Hi All,
I'm sitting here typing with a cast on my leg up to my knee.
Sorry I've been MIA for the past month but we've had one of those "bad things come in 3's" kind of month.
I had my foot surgeries on May 5th. All went well with the surgery. In fact, better than expected because the MRI I had taken a few days before showed way more damage than initially thought.
But it turned out not to be the case. The broken toe was repaired and I now have a metal pin inserted through the tip of my toe. The damaged ligament was cut in half and grafted on itself to shorten and strengthen it. Plus a nearby ligament was cut and grafted onto the shortened ligament to help stabilize the ankle joint.
Needless to say my poor foot has been traumatized.
To be blunt - the recovery has been awful. Way worse than I expected. The first week I was in incredible pain. The toe was the worst - it felt like it was on fire. I could feel where the skin was cut open and how the pin is pushing apart the bones.
I was prescribed pain pills but all that did was make me sleep a lot and then feel groggy and nauseous.
That lasted about five days and then the pain gradually went away.
I'm in a cast up to my knee and am on crutches.
Being on crutches is just horrible.....horrible, horrible, horrible. All your body weight rests on your hands and forearms and those body parts are just not designed to take that kind of weight.
Its exhausting just getting around the house. Plus, you've lost the use of your hands so you can't do things like cook/clean/etc.
Fortunately, my mom stayed with me for the first five days and she did everything for me.
When she left, I went to a medical supply store and rented something called a "kneel walker". It has literally saved my life. It looks something like a razor
scooter where I rest my knee on it and just push myself around.
I use the crutches when outdoors. But let me tell you, public places are extremely unfriendly to people on crutches. Doors are too heavy to open, wheel chair ramps are no where near the front doors, curbs are extremely high and steps are everywhere.
I had no idea how important it is to have two working legs. Everything is exhausting. Here I was thinking that I won't be doing much and I'll gain weight and lose my strength because I can't work out.
Wrong!!!! My arms and good leg take all my body weight and I'm so exhausted I don't feel like eating so I'm losing weight.
I've got two more weeks on the crutches then two weeks in a surgical boot.
So we're halfway there.
And just to add to the misery......DD was hurt in a bicycle accident. She and her best friend and DH were riding in our neighborhood when a speeding car came around a corner and didn't see DD. She had to swerve to get out of the way and lost her balance and fell off the bike. This happened on a hill.
She didn't break any bones but she was literally covered in blood from the neck down from road burns and a bad laceration on her arm.
Fortunately, our neighbor is an EMT so DS ran and got him and he came over and cleaned up DD enough so we could take her to the hospital.
No broken bones, no internal injuries and four stitches to the left forearm.
But one of the wounds got infected so back to the doctor and DD got put on antibiotics. That actually helped heal all the wounds a whole lot faster.
It could have been a whole lot worse.
Then last week we discovered DD has Lyme disease. She pulled two ticks out of her a few weeks ago. Then last week she got the bulls-eye rash.
Back to the doctor again. More antibiotics.
So we've had one heck of a time here.
Welcome to all the new people to this thread!!!!
We dress up for formal night. Its the one time of the year we all get dressed up. The photo from that night becomes our Christmas card photo.
DH brings his own tux. Its the one he got married in and needless to say its been "let out" several times over the past 18+ years.
Every time we sail on the Magic and DH packs his tux he complains that it shrunk in the closet. And goes on to blame the dry cleaners and that the dry cleaning fluid makes the material shrink.
He actually believes this is true...
I try to point out that the same dry cleaning fluid does absolutely nothing to the formal outfits I wear every time we sail on the Magic.
)
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