymore.

It’s ours.

🐾 Luna Says…

Hydration check.

Yes.

You.

I’m talking to you.

Go take a sip.

I’ll wait.

I’m good at waiting.

Very, very good at waiting.

Ask Mama.

She’ll tell you.

…

Good job.

Carry on.

🐾

🌙 Learning to Rest

I’ve spent a lot of my life believing that pushing through was the only option.

Sometimes…

It was.

Sometimes surviving meant ignoring everything my body was trying to tell me because there simply wasn’t another choice.

That version of me deserves compassion.

She got me here.

But survival isn’t where we’re supposed to build a permanent home.

It’s the bridge.

Not the destination.

Recovery isn’t something we earn after we’ve pushed ourselves to the breaking point.

Sometimes recovery begins the moment we give ourselves permission to rest before our bodies have to force the issue.

I’m still learning what that looks like.

Some days I do pretty well.

Other days I catch myself thinking:

“Maybe I could just fold the laundry…”

Thankfully…

I have people who are much better at reminding me than I am at listening.

M&M.

The Yard Yeti.

Luna.

Blitzø.

My little Pack.

And this week…

An old friend sitting at our table again.

They’re teaching me that healing isn’t something I have to earn.

Sometimes it’s something I have to allow.

They’re reminding me that productivity isn’t the measure of a life.

Love is.

Presence is.

Showing up for one another is.

Even if showing up looks like sitting quietly at the back table with a cup of coffee while the dogs wrestle on the floor.

Or sending someone a message after ten years and saying:

Hey. I’ve been keeping up. Can I come see you?

Maybe especially then.

Maybe healing isn’t only about getting pieces of yourself back.

Maybe sometimes…

It’s discovering what still has room to grow.

I’m finally trying to believe them.

🐾 Luna’s Recovery Reminder

Today’s approved activities include:

🐾 Guard Mumther.
🐾 Supervise Potato.
🐾 Take a nap.
🐾 Encourage everyone else to take a nap.
🐾 Accept visitors who understand proper dog admiration protocol.
🐾 Repeat as necessary.

I fail to see the problem.

🐾

🌲 Life Around The Den

The blog is going to slow down just a little while I heal.

That’s okay.

Healing deserves time too.

I’ve worked ahead where I could.

Folklore Wednesdays are waiting.

Bed Jail™ Broadcasts are already queued up.

Stories are standing patiently in line.

And every now and then…

I’ll be granted a little parole from Bed Jail™ to come sit on the porch with all of you.

Because I missed this.

I missed you.

And apparently…

I missed a few things outside the blog too.

People around the dinner table.

Dogs weaving between everyone’s legs.

Conversations that don’t need an agenda.

Laughing about things that happened a decade ago.

Realizing you still remember the same stories.

Realizing there are new ones waiting to happen.

Thank you.

For reading.

For laughing with me.

For crying with me.

For sharing your stories.

For letting this strange little corner of the internet become something far bigger than I ever imagined.

When I started this blog, I hoped I’d find people who understood.

Instead…

I found a community.

A family.

A Den.

You built this place with me.

Board by board.

Story by story.

Comment by comment.

Week by week.

And lately…

It feels like we’re adding chairs.

I don’t think I’ll ever stop being grateful for that.

This little corner of the woods feels even more like home now.

🌿 Before You Wander Back Into the Woods…

Before you head back out into the world…

Take these with you.

🌿 Drink the water.

🌿 Eat something if your body will let you.

🌿 Rest before your body has to beg for it.

🌿 Let someone help if they’re offering.

🌿 Celebrate the small victories.

🌿 Let old doors reopen when it feels safe to do so.

🌿 Existing is enough.

🌿 You never have to earn your place here.

🐾 Luna’s Official Assessment

Current Pack Status:

🐾 Mumther healing.

🐾 M&M supervising.

🐾 Yard Yeti making sure nobody goes hungry.

🐾 Potato discovering that every object in existence might secretly be a toy or a snackie.

🐾 Big Sister duties proceeding according to plan.

🐾 Friends appearing from the woods.

🐾 Extra chairs being added.

🐾 Porch light still on.

Five out of five paws.

Yes, I am aware that was more than five items.

I am a dog.

Your mathematics do not concern me.

Pack growing.

Den fuller.

Approved.

🐾🐾

With love,
-Sky

The porch light stays on.

Even when I need to rest.

Especially then.

🏡 The Porch Light Is On

Whenever you need somewhere to sit for a while…

Pull up a chair.

Actually…

We might need another one.

The coffee might still be warm.

The kettle’s probably singing.

Luna will almost certainly inspect your pockets for snacks.

Potato is probably asleep somewhere he absolutely wasn’t supposed to be.

M&M is likely reminding me that healing counts as productivity.

The Yard Yeti is probably making grilled cheese at an hour that should be illegal.

Maybe an old friend is sitting at the table again.

Maybe someone new has just found their way here.

The fire is crackling.

The porch light is glowing.

And whether you’ve had the best week of your life…

Or you’re simply trying to make it through today…

You’re welcome here.

Always.

Funny thing about a Den.

You think you know how many people fit inside.

Then someone comes home.

Someone comes back.

Someone pulls up another chair.

And somehow…

There’s room.

We’ll leave the porch light on. ❤️

© The Crippled Cryptid
Disability. Honesty. A little chaos.
(Maybe a little dog fur.)

🔗 https://linktr.ee/skylanarissa

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