So I blogged a couple months ago about changing my career path and being a dog trainer.  I freaking love it and I'm good at it.  I have a reputation that is spreading and, for once, it's actually good!  The hardest part though, is that I spend about 35-40 hours a week standing/walking and it's not always easy.  My previous job, while EXTREMELY difficult mentally, had almost no physical demands.  I don't want to say I'm struggling with being on my feet (foot) that long, but I will say that it's pretty rough sometimes.  I'm good at ignoring pain. My amputation is not the worst injury I've had in my life, and it's rare that I ever have much pain that resulted directly from not having a foot...other than phantom pains, and the occasional poorly fitted pros.  But standing up, and walking, for sometimes 9 hours a day, seems to be taking a toll...to a point where it's hard to ignore, even by a professional like myself.  I've broken my right foot several times and it's not the most reliable piece of equipment I have on my body either, so I can't let it take a lot of the duty, because I'll end up with stress fractures again, or if I'm lucky, just some pain.

So, it's rough physically, at times, but I love the job so much, and I'm so happy, I'm planning on gutting it out.  Anyone have any inspiring words I can use to motive myself when I wake up and am limping like drunken caveman before 9 hours of rasslin' with dogs?

I was just reading through the news on CNN and came across this article.  It sounds extremely interesting, and I would've liked to have known about this for the first years after my amputation.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/HEALTH/03/19/mirror.therapy/index.html

I suffered with extremely severe (is there any other kind?) phantom pains for several years.  I've passed out, thrown up, made up completely new cuss words, blamed Homer Simpson, and even claimed I was moving to Mexico once.  Not that any of that stuff helped, it was mostly involuntary anyway.  They were so bad that once, my judgement was clouded from the pain and I pulled out my IV and was hopping towards the 8th floor window in my hospital room, with the intent of jumping, just to make them stop. Lucky for me, a really bad one hit me before I made it to the window and I sorta lost control of my body and fell, giving a nurse time to come into the room and foil my plan. The past few years haven't been that bad, but I'll still get them a couple times a year.

Hopefully this article/therapy will help some folks that are in a similar situation as I was years ago when I was struggling with the pain.