Two questions it didn't occur to me to ask at the time have been bouncing through my head.
How big a scar am I going to have? This will join the three major surgery scars (or as in my knee duplicate surgery scar) on my body not to mention the numerous almost invisible ones - where I cracked my chin on the playground or where I got my finger caught in an old-fashioned folding elevator door to name two I can remember the cause of. Will this scar reach the blue heart tattoo I got on my ankle two weeks before my Dad died? Will it make slingbacks uncomfortable?
The second question is how much nerve damage will I have? Having been through leg surgery, I don't believe for a minute that some of the nerves on my foot and toes didn't lose their connection to my brain. I can already feel, or not feel as the case may be, spots between the little piggy that went to market and the little piggy that had none. I don't know what else I will or won't feel when I am out of this cast and can begin to move my foot.
I was very proud of myself this morning. I managed to do a load of laundry and scoop kitty litter. I then realized I can't get the dirty litter bag from my apartment to the trash shoot and am still trying to figure the logistics to get the laundry out of the dryer and put away, which takes away some of my pride in the moment.
I want to thank all my friends who have called, e-mailed or texted to see how I'm doing and if I need anything. Thanks to them I now have a safe container for my used needles, though the sharps will now smell like Basil laundry detergent. I have Extra Strength Tylenol to replace the Percocet I mentioned I seem to be allergic to, and have been kept in good meals - today's lunch arrived via a local Chinese restaurant from a friend in California. (Have to remember that trick for far flung friends in the future.)
It's the boredom that is getting to me. I don't have the concentration required for the minutia of the grant proposals I hope to finish while I'm laid up, and I need more narcotics than I have available to manage to sit through one more Republican Presidential debate. Friends shocked to learn I had never seen any of "The Godfather" movies lent me the trio on DVD, I gave up about 20 minutes into the first one.
At least after my knee I had the CPM machine twice a day, which gave me some semblance of a schedule. Now it's get up when the cat's yowling starts to drive me mad, move to the couch so he can climb on my lap, try to watch tv, or play Sudoku, realize it's only 10:30am, try to watch something, check the internet, or read from the large pile of books and magazines, lunch, more of the morning activities, doze, listen to the cat cry for 90 minutes before his actual dinner time, feed the cats, write up my day while I eat dinner, answer any email's I hadn't gotten to, get my evening shot, do my nightly ablutions, go to bed, try to read, sleep and do it all again tomorrow.
And I know I need to be quiet this week so I can push it to attend a meeting Tuesday night, still trying to decide if I'll be able to bake for it and then host a meeting Thursday night. And then a week from Tuesday it's back to Dr. H to hopefully change to a walking cast. Any particle physicists with the ability to speed up time please contact me at this blog. Your gift to mankind will be greatly appreciated by this woman.
How big a scar am I going to have? This will join the three major surgery scars (or as in my knee duplicate surgery scar) on my body not to mention the numerous almost invisible ones - where I cracked my chin on the playground or where I got my finger caught in an old-fashioned folding elevator door to name two I can remember the cause of. Will this scar reach the blue heart tattoo I got on my ankle two weeks before my Dad died? Will it make slingbacks uncomfortable?
The second question is how much nerve damage will I have? Having been through leg surgery, I don't believe for a minute that some of the nerves on my foot and toes didn't lose their connection to my brain. I can already feel, or not feel as the case may be, spots between the little piggy that went to market and the little piggy that had none. I don't know what else I will or won't feel when I am out of this cast and can begin to move my foot.
I was very proud of myself this morning. I managed to do a load of laundry and scoop kitty litter. I then realized I can't get the dirty litter bag from my apartment to the trash shoot and am still trying to figure the logistics to get the laundry out of the dryer and put away, which takes away some of my pride in the moment.
I want to thank all my friends who have called, e-mailed or texted to see how I'm doing and if I need anything. Thanks to them I now have a safe container for my used needles, though the sharps will now smell like Basil laundry detergent. I have Extra Strength Tylenol to replace the Percocet I mentioned I seem to be allergic to, and have been kept in good meals - today's lunch arrived via a local Chinese restaurant from a friend in California. (Have to remember that trick for far flung friends in the future.)
It's the boredom that is getting to me. I don't have the concentration required for the minutia of the grant proposals I hope to finish while I'm laid up, and I need more narcotics than I have available to manage to sit through one more Republican Presidential debate. Friends shocked to learn I had never seen any of "The Godfather" movies lent me the trio on DVD, I gave up about 20 minutes into the first one.
At least after my knee I had the CPM machine twice a day, which gave me some semblance of a schedule. Now it's get up when the cat's yowling starts to drive me mad, move to the couch so he can climb on my lap, try to watch tv, or play Sudoku, realize it's only 10:30am, try to watch something, check the internet, or read from the large pile of books and magazines, lunch, more of the morning activities, doze, listen to the cat cry for 90 minutes before his actual dinner time, feed the cats, write up my day while I eat dinner, answer any email's I hadn't gotten to, get my evening shot, do my nightly ablutions, go to bed, try to read, sleep and do it all again tomorrow.
And I know I need to be quiet this week so I can push it to attend a meeting Tuesday night, still trying to decide if I'll be able to bake for it and then host a meeting Thursday night. And then a week from Tuesday it's back to Dr. H to hopefully change to a walking cast. Any particle physicists with the ability to speed up time please contact me at this blog. Your gift to mankind will be greatly appreciated by this woman.
