Articles from August 2012

Dear Internet,

Thursday marked the six-week anniversary of my lay up (lay in?).

When TheHusband and I started discussing what exactly the surgery was going to entail, I genuinely thought I would be laid up for 2 weeks of bed rest and than have a walking boot for another 4-6 weeks, then physical therapy as prescribed. I thought I would be back to work by mid-July.

At the two-week follow-up, 30+ staples were removed (20 on the interior incision, 10 on the exterior incision, and 6 on the fascia incision. I went from this to this (go Hammers!). I was told to remain 0% weight baring and due to the nature of my job, was off of work for the another five weeks.

Three weeks after plaster cast was placed, I started getting a lot of irritation inside the cast, against the incision. With two weeks more left before I could go back for the next followup, the irritation may not be able to wait, so I called and was immediately seen. When they took the cast off, which due to how ticklish I am had me laughing like a loon, this is what greeted us. The MA said that we caught the pending infection in time, for if I had waited, things could have been a lot worse.

Because they were planning on putting me in the walking cast in the appointment two weeks out, it was decided that I would get the walking cast now instead of another plaster case, on the condition that I would remain 0% weight bearing. They would also load me up on antibiotics to stave off any infection cooties. As I was to continue to be 0% weight bearing, work would still continue to be out of the question. The advantage this time around was that instead of having a plaster case that weighed 5 lbs, I would be wrapping my ankle in dry dressing twice a day and wear the walking cast boot. My foot and lower half of my leg could have freedom, but I could not shave my leg. If you look closely in some of the more recent pictures, you could see the inches long hair on the top of my feet. I could now wash my foot in the shower, instead of wrapping the leg in a garbage bag as I was doing before and I could put lotion on my toes to ward off the dehydration that was occurring from lack of moisture.

So six weeks of near complete bed rest; the number of times I’ve left the house can be counted on one hand and the number of times I’ve gone down the stairs wouldn’t be that much more. I started the convalescence before the beginning of one of the hottest summers on records and for every small break we’ve gotten in the heat, I’ve cracked the windows open and gulped the fresh air like a person long deprived.

We found that any small movement could and would disrupt the healing process, like sitting upright in a chair longer then a few hours or wearing the walking boot, which fitted while the leg was swollen and caused undue pressure. I’ve spent much of my time in bed, my leg propped at varying degrees, all my electronics spread around me, a TV in front of me, and pretended I was some modern version of Rear Window. This has been Wednesday’s position for almost the entire time.

I had set up loads of plans to keep myself occupied while I was laid up: Watch a TV series I haven’t seen (or haven’t seen in forever) and write about each episode, finish my cross-stitching (I got a total of two letters added), do some knitting, work on research for a writing project, catch up on professional interests; the list was endless.

And I’ve done almost none of that.

[to be continued]

ttfn,
Lisa