Frankenfoot
Unconscious Mutterings week 291
- Cry :: me a fucking river. The shit people (generally fucking fundy women) get their panties all in a twist about drives me insane. STFU.
- Stretch :: marks. On my toes. Yeah, my foot was that swollen.
- Efficient :: uhhhh, what’s that mean?? I’m sure I have no idea…
- Brunch :: Mimosas!!
- Afro :: BrotherDanesi as a child when he let his hair grow LOL
- Preheat :: oven. Damn, now I want biscuits!!
- Delicious :: see Brunch
- Global warming :: *sigh* Ok, I’m totally in the middle of the “Oh my god the planet is dying and it’s all our fauullt!” and the “Christ you people are stupid”. Yes, the climate is changing. Yes, we probably have had at least some impact on this. However, the earth goes thru these stages all on it’s own and frankly I don’t think humanity is so all-important that we’ve done as much harm as some think. Do we need to be more environmentally aware? Absolutely! That only makes sense but, dude, get the fuck over yourselves. We need to do it because humanity in general is entirely too short sighted. However, having said all that, if people want to keep crying “OMGWTFBBQ GLOBAL WARMING” all over the place I say it’s probably not a bad thing if it gets people to start being more environmentally aware. It needs to happen and if this is what it takes, then so be it.
- Actions :: speak louder than words.
- Ride :: me like a pony
Heh, I wish…
So, foot surgery. MrDanesi says it was five hours, I seem to dimly recall one of the surgeons saying four. Whatever, it was long and apparently very involved. One of the surgeons, a very funny and handsome young man, had a lot of fun telling me just how hard it was to get the bones back into place. Apparently it took all three of them, with rods in place for leverage, and all of their strength to get the main joint to go back. They said there was a lovely, resounding, “POP” when it did…something I’m not sure I needed to know. They say they didn’t need to do as much fusing as they feared, only two joints at the middle. The rest is being held in place by six screws, three rods, a plate, and various wires. Yes, I have the x-rays
The hospital stay was…a hospital stay. The place itself is really nice, the nicest hospital I’ve ever been in. It is, of course, a very Catholic place and very tastefully decorated as such. This bugged the shit outta MrDanesi, me I just sort of let what the images and statues meant just slide by me and enjoyed the fact that it was at least pretty
I especially love all the stained glass…tho, to be honest, it does bug me that soooo much money had to have been spent on decorations alone. Still, the staff have all seemed very pleasant and the equipment is top-notch, so I’m not going to complain much. MrDanesi and I had a lot of fun discussing how the place would be perfect for a Resident Evil type setting – the gorgeousness of the scenery would just be so utterly, awesomely, creepified. Yes, we’re twisted like that
The first night sucked. I don’t know if the orders were screwed up or if the night nurse was just a complete moron but I waited for nearly four hours in the middle of the night, crying in agony, for someone to come give me my goddamned pain meds. I even posted (with my Treo, of course
) to my LSG peeps on Ravelry to get my mind off things (and thank you all SO much for responding and making me laugh!). Not cool. And we won’t even discuss the humiliation that is a bedpan. You know, until now I didn’t actually know how these things worked. Now I wished I still didn’t.
After that, tho, it wasn’t so bad. The pain meds started getting taken care of regularly and even the food was good. Srsly! My Treo kept me sane. I did bring knitting but was in no shape to actually attempt anything other than bringing it out and petting it. Instead I lost many games of Uno and Solitaire and slept a lot.
I ended up staying two nights because my pain wasn’t controlled enough for my head podiatrist to be comfortable sending me home. Have I mentioned how much I love my podiatrist team? They are seriously the best ever. They’re so kind and funny, great about answering any and all questions with no snark or condescension, extremely competent…I just can’t say enough about them. There was some concern because the feeling in my toes had come back and then gone away again. I’d had a spinal during surgery so the docs and nurses kept telling me this was no real cause for concern, it sometimes happens. But there was also a pocket of swelling at the base of my toes that hurt like fire when touched. The head podiatrist came in, looked and poked (gently) and asked me to come in to her office the day after I was released. It was a Friday and she said that even though she couldn’t see any real reason for concern she wanted to be safe, said she wouldn’t sleep over the weekend unless she saw me. How fucking cool is that?
I have now had two follow-up visits, that first one included, and they seem to be pleased with how everything is healing. Me, I’m still a little freaked out by how my foot looks. Those rods? They’re sticking out of my foot!! I didn’t expect that! I didn’t really know what to expect, granted, but that sight was almost too much. And the incisions…four total, one almost the length of my foot. My mind keeps telling me, “Well, DUH!” but still…the Frankenstein look is a bit much to take in. The rods will come out, I can’t remember if they said when but I’ll be asking at my next follow-up tomorrow, but the screws may well stay. The handsome one said that unless they start to bother me there’s no real reason for them to come out and they’re not at all sure the foot will stay stable without them.
My FIL keeps reminding me that I’ll be able to predict the weather now and the nurse that came to our house says I’m pretty much guaranteed to have arthritis in that foot. Christ on a fucking cracker, all I did was miss one lousy fucking stair! I’ve been hearing how common this is, tho, from my docs…and how much worse it could have been. I know I should consider myself lucky but sometimes I just can’t get my head around it. Usually when it’s still an hour before I can take another Perc and I can feel every incision and piece of metal in my foot and they all HURT.
To my doc’s eternal dismay, I’m still not great with the crutches. I’m up to a total of four falls now, tho the last was more of a controlled letting myself down and didn’t affect my foot at all. My balance has been seriously fucked for a while now, I think because of the hyst and hormone crap that caused, so I have to seriously concentrate when I’m trying to get around. Problem is, my mind just doesn’t work that way. Thoughts ramble thru my head about any and everything…except what I’m doing. I get distracted and the next thing I know I’ve overbalanced some how and having to grab whatever’s closest to steady myself. I’m working on it but it’s not easy to just tell my head to STFU. I did learn how to go up and down stairs in the hospital and I can do it, tho I don’t very often. The stairs in our house are so narrow and steep I’m just too afraid. I have gone down but I don’t know that I’ll ever attempt up. It helps when we have to go somewhere tho, I can get up and down the three steps from the porch to the front walk on my own instead of MrDanesi having to carry me. Not that we don’t both enjoy that, but all it would take is one misstep on his part and…well, let’s not think about that.
I wish I had more to talk about but right now my foot’s pretty much all there is. I’m sure there’s other stuff out there, and I’ll get to it eventually, but being essentially stuck in one room (with occasional forays to the living room) kinda puts a serious crimp in your blogging fodder. One last thing I will add – I have created a page with pictures of my foot. Please, for the love of whatever you consider good and decent, do NOT click if you are squeamish or just going to tell me how fucked up I am for putting them up. They’re up for the sake of my friends and family who have asked to see them, and for those who are just curious as hell (like I would be), so here ya go.




oh… i guess you won’t be doing much sewing in light of all this then.. well, i hope things heal soon and beautifully! probly won’t even be able to see any scars after a while..
~ Jamie Lynn 2008 August 26