Probably bad news...

There's a gaping hole in my leg.

It's not terribly large, but it really shouldn't be there. It's near where a stitch was removed and at one point there was a scab there. There isn't any bleeding, but there certainly shouldn't be a hole.

I put a band-aid on it. That should do it, right?

Best. Boss. Ever.

Seriously. I have the best boss ever.

A normal boss would be grumpy that an employee was just transferred and broke her ankle literally two days before she was supposed to start the new job. That hypothetical grumpy boss would be irritated that it takes three months for a stupid ankle to heal. Also, when the employee returned to work, said boss would not go easy on him/her. In fact, a terribly mean boss might even be a bit hard on them, since they just had three months "off".

My boss is not that boss. My boss is a kickass woman who is totally understanding of my plight. My boss has marked each of my surgeries on her calendar and called me after each to see how I was. After the first surgery when I was still in the hospital she even called my parents' house to ask them how I was. My boss has been really nice about me not being at work, and has not once made me feel bad about all the extra work they have to do. In fact, my boss has made sure that I am allowed to take all my accumulated vacation and personal days before they expire at the beginning of the year, arranging for me to come back to work and immediately take a week of personal days so I can be back on full pay while still recuperating. In fact, she is fitting in all my 9 earned vacation days during the last three weeks of the year. That's generous AND amazing.

So that's the plan, kids. I'm finally getting a plan to go back to work. I officially go back on light duty 12/13 (I work Tuesday-Saturday ... creepers no creeping!) and will use five personal days before starting to actually go to work the following week. I'll get to spread out my four vacation days through the end of the year to give the 'ole ankle a break every now and again.

Can we go back to Thanksgiving so I can mention how thankful I am for my awesome job and my awesome boss?

ps- This is not sucking up because she doesn't read this. I'm just glad this is going to work out.

The good, the bad, and the hideous.

The good:
- I am currently wearing a Clifford the Big Red Dog Band-Aid on my thumb
- I am starting to "walk" a little more. I put that in quotations because, let's be honest, what I'm doing doesn't look all that much like walking. Unless I'm going fast, it's more of a clumsy gait. I start off okay (heel to toe, heel to toe) with my left heel down. I then move my weight to that side. It's pretty difficult not to lean on the crutches, though, so I do use my arms a significant amount. This is when it gets interesting- the painful part is when the weight is more on the ball of my foot. So I end up limping hard onto my right leg at about mid-stride, which looks ridiculous.
- We have lowered my crutches a notch so that I'm not leaning on my armpits as much (yay!) and I'm putting more weight on the ankle
- The other day I walked around several stores, including Home Depot (we had a specific in-store destination) and Best Buy (they have nice chairs to rest in).
- I get the stitches out tomorrow.

The bad:
- I needed a Band-Aid on my thumb
- I still have to use a wheelchair to get around big places. Also, there's rarely anywhere to store the wheelchair once we get somewhere I can walk. So, I'm stuck in the damn thing.
-Strangers have been more and more inclined to tell me about their injuries at the most inopportune moments. It's one thing when someone holds the door and says "Oh, crutches are such a pain!" or "I remember what that was like!" That's camaraderie. I guess. But the sales agent at P.C. Richard and Sons telling me all about how he hurt his ankle worse than I did (I never even told him what I did!) when he fell through his staircase was just awkward. We're shopping for a dishwasher, man. I have limited standing time and you're using it up telling me how much worse off you are than I. Also, we are just looking, thanks.

The hideous:
- A slovenly man with long, stringy hair that orbited the shiny bald crown of his head walked up to us at a NYC holiday market. He was wearing a t-shirt that was too short in front and showed the bottom of his belly and dirty, baggy jeans. On his left foot was a dingy boot, shorter than mine, with a few of the velco straps undone and flying in the wind. He did not walk with imediment. He said, "I'm like you!" while pointing to the boot.

Are those my people now??!?!?

The Final Surgery!

Monday was the day of the final surgery. They removed the long screw which was holding my two leg bones together as well as holding my ligament in place.

Just a reminder- the super long screw that goes from the outside of the small bone (fibula) through the middle of the tibia is the one they removed.

I had to be at the hospital at 5:30 a.m. because I was my doctor's first case. It is important to tell you right here that every single person who works at that hospital - including both my parents - are complete weirdos. Some in a good way, some in a bad way.

I checked in with ease and was brought to the back where they demanded I pee in a cup. This is hard when you haven't been allowed to eat or drink for awhile. Plus, at least for girls, peeing in a cup is difficult no matter how much you have to go. Yeah, I said that. Let that sink in for a minute.

I then gave a cup with a tiny amount of my pee in it to a very grouchy nurse. Now that I think about it, maybe she's so grumpy because she has to carry people's pee around all day. I got a room in which to sit and then the grumpy nurse ordered me to get naked.

They give you two gowns- one with a back opening and one with a front opening, so you can avoid the very situation that I had captured on film many years ago.

**Misty eyed flashback time**
Many years ago (MANY) I was part of a hospital video that was (and might still be) shown to children who were going into surgery. My role in this video was simple. I was to be sitting with my parents, the "doctor" would come over and take me by the hand, and we would walk toward the double doors. Halfway there I was to turn back to my parents, smile and wave at them, and then keep walking. I want to mention that I was very jealous of my friend Bobby, who got to be the kid on a stretcher. Anyway, I could not grasp the concept of turning a particular direction. We had to do multiple takes because I kept flashing my undies at the camera when I turned back to wave the wrong way.
**Misty eyed return to present day**

So it upsets me deeply that you actually have to remove your undies when going into surgery for your ankle. I get why I have to take off the bra- If my heart stopped they want to be able to zap me and I want them to do that too. But if something goes so wrong with the ankle surgery that they need access to my hoo-ha I'm suing.

So then a parade of people I've never met came into the room. A guy who was going to be in the surgery but wasn't my doctor came in, asked me questions the other nurse had already asked ("Any chance you could be pregnant?" Then, to my mother, "Sorry, I have to ask.") Apparently I look like a teenager when in hospital gowns.

And then the anesthesiology team. The nurse was very nice. She told me all about how they were going to do whatever. Then the actual doctor came in. I am a little surprised that I even went along with this whole thing, especially after he stopped the normal lady from talking about the procedure to tell me he was going to give me "the Michael Jackson cocktail." Insert his smug look. My mother looked horrified. I said, "You probably shouldn't make a joke about a dead guy until I wake up from this." Then he went on a tangent about how he knows some of the people who testified (I did not fawn "Ohhh you're so important!" as I believe the intention was) and how no cardiologist can know anything about what he does for a living. He left the room and the nurse came back and apologized for him.

Then the nurse described how they were going to put a mask on me and a tube in my throat and... STOP! I had been told that this would just be IV sedation and I wouldn't need all that, I told her.

"Oh. I guess we can do that," she said.

Glad I was there. (WTF)

This is a really terrible photo of my surgeon's initials on my bad leg. Maybe it's so he doesn't forget which leg he's cutting into.

Anyway, the falling asleep was much more pleasant this time. They gave me some happy drugs and I lifted up the little curtain to watch them orange my leg until someone (I'm told it was the surgeon) scolded me. Then I slept until I woke up to the crazy anesthesiologist sitting next to me and telling me to make sure my dad knew he did a good job. He also asked if I had lied about ever taking Zoloft because I have an unnatural resistance to anti-anxiety medication. I did not have the heart to tell him I'm probably just more anxious than the normal person.

I woke up to stabby ankle pain at the actual site but that's all. I wasn't nauseous!

My leg all bandaged

I wasn't allowed to shower for a few days, but when I did take the bandage off I was surprised by how big the new incision was and that I could plainly feel long sutures sticking out of my leg.

They cut right over the old incision, which was nice, but you can see that the new incision is about half the length of the old one. The yellow residue is from the pad they had over the sutures.

In this really odd and very dramatic view you can see one of the stitches sticking up like rabbit ears.

I was told I could leave it uncovered but with the stitches sticking up like that I felt like they might get caught on my pants or stick to the inside of the boot. Also, touching them hurts, so I want them to be stable. I have two big band-aids over them now. I return to the doctor Tuesday to get the stitches out. 

I'm now allowed to bear as much weight as I can tolerate but it's scary. I don't want to do it too much without the boot because my ankle isn't strong anymore and rolling it would suck big-time. I have taken a few tiny tiny steps with almost all my weight on it. It doesn't hurt from the weight so much as it's uncomfortable and terrifying. Also, I still can't flex my ankle to ten degrees, which is the magic walking number. PT tomorrow, I'll let you know how it goes!

Update

Last week I had a brilliant idea.

Instead of making Jason get off the couch for the millionth time just to fetch me a pot that was hiding way in the back of a low cabinet, I could get it myself. The plan was as follows:
Kneel on left knee.
Summon pot.
Stand up.

So simple. So genius.

It went wrong around step number three. Although I can get up from a seated position without holding on to anything, kneeling on the floor is different. First of all, my knee isn't as padded as it once was, as my muscles have all run away. Kneeling on that knee, therefore, is a bit more painful as the bony knee does not like the tile floor. Also, I couldn't stand up. I tried to use the crutches to no avail. I tried to grab the counter for leverage but it was too high. I used the refrigerator door, which opened, letting me slowly plop onto the floor. It didn't really hurt except that my ankle bone knocked the tile floor, which made the metal pins sad. Jason said, "are you okay?" from some sort of instinctual feeling. Either that or I just stopped making noise in the kitchen. He turned around to find me on the floor. He laughed. But he also helped me up, so he is forgiven.

Next item of update: my armpits.

**Warning! This update contains a photo of my armpit!**

I just want to tell you that I have no idea at what point in this ordeal I decided it was acceptable to post a close-up photo of my armpit on the internet. That said, here it is:

The red mark that looks like a zit is actually a burn of sorts. And the dark bruise is... well it's a bruise.

Lastly, I had my second and final surgery yesterday. I shall update you on all the goodness that is weight-bearing life in the next post. For now, enjoy that armpit photo.

The Franken-Ankle is thankful for...

-Nice people who open doors for me.
-Hilarious children who ask their parents (never me) awesome questions like "why can't she walk?" and "how does she use those?" (He answered his own question when I began crutching: "Oh. Like that.")
-My handicapped parking thingy
-Handicapped spaces. They're annoying when you are able-bodied and can't find a spot, but I've been surprised by how many places don't have any at all.
-full-service gas stations
-any store that gives me a bag with handles instead of one without (thank you, Chipotle!)
-stores with aisles that aren't filled with a ton of crap for me to trip on
-my ability to drive and therefore leave the house on occasion
-drive-through everything
-banisters
-The lady who carried my pizza to the car for me a few weeks ago. And her kid, who carried my drink. I would have just eaten there instead of taking it to go, but she offered. She rocks.
-The still-nice winter weather. Let's hold off on ice as long as possible!
-ski socks. They are good for keeping your un-shoed foot warm and for tying around ice packs to hold them on.
-handicapped bars in bathroom stalls so I don't get stuck.
-ice pops. They make everything better



And lastly, the most important most wonderful help of all ...

-my Jason.





.

Scars

A little photo update of scars and PT:

This is the scar on the inside of my ankle. It's much smaller than the other and it's healing well. It's flat and getting pink as opposed to red, which is a good sign. You can see that there is still a decent amount of swelling in the ankle. You can also see a little of the discoloration between the scar and heel. It looks like a bruise, but it doesn't feel like a bruise. I'm not sure if it's going to go away.

This is the scar on the outside of my leg. It is very big. I can't see it very well so it's harder for me to do the odd massage thing that helps heal the scar. It's more red than the other, but it was also open wider than the other, so that contributes to the darker color. It's also not flat. The top is a bit bumpy and so is the bony knob, but the knob part is bumpy due to metal. You can see a bit of that in this photo- where there should be one bumpy bone-knob (that's a scientific term) it looks like there are two. In reality there is just an odd conglomeration of metal bumps that you can feel from the outside.

Here's a close-up of a suture that is coming to the surface. At first I thought it was an ingrown hair, but it's much darker and thicker than my leg hair (thank goodness!). I've been told to just let it work its way out. It looks nasty, but picking at it could cause infection. It's possible that some of the other bumps at the top of the scar are other internal sutures coming to the surface. I've been told that's okay and to let it happen, but it sounds so very wrong.

Here are some videos of PT:

This one is called a BAPS board. I do not know why. It makes you swivel your foot around.

This one is a deviously designed exercise. It's a folded pillowcase with a weight at one end. Apparently this weight is 3 pounds. I thought it was 30. The movement is a side-to-side motion using your foot/toes to pull the pillowcase and weight and then typewriter it back to the other side. It is hard.

Last but never least- Toe Teasers. It's an awkwardly sideways video, but you get the point. Pick up the small black foam tube with your monkey toes and place them in the basket. Try to ignore the time in the video when I clearly cheat by picking one up between my big toe and the one next to it instead of scrunched in my toes as is the point.

Off-road with the wheelchair

Yesterday was a really great day. We managed to get out for the day, which is wonderful for me, although not so wonderful for Jason, who had to push me around in a wheelchair all day.

We really did a lot of walking/rolling. Starting at the World Financial Center for Canstruction we walked around the WTC site. Then we drove down to a different side of town to get dinner with my family and see my cousin's ballet. Before dinner we did a lot of exploring, walking around the Lincoln Center area.

There's a thing about sidewalks that you probably don't know if you've never been in a wheelchair. First of all, I find the grates to the subway pretty terrifying when I'm walking, never mind being rolled over them. I also hate those big bulk head doors to businesses, because if you have ever lived in New York you have seen a news story about someone falling into an unlocked one.

I did not fall into an unlocked bulk head. Just thought I should jot that down, since with my luck that's probably where you thought this story was going. Although at one point I did get slightly stuck on one- Jason was wheeling me directly over the grate to torture me and the wheels in the front, just slightly bigger than the giant holes in the grate, got stuck. Luckily he was able to tilt the wheelchair and get me out of there before I totally flipped out and tried to tuck and roll.

The other problem with NYC sidewalks is that there is frequently a small cliff between the street and where the ramp begins, making crosswalks slightly terrifying. Jason did a great job navigating the treacherous divots and valleys that make wheelchair-ing and high heel wearing mildly deadly. Until one sidewalk, at which I lifted my bad leg (I did this at every ramp to brace myself), held on (thank goodness), and Jason got a bit of momentum going. We hit a dead stop at the bottom of the cliff/ramp and I, holding on, did not pitch onto the sidewalk. I did say a very loud curse word to the amusement of the people standing nearby.

After a few of those I noticed the wheelchair wasn't as much of a smooth ride anymore. It was like riding a tricycle with one flat tire. In a rhythmic pattern the wheelchair was thunking hard to the left. We had broken the wheelchair.

Actually, the "tire" aka rubber band around the left wheel had come off the actual wheel. We had to stop while I stood up and Jason tipped the chair on its side to muscle the band back onto the wheel. Clearly hospital wheelchairs aren't meant for off-roading.

The downside.

So this upcoming Thanksgiving will be one of very few I have off from work. I should probably put off in quotation marks, since I'm on disability and not really off work at all.

My parents and sister go down to Florida each year to spend time with my aunt, uncle and cousin, who they seem to spend time with on a regular basis but due to living in Ohio for five years and working on holidays I never get to see. This year I faced an ultimatum. Go to Boston with my new fiance or fly to Florida?

To be honest, despite wanting to see my family I was leaning toward Boston because the thought of air travel in my current condition sounded every level of not fun. However, I got a message from my young cousin asking if I was going down to Florida, and felt guilty. We began the process of finding a last-minute flight the day before Thanksgiving - no easy task!

Just as we were about to finalize our options I went to the doctor for this week's death-defying fall. Right before I was about to leave, Corrinne, the nurse (she's amazing!) asked what I was doing for the holidays. The conversation went something like this:

Me: Either Boston or Florida. I think I'm going to Florida.
Corrinne: driving?
Me: No, flying
Corrinne: *Shocked look of horror/disbelief* Go to Boston.

Apparently, air travel would require I begin those fun injections again. Due to the change in pressure and the fact that I'd be immobile for quite awhile I'd be at an increased risk for a deep vein thrombosis (aka blood clot). And I'd have to continue taking the shots for three days after getting back. The problem, of course, is that I'm scheduled for surgery the Monday after Thanksgiving. To avoid my blood escaping my body like a waterfall I cannot take blood thinners within 24 hours of surgery. The math just doesn't work.

So, I'm going to Boston for Thanksgiving. It's not REALLY a downside, since it'll be fun regardless, but it is disappointing to find how much this darn ankle really limits me.

The big fall

I had a dream.

Well, it was more like a nightmare. In said nightmare I slipped getting out of the shower, smacking my skull on the sink. I fell to the ground, losing and gaining conciousness as blood pooled around me. I was supposed to meet someone with Jason, and when I didn't show up he called a friend of his who works nearby. She came to the house and opened the unlocked front door to find me lying on the bathroom floor. She called 9-1-1. Luckily, this didn't actually happen.

What did happen was not nearly as bad. The morning after that nightmare I took a shower. I got out of the shower just fine, but the next step was a doozy. My right crutch slipped on the damp tile floor and I went sprawling forwards. I dropped the left crutch to grab the sink (no blood!) and ended up somehow hurting my ankle. I'm not sure if I stepped down on it or did something else. All I know is I spent the next 10-15 minutes sobbing on the closed toilet seat. My ankle hurt SO BAD and I was terrified.

I had planned to drive down to meet up with my mom that day anyway, and when I got there and looked at my ankle it was seriously swollen. I also had less movement in it and it was more painful to move than it had been. I went to the doctor to get an x-ray, just to make sure I didn't break any screws or shift any bones around. I didn't. I got another shot of radiation, though, so if it's dark out be sure to look for me glowing in the distance. The humorless x-ray technician said I started getting mail in the x-ray room. He is hilarous.

After learning I didn't screw up my screws (haha!) I felt a bit better, until I got home that night. Around midnight I sat on the couch and swung my legs up to the couch so I could recline. Agony! I got what seemed like a horrible cramp in the muscle just above and around my knee. It lasted quite awhile, and afterward my muscle was so sore it felt bruised and was even painful to the touch. I went to bed around 1 a.m.

I awoke at 5 a.m. to my muscle screaming at me. It was horrendous. When it subsided a new wave of crampy pain came. This went on for an hour before I called my mommy, because that's what you do when something hurts and your fiance has mysteriously gone to work at 4 in the morning. She assured me it was not a blood clot (those would be in my calf, but probably feel similar). She gave me some other advice I didn't listen to, because once I knew I wasn't dying I felt like a big baby. I went back to sleep. Since then the cramps, which I imagine are caused by a nerve strangling my muscle like a boa constrictor, have been coming off and on all day. One came while I was leaving a store, forcing me to stop in the middle of the parking lot in the rain to ride out the terror.

It is now about 9 p.m. and I just suffered what I hope will be the last giant man-eating cramp of the evening. The end.

progress

The progress is slow, but it is visible:

When I began PT I couldn't get my ankle to neutral. Now I can flex it to neutral on my own, which means I have gained 10 degrees of motion flexing. Walking is 10 degrees and running is 20*, so I have a ways to go, but I started at -10.

When I began PT my ankle could bend in the pointy-ballerina direction to 30 degrees. Now it goes to 38. Slight improvement.

The big toe on my left foot has also seen some improvement. I can now bend back my big toe as much as I can the right one, but there is still some needed improvement in the scrunching direction.

*This post originally erroneously stated that walking requires 20 degrees of flexing motion. That's wrong. Walking requires 10 degrees, running is 20.

Stop and Drop. I mean Shop.

It's pretty incredible the things we take for granted. Yes, I'm aware that walking is an important part of most people's lives. It's the walking AND something else skills that I miss the most.

I have crutches to get around. Although they aren't the most efficient mode of transportation and my right foot does get terribly crampy, I've been slowly upping my crutch skills. I can now go through all the hip excercises at PT without taking a sitting break. I can take a slightly longer shower (namely, I can wash my hair - shampoo and conditioner! - loofah myself down, shave the parts I can reach, and wash my face without having to get out of the shower to sit down in between). Please note that taking a seated break means getting OUT of the shower, usually soapy and dripping wet, to take a seat on the towel-covered toilet bowl before getting back in there. It's not easy to get out and in, never mind stand for the whole shower. I can also crutch around all smaller stores (the largest being CVS) without needing a break. And stores that are large but have intermittent seating, like Barnes and Noble, are my bitch.

I've also developed coping mechanisms to get me through difficult situations. I ask for bags with handles when I go to stores. I can hold a not-too-heavy paper bag with one hand by folding the top over the handle of the crutch, thereby holding both the bag and the crutch at the same time. I carry a backpack instead of a purse because purses get caught between my crutch and my ample bosom, or if the bag is longer it gets squished between the crutch and the junk in my trunk. I've seen women try to still carry a purse. Unless they are shaped like a 2x4 it is never pretty.

That said, there is one element of crutch life that I have yet to master - the Grocery Store. The grocery store is evil because ...

1. You have to go there. You cannot eat fast food every single day for every single meal, no matter how much you are thinking at this moment "there can never be enough chicken nuggets." The truth is, there CAN be too many chicken nuggets, and as you can probably tell, I should know. See "junk in my trunk" above.
2. Everything is heavy. It's easy to go to CVS because you can load up on light things. At CVS I use a reusable shopping bag because it's too difficult to stop, take off the backpack, insert item, replace backpack, repeat. Also, I don't want to look like a thief.  It's difficult, but because everything is light I can carry it like I do the not-too-heavy paper bag. Not so at the grocery.
3. Everything I want is SO FAR from everything else! I'm a perimeter grocery shopper. If I want meat, vegetables, fruit, and milk/cheese, which is usually what I want, I can't just go in, head to one section and get out. It's a marathon in there.
4. There is nowhere to sit. Even at stores without actual seating like Barnes and Noble there are still places to sit. Verizon gave me a chair. CVS has stools near the photo counter. The grocery is a seating wasteland. If I get to the bakery section and have to sit down I'm totally screwed.


All those things in mind, I decided today was the day I had to grocery shop. As I said, I cannot eat any more chicken nuggets. They aren't even that good to begin with. And Taco Bell is delicious but makes me feel so, so bad about myself. My original plan included going to an actual butcher (small store!) and then the grocery just for veggies, which are near the front. Alas, the butcher didn't have the particular cut I was looking for, and any inclination I had to just get something else went out the window when the guy was a total asshole and made me feel stupid for calling something a roast that isn't a roast.

Defeated, I decided to brave the evil Stop and Shop establishment. The shopping list was relatively short. I usually enjoy perusing aisles, thinking of ways to change it up a bit, and pondering what odd veggies might taste like until chickening out and putting them down. Today was all business. Chicken. Green Peppers. Mushrooms. Some sort of quick thing I can make for lunch one day. Bread. We need water but I axed that from the get-go.

I began my journey by putting two reusable shopping bags in a cart near my car. Then it all went downhill. It turns out it is easy to push a cart. It is easy to crutch. It is impossible to do those two things at the same time. I tried a maneuver which entailed shoving the cart ahead of me, crutching to it, repeat. It was slow, clumsy, and I kept hitting things with the cart. Then I tried to push the cart with my stomach. Poor steering control. Finally, I came up with what I will call the Patent-Pending One Crutch Shopping Cart Maneuver. It goes like this:

With a crutch under each arm, place your left hand (the hand on the side of the hurt foot) on the left crutch and right hand on the shopping cart handle. Push the cart forward by simultaneously leaning on the crutches to take a step. Bring the crutches to you by using your left hand while hip-checking the right crutch until it pops to the side a bit. Use incredible armpit strength to swivel the right crutch to an acceptable location for next forward motion. Repeat.

This got me through the veggie section. Then I gave up. I already had my peppers and mushrooms in a shopping bag with one long handle which I wore crossed over my body. I put that bag directly in front of me, stopping every few steps to put it back in front of me so my veggies wouldn't get squashed in the "junk in the trunk vs. crutches" vice. I saw a box of mac and cheese on my way to the meat section. I threw it in the bag. I proceeded to the back of the store for meat only to discover they put the meat where the dairy usually is- on the other side of the damn store! I crutched my way over to the other side (this is where some random guy says under his breath and in passing, "are you okay?" and I'm pretty sure he means mentally and the answer is totally no but I say nothing). I find the meat. I find a giant thing of chicken because no way in hell am I doing this again and we need food for more than one day. I double bag it so it doesn't leak all over me and slide it into the other shopping bag, which I put over my shoulder and over the crutch to avoid the vice situation. It's not a perfect way to carry it as it keeps slipping, but it is better than squishing chicken juice all over me. I pass garlic bread and again throw it into a bag. I get to the counter. I'm almost home free.


I managed to purchase all my stuff (shout out to the lady behind me in line who was totally encroaching on my belt/personal space. I'm on crutches, lady, calm yourself.) It all went back into the bags and I crutched to my car. I collapsed into the driver seat, totally exhausted, and drove myself home. We now have food and I am awesome.

The end.

I'm an artist

An old post I never published...

To cheer you all up, anyone want me to make them a clay Pac-Man sculpture? And by "clay" I mean "play-doh."

Run, Pac-Man, run!

Delay

I was supposed to have surgery this Friday to remove one screw. After that surgery I was to start walking, and then return to work. I planned to go back to work before Thanksgiving so I could have Christmas off this year to spend with my fiance and his family. That is all down the shitter.

My doctor looked at my x-rays and, although I am healing quite well, he decided that since the ligament was completely torn at the beginning taking the screw out at eight weeks after surgery is too soon. He wants to wait at least 10 weeks, putting my surgery on November 28, the Monday after Thanksgiving.

I now have two more weeks of non-weight bearing. I get to pay $75/week to go to physical therapy to wiggle my ankle around without actually exercising. Since the $25/per visit PT copay doesn't count toward my out-of-pocket expenses I'm starting to wonder if I should significantly cut down on my visits until I can actually accomplish something like weight-bearing.

My FMLA (and therefore my job security) extends until December 28, which is about a month longer than I had thought, so that's good. What isn't good is that I'm now on half pay. My last check was for about $600. For two weeks. Over those two weeks I had to pay $150 for PT. That's a big chunk of my measly paycheck. I also have medical bills up the ying-yang. Luckily the hospital will set up an interest-free payment plan. My landlords will not. Neither will my credit cards, or Sallie Mae. This is very bad. I'm not sure how long I can keep this up for without having to put a hold on my student loans or something. On the up side I'm not spending any money on clothes, shoes, or anything that comes from a large store like the grocery. The bad side is that I have no winter clothes or healthy food.

I guess the moral of the story is I'm grumpy. And I can't be too pissed off because the alternative to waiting is even worse: re-doing the original surgery and starting all over. If they take out the screw too soon and I start putting weight on it there's a danger that the syndesmosis could spread again, and the only solution is alas, not more cowbell. It's surgery. Again.

Slightly more uplifting post to come later.

Indian Burn

A few weeks ago I posted about my love of Mederma, lotion for clumsy people. Well, I've unearthed those photos from the last time I f-ed up this same ankle.

**Insert misty transition to flash-back**

It was senior year of college and I was about to enjoy the most delicious delivery food ever- Indian. Chicken Tikka Masala, to be exact. It's chicken floating in a red yogurt sauce. It's wonderful. It was also exceptionally hot. So hot that if I were an asshole like the McDonald's coffee lady I probably could have sued. The food came in a plastic Chinese soup container. The lids are really sturdy, the bottom not so much. So when I sat cross-legged on a big comfy chair and opened the lid, the boiling hot sauce had melted the soup container. The lid came off and the bottom slipped out of my hand, spilling the sauce all over the cursed ankle. The sauce burned my leg and got all over the chair. I couldn't really get up because I was holding stuff and the hot sauce was everywhere, and in a stupid moment of impulse I swiped the hot sauce off my leg to make the burning stop. This just allowed more burning to happen underneath the previous burn. I managed to get up and stick my leg in the bathroom sink, but the damage had been done.

From here on out we will be pretending I did this in an awesome way, like on a motorcycle or in a welding accident.

Anyway, I attempted to take care of the injury myself for several days. I washed it off with soap and water (horrible!) and then it looked like this:

I kept it antibiotic ointment-ed and wrapped in gauze and an ace bandage for protection from the dirt that seemed very close to the wound. Finally, I decided to go to the Lane Death Health Center at Northeastern for a little professional care. They said, "This is Silvadine. It's for burns. You're allergic to an ingredient, but only orally. It'll be great."

It was not great. It was supposed to be soothing, so when I called my mother to let her know I had followed her advice and gone to a doctor, she was pretty alarmed when I told her it felt like it was burning all over again. Jaxon drove me to the hospital.

At the hospital a doctor basically told me to buck up but listened when I was adamant that I wanted the Silvadine off of me. He then cut away the dead skin on the edges, something I thought I should do but was too grossed out to try. After he worked on it, it looked like this:

At the bottom you can see the note I wrote to the members of the burn unit at the
hospital my parents work for. Remote medicine.

Finally, time passed. I can't for the life of me find the post-mederma photo, but I can show you the most recent one I found. It already looks better.

You'll have to trust me that if you looked at my ankle before I broke it you would never have seen any marks where I burned it. The burn was at least three inches, possibly larger, and yet there is no scarring at all. 

Well, there is now.

PT, day 3

Physical Therapy is much better after the initial horror. I think they purposefully injure you the first day so you don't whine so much the rest of the time.
There has been no more excruciating pain, and no more crying. I've been working on some movements I've done in PT in the past, like for my hips (which are pathetic and enjoy popping out of their socket whenever possible) and some I haven't done like for my toes.
I've been spending about and hour and a half there each time now and that is a very long time. It includes the heat application at the beginning (which is awesome until it gets too hot!) and then the ice at the end (which is terrible the entire time). I don't like being cold. I also don't like my fat ankle, however, so I have to balance.
Kate (No longer being referred to as Helga, partially because she's actually very nice and partially because she is now privy to the blog) does some of the motions I've been practicing on my own. She also squeezes the ankle in ways that don't hurt and she claims have some sort of stretching benefit (if only all exercise required no work on my part!). Then I do hip movements, which are interjected with me sitting to give my right leg a break. All of this is totally bearable.
Then there are "toe teasers." A small basket of tiny rubber tubes of various diameters is dumped on the floor and I am tasked with picking each one up with my toes and returning them to the little basket. The first time I did this I felt like I was training to be a circus monkey and I got so frustrated I pictured myself getting up, overturning a table out of sheer rage, and stomping out. Since I then decided that would make me look MORE like a circus animal and, also, I cannot stomp, I just kept at it. The thing is, I have opposable thumbs. What is the point of a severe evolutionary asset if you just pick stuff up with your feet?? I cannot scrunch my toes the necessary tightness for such a task. At first I was really upset that I had lost the ability to stealthily pick up tiny things with my toes. Then I realized something- I can't scrunch my right toes either!! In fact, when I clench my right toes the last two tiny ones don't move at all! My lack of ability to scrunch toes and pick up stupid shit with them is not due to my ankle injury, it's due to my personal and permanent handicap! Clearly, I should keep the handicap placard I have in my car forever.

Anywhoo... I plan to photograph my lovely scars on a weekly basis, so the next installment of those is coming up soon. I'm hoping to have my ankle movements measured again so I can see the progress or lack thereof. Next week I see the doctor on Tuesday and the screw comes out on Friday. The end.

Pictures of screwing.

Not like that, you perv.

So, it has come to my attention (from my wonderful, caring, not at all Helga the Horrible physical therapist) that I have neglected to post photos of my xrays that show the metallic inside of my ankle. I shall remedy that situation.

This photo was taken DURING surgery as they are installing the long screw, which is going to be removed next week. As you can see, they use caliper thingies to line up the ankle the way it should be and then drill, baby, drill.

So there are 11 screws. Here's proof.

This one is my favorite because it totally freaks me out. You can actually see the break lines in the fibula (smaller bone) in the center of that bracket. Normally that bracket would be shorter, but they had to attach the bottom to un-shattered bone, so they had to travel a bit farther south.

PT, day 1

Holy crap.

I was with the physical therapist for about 15 minutes. To be fair, I had to fill out a lot of paperwork beforehand, and today was all about "measuring" how far I can move my ankle. I put the word measuring in quotes because despite using a fancy protractor-like tool, the answer was basically "not at all" and therefore measuring was not necessary.

My therapist's name is Kate. Or Katie or something that sounds like that, so we're going to call her Kate, aka Helga the Horrible. When I took off the boot and she saw my leg she said, "Oh my god, it's so tight." It is quite solid.

We started by measuring my good leg. I failed the test. I felt like I should have been warned that there would be a pop quiz so I could have stretched or something before-hand, but as I've mentioned, it's really impossible to do stretches with one leg immobilized. Even when stretching the other leg I found it difficult to find a position that I could sustain and even then I wasn't getting a good stretch. So I stopped stretching. That bit me in the ass today. I could practically hear the "tsk tsk" of the therapist as she measured how much I can flex and point my toe, how much I can turn it to the right or left, and how much I can curl my toes. She wrote down her findings and turned on my left leg.

It is important to note that one exercise had me completely baffled. I was supposed to turn my ankle in or out as if pointing my toe to something to the right or left without moving my leg. This made perfect sense after the fact when she showed it to me when I was sitting up. But she originally had me trying this while on my stomach, and I couldn't for the life of me figure out where she wanted me to point my damn toe. "Like this," she'd say while manhandling my foot. I can't see you, genius, I have no idea what the hell you're doing to me.

I thought it was good that she had done all the movements on my right leg first because I'd know what to expect. It turns out this just made me really nervous. She wasn't gentle and she didn't slowly maneuver my ankle, she just went for it. First we did the twisting thing I didn't understand. Helga asked me to first do the motion as far as I could on my own, then she'd grab the ankle and "help." I twisted my ankle. She said, "Is that all?" It was all.

She compared the degree of movement to my right leg. Obviously, all the measurements were less than the right leg was, but twisting to the left is nearly comical. I could only move it 3 degrees. Not good.

Then I turned onto my stomach and bent my knee. This was the part I knew was going to hurt: flexing and pointing my left foot. I was supposed to start at neutral, which is 90 degrees, but I was so far from there that was just started from where my foot was. First she had me flex it myself. I didn't do much. Then she started pushing all her weight against the foot to move it down. As the pain built (quickly) with each degree the foot moved I felt a cracking in my ankle like when you pop your knuckles, but not in a place where you should be able to pop anything. It was excruciating. I tapped out. And by tapped out I mean I started crying and begging "please stop!" She informed me that she hadn't been able to get my foot to 90 degrees.

Then she did the pointing, which was also painful but she was a bit more gentle because of the previous crying. Finally, Kate did something to feel how my mid-foot was moving. I didn't cry, which was a step in the right direction.

Finally, she started squishing my scars. I knew this would happen because of previous scar-squishing experience. I hate it hate it hate it. However, I'm going to get married in the foreseeable future and I don't want you all looking at my nasty scar, I want you admiring my amazing shoes (high heeled, preferably). Then I got some exercises to do at home and I was on my merry way.

The bad thing about PT was everything. The good thing about PT was that I now know how gentle and careful I don't have to be with my ankle. I've been really scared to do anything with it and now that I know you can shove it around so much I'm feeling a bit more comfortable having it out of the boot.

I just did my exercises again (three times a day!) and while they are all uncomfortable, I was shocked by the one that is by far the worst. I thought the pointing/flexing of the toe would be the worst. Alas, it is not. The evil motion is this: Put your feet flat on the floor (no pressure, remember, I'm non-weight bearing). Then lift your toes. For some unknown reason this is HORRIBLE. I can get my toes a max of a few centimeters off the ground and the pain is really quite intense.

I'm pretty down about the lack of motion in my ankle. I knew it would be bad, so it's not like I wasn't expecting this, but my ankle is basically cement and I'm very concerned about the future prospects of my ankle movement. What if I can never move it the way I used to? Sigh.

So here's a video of me moving my right foot and trying really hard to move the left. It's hard to see the motion sometimes because you're seeing it from an odd vantage point, but you'll get the drift. I'll practice doing a better job.

Anyway, the next appointment with Helga is Monday. I'm going to go scrunch my scars now.

Metal

I can feel metal in my leg.

I can clearly touch the outline of at least one screw on the outside of my ankle, and I can feel what I imagine to be a metal plate in that area as well. I am certain about the screw, the plate I'm about 75% sure of. It sure doesn't feel like bone right there, that's for sure.

My left foot is pretty swollen so it's hard to tell how much metal I'll be able to feel in the long run, but I've been told not to be surprised if the screws are actually visible against the skin on my ankle.

When my foot was in the cast and I left it dependent, or down, for too long I could feel the swelling happening as the normally loosey-goosey cast got very tight, to the point of being so constricting I felt like my toes might lose circulation. Now that I'm in the boot I don't feel that tightness at all, which means I can go out and be about more than I ever could before, but when I get home and let the beast ankle free it looks like it got stung by a zillion bees. I've been sleeping without the boot, which has been really nice. I wake up with the ankle feeling a little tiny itty bitty bit more flexible than when I went to bed.

Tomorrow at 11:30 a.m. is my first PT appointment. I was told that it's good I'll have the weekend to recover. I may be posting photos of myself crying, but I'll try to be strong.

I do my own stunts

I came across this series of hilarious cartoony things on Cafe Press and can't help but wonder if the person who made them knows me somehow. From now on when strangers ask me what I did to my leg I'm just going to say, "I do my own stunts."





Links to this stuff so I'm not a jerk who steals other people's stuff off the internet:
http://www.cafepress.com.au/idomyownstunts.72955110
http://www.cafepress.com/idomyownstunts.181955018