Rolling right along

I’m at Day 10 post-op from The Foot Fix.  So far, so good.

The surgery went just fine.  Just your basic surgery during a global pandemic.  What that meant was, Rob waved goodbye to me at the surgery center’s curb and didn’t see me again until I was at that same curb in a wheelchair with a lot of gauze wrapped around my right leg.  It also meant I wore a highly-coveted hospital-issue face mask the entire time I was awake.  I still have it because it is basically gold.

I was honestly expecting to be a lot more freaked out being alone during the pre-op activities.  There’s a lot of waiting pre-op and therefore lots of time to let thoughts wander down so many What If paths.

Instead, I busied myself eavesdropping…on the nurses, on the doctors, on the teen boy in the curtained room next to me.  Poor Kyle was having his first-ever surgery and was understandably a bit nervous, although trying very hard to conceal it under 14-year-old cool.  I had a chance to chat with Kyle post-op.  He looked good and will hopefully take my advice to do all the physical therapy.

After my blissful anesthesia-inspired nap, my surgeon stopped by as I was smacking down saltines and Diet Sprite.  I was fully expecting him to tell me he found additional issues in my foot, because that’s how I tend to surgically roll.

Instead, Dr. B said everything was as expected, except for (yes, I always like to be an exception) the severity of the tear in my tendon.  He showed me -- and was kind enough to text me -- a pretty remarkable photo of the source of my pain for the past eight months.  The consensus reaction by my strong-stomached friends and family to the photo has been something along the lines of, “Holy Moses, how in the world did you walk on that for so long?”  Because, you know, Moses walked a lot.

Yup.

Pretty much every surgery I have had, the feedback afterwards has been, “Wow, that’s a lot worse than we anticipated.  You put up with a lot for a long time.”

While I can let my pride get puffed up in some weird competition of how much pain I can tolerate, this is really not a trait to be proud of.  The fact that I tend to express pain in the same manner that I order an Tall Skinny Decaf Mocha Without Whip means I don’t get the tests or the fixes when I need them.  This tends to make the situation worse despite my best efforts to convince medical pros my body has a really big ouchy.

So with a previously gaping tendon now being held together with a web of tiny threads, I have been pretty much couch-bound for the past 10 days.  In all honestly, it’s not all that different a lifestyle than the past two months.  When given the option to get fast-tracked into surgery, I figured I was already quarantined at home with a completely open calendar.  At least a surgery recovery and eventual physical therapy will give me a project.  Because let’s be real…I’m really not ever going to clean out that closet upstairs.

So far, this Foot Fix is a bit easier than my ACL repair several years ago.  Knee joints are such useful things!  Instead of having to keep my right leg completely straight, this go around I am having to avoid putting weight on my foot.  The bendy knee makes things like getting into bed and taking a shower and wearing clothes much easier.  However, not being allowed to put weight on my foot for 4-6 weeks is proving challenging.  I’m not a hopper or a jumper.  And crutches are all sorts of awkward with wide hips.  So, I am very excited that my severely torn tendon has legitimized the purchase of the coolest toy yet in my stash of Whimsical Surgery Recovery Equipment.

This is the first time in our 16-year history
of life at Woodhaven that I have
appreciated this tile floor.  Weeeee!

Yes, I have a knee scooter!

I was a bit tentative on it for the first few days.  I am not even sure I know how to ride a bike anymore, let alone ride a scooter without banging into furniture, door jambs, or husbands.  However, having weaned off the “do not operate heavy machinery” pain meds,  I am now wheeling along the tile fast enough to feel a slight breeze in my out-of-control hair.  Not only am I getting into the kitchen in record time, I also have a surprisingly effective tool for hot flash relief.  Score!

When we ordered the scooter, I wasn’t sure I needed the basket.  Duh!  Of course I need the basket!  I have carried foodstuffs, beverages, mail, and laundry in my basket.  It’s quite handy and is allowing me to feel like I’m helping a teensy tiny bit around the house as I watch Rob take care of every.single.thing.  I sort of wish I could decorate my basket with plastic flowers like I had on my yellow Schwinn in the ‘70s.

We are just about at the end of our 3rd toddler-sized bag
of tortilla chips from Costco since quarantine started.
Yes, 9 pounds of tortilla chips in 2 months.
Have I mentioned I don't like to cook?

The turn radius on my scooter is about equal to that of a Radio Flyer wagon.  Exiting our wheel-in closet requires a carefully executed 11-point turn.  The tire treads decorating our carpet throughout Woodhaven look like a snarl of highways in Los Angeles with so many crisscrosses and wide cloverleafs.  With all the backing up and repositioning, I’m pretty certain I will be expert at backing a horse trailer into a barn by the time my cast comes off.  Not that I have a horse.  Or a trailer.

My cast is a bit of an adventure.  It is large and clunky and heavy.  The last time I wore a cast was 40 years ago when I broke my wrist proving my athleticism while tripping through a 50-yard dash [characteristically broken by landing on my wrist with my hand tucked under instead of splayed out to catch my fall like normal humans].  Back in 1980, casts were white and boring and plastery.  In 2020, casts are very padded and come in a variety of colors and feel more like lawn chair webbing than papier-mache.

I was given my choice of about a dozen different colors for my cast.  Feeling festive, I asked the cast tech if I could have two colors.  “It will cost extra,” she teased.  As Florecel carefully constructed my latest expression of Seahawks fandom, I got the sense that if I had asked for 49ers red and gold, I really would have had to dig out some cash to ease her suffering.

Note fuzzy black Cat Nurse sleeping on the job.

I will only be in this GO HAWKS! cast for a week.  I go back on Friday for a second incision check.  I will then get the cast that will be my buddy for the next month or so.  I’m thinking I’ll go with a somewhat subdued color for the long haul, in case I ever start wearing real clothes again.

I still have a few things to learn about life in a leg cast, key among them navigating the two stairs required to get out of the house.  I’ve done it three times now, none gracefully.  

Fortunately, given quarantine and all, I don’t really have much need to leave Woodhaven.  But once it stops raining (historically July 5), it would be awfully nice to transition from the couch to a lounge chair on the patio.  Plus there’s a lot of salivatingly smooth concrete out there.  Zoooom!

Drawn by one of the artists in our Youth Group.
She even dressed me in my favorite Rojo
t-shirt!  Molly, you ROCK!!