24. WARNING WARNING WARNING - FRUSTRATION AHEAD!

I got to thinking about everything and I realized that in order to be completely honest about this whole venture, I should talk about what I am beginning to think is inevitable emotionally - frustration and even depression.

My surgery was four weeks ago, and I returned to work two weeks ago.  Objectively, I know that I am slowly but steadily healing, and that one day my life will be normal again.  At least, that's what I believe, and the odds are definitely in my favor.

But...I gotta warn you, disability is frustrating.  I am SO SICK AND TIRED OF THE CRUTCHES AND THE ROBOCOP BOOT.  I am tired of sitting on my flabby butt being inactive.  I am tired of not being able to clean my own house (and I'm a neat freak).  I am tired of everything being a struggle.  I'm tired of being bored.  I'm tired of my house.  I'm tired of not being able to shop without it being a major hassle.

I am tired of not being able to wear two shoes!

My leg and ankle are weak and pathetic.  My tendon is swollen to twice it's normal size.  On the bright side, the scar itself is not shocking or distracting - I think within a few months it will be nothing more than a small white line down the back of my ankle. 

But I think the hardest thing for me to deal with is the solicitude of others.  Now isn't that weird?  But I hate to be dependent on others.  I hate asking people to do things for me.  I hate, hate, hate being a burden!  When I'm at work, I hate worrying my customers, who are inevitably alarmed when they see the crutches or see me get up to help them.  Oh, how I hate the clumsy, painful limping along on crutches, and the sympathy that pours out of people!

There - there's my rant. 

I have to remind myself that I was in pain BEFORE the surgery - and things were getting worse, not better.  However, that's hard to remember at this particular point - when I am MORE disabled than I was before the surgery, and I have months to go before I am recovered enough to resume life as I knew it before.

This achilles tendon injury and surgery are exactly what I said they were - DRAMA, DRAMA, DRAMA!

One thing that has been very helpful is that I can track this same set of emotions on other blogs - and the vast majority of those bloggers eventually report excellent results - after many months of rehab.  And I have read as they hit this same wall I'm hitting now - and lived to tell about it.

If you're struggling with this, also - KEEP THE FAITH!

23. Gettin' jiggy wid it!

Well, well, well - good news and bad news.  The good news is that I can tell I am regaining strength in my ankle and calf, and I'm able to put weight on it without cringing - though at this point there's still so much swelling that I can't imagine ever putting that gimpy foot back into a regular shoe!

The other good news is that the incision is healing very well.  The top of my foot is still numbish and tingles if I stroke it - and it seems to be the type of thing that could very well be attributed to the tourniquet that was used in surgery, as Dr Langford said.  This could take months to correct itself - and may not ever be 100 percent fixed, but I can live with that.  But back to the incision - it's a nice, straight, pink scar - not too bumpy, but still definitely tender.  The achilles tendon itself remains quite swollen - roughly twice as thick as the one on the other foot.  UGH!

And all these years I've been a bit vain about my nicely tapered ankles.  Now I only have one nicely tapered ankle!

Every morning the swelling has receded, and every evening it's back in full force.  I have a feeling I'm going to be battling that swelling for months to come.

So the swelling and tingling are the icky news items, but one more good news item is that my ankle seems pretty mobile.  Overall, I'm definitely seeing improvement.  Not every day, but slowly over time.

Another thing that's improved is that I'm getting quite nimble on these crutches.  The key to crutches is to rest your weight on the HANDLES - NOT the pads under your arms.  If you rest on your armpits you will hurt all over.

One ominous sign when it comes to the length of recovery time - my doctor gave me a six months handicapped placard for my car - and I'm beginning to believe I'll need every day of that. 

I have a doctor's appt Wednesday - so I'll update this again then!

22. Twas brillig, and the slithy legs did gire and gimble in the wabe...

Oh, frabjous day, calloo, callay, I'm chortling in my joy!  I went to the doctor a couple of days ago and I am out of the plaster and gauze cast and into a boot, which allows me to (very gingerly) put a little weight down on my foot!  This is important for several reasons:

1.  It makes walking on crutches a LOT easier.

2.  I can get my leg wet.

3.  It will allow me to use the leg in a limited manner, which should decrease the atrophy of the leg muscles.

Yes, I said atrophy.  Take a gander at the difference in the size of my legs - in just two weeks!  Now - I realize that neither of my legs actually qualifies as "scrawny," but...there is a definite difference between the two:

So - as much as I've appreciated my knee scooter, I'm retiring it for now.  I've found that walking with crutches, while still maddening in it's own way, is not quite as scary when you can bear a bit of weight on the gimpy foot, and I can't help but think that using that leg will offset some of that scrawniness.

The rest of the good news is that my tendon is healing very well, better in fact than average.  This is VERY exciting to me because achilles tendon injuries and surgeries are notoriously bad at healing well, because blood flow to that area of the body is not good.  The fact that I'm healing so well so far has me thinking that my rehab will probably go well when I start physical therapy in a couple of weeks. 

When the doctor took off the plaster cast and unwrapped my leg, it looked AWFUL!  I will spare you images of the abomination of the desolation, and will just use mental imagery instead.  My leg was shriveled, wrinkled because of the gauze wrapping and muscle atrophy (sorry, but I'm used to firm, tight calves!), orange from the iodine wash they used during surgery, and (this was the WORST PART!), HAIRY. 

And then I got a look at the scar......

OK, I have to admit - I'm going for effect here.  Actually the scar itself isn't as bad as it looks - the black stuff is glue.  My totally cool doctor used glue rather than stitches or staples.  So in spite of the grody look of it, this scar is actually beautiful.

21. Warzone photo

Thank you, Dr. Langford, for following my expert instructions so well!  And thank you for sending me this photo - it's always nice to be validated.

OK, seriously, I feel that I was very blessed to be a patient of Dr. Langford.  He has a rock solid reputation in this area, excellent bedside manner, and - most importantly to me (though I admit this is not usually a high priority for most people) - he has a great sense of humor.

GO, DOC!

20. The case of the shriveled leg

OK, NOW I am alarmed.

You know, I just can't figure this out, but for some reason I am obsessed with this leg and this cast.  Call me crazy.  I can't get my mind off of it.  Maybe subconsciously I'm getting subliminal messages that say, "Pssst - your leg hurts.  Hey, guess what - you can't walk.  Hey - you may not have noticed this, but your heel feels like it's on fire, and your ankle is throbbing.  Pssst - get a load of this:  You have huge wads of gauze and plaster, and bandages all over your left leg and the cast weighs about 40 pounds.  Hey - did you know that to get up and go to the bathroom means that you'll have to balance on one leg while you pull down your pants and underwear?"

Yeah - I'm a bit fixated.

So anyway, last night as I was in that purgatory also known as the master bathroom, trying to manuever a fairly large scooter in a fairly small space, which requires the same level of skill as it takes to back a trailer into a small parking space, I got to thinking,

"Dang it, my leg is hotter than Hades.  I think I need to let things air out a little and maybe loosen up the bandages a bit."

So I sat down and propped my leg, the bane of my existance, up on the counter and began to unwrap the Ace bandage.  Now - I'm not completely crazy.  I had no plans to unwrap anything else, or to mess with the ankle area whatsoever.  No, just the Ace bandages.

Well, I got all that off, and of COURSE my curiosity got the better of me.  For starters, as any other girl would wonder, I wanted to see how long the hair was on my leg.  I had a mental image of long, curly, coarse black hairs sprouting everywhere.  After peeking down into the gauze, I am pleased to announce that the hair growth is minimal. 

But - I was alarmed by the loose, papery skin over the calf.  I looked at my other calf, which was relaxed.  Hmmm, the skin on THAT calf was nice and smooth and supple.  I tensed up my "good" calf, and everything firmed up nicely.

So I tried to tense up my other calf.  Hey.  I couldn't get it to work.  I mean, NOT AT ALL.  WHAT'S UP WITH THAT?  So, balancing precariously on my stool from WalMart (not a good combination of elements), I heaved both legs up onto the counter in front of the mirror, for comparison. 

This is AMAZING - in a surreal, alarming way.  My left leg is CONSIDERABLY smaller than my right leg.  It's also kind of sunken in where my formerly firm, rounded calf muscle was.  Now - my surgery was only ten days ago.  Granted, I was in a boot cast before that off and on (mostly on) for several months, and I've been limping for a year, so maybe there was already some shrinkage I hadn't noticed. 

But DAMN - this is NOTICEABLE.  The other weird thing was that, try as I might, I simply could not tense up that calf, not for anything.  It's not that it hurt, or that it was stiff - it just simply doesn't work.  Like it's not connected to anything.

I think this must be why:



http://mybackpainfacts.wordpress.com/

Look at where the Achilles tendon attaches to the calf muscles.  I guess if the tendon is very weak and fragile, or traumatized, it stands to reason that it just doesn't work well, including doing whatever it needs to do to support the calf muscles.

Note to self - ask doctor about this at the Wednesday appointment!  Meanwhile, surf net like crazy between now and then. 

Physical therapy cannot begin a moment too soon.

19. Euphoria and consequences

Well, yesterday marked one week out from surgery, and I woke up feeling like this:

http://www.popular-pics.com/

I hadn't taken a pain pill for about 15 hours, and I'd slept thru the night, and woke up so refreshed that I nearly forgot I had a leg which weighs about 140 pounds and is basically useless.  I was quickly reminded of this fact when I tried to swing my legs over the side of the bed - but nothing could dampen my mood!  The coffee was fresh, the October sky was brilliant, and my knee scooter was waiting. 

Michael had errands to run, so out the door he went - glad to escape into the beautiful fall day.

After a couple of cups of coffee, I decided I would brave the bath again.  I was full of confidence.  I scooted right on into the master bath, and as I was undressing, I had an idea - I would try to get on the scales.

IN SPITE OF THE CAST, I HAVE LOST 6 POUNDS.

Now - this news will inspire any girl - but especially a fluffy 48 year old girl, with six different sizes of jeans hanging in the closet.  I decided to try on some jeans and see just how low I could go.  The cast proved to be a challenge - but not impossible to work around.

I could get into my smallest jeans!  Now - I didn't say I could get into them ATTRACTIVELY - and the blood flow from the waist down would definitely be impeded - but I can always hang onto them in case I have to have surgery on my other Achilles tendon, because they would be a very effective tourniquet (and that word looks so weird typed out that I had to spell check it - but apparently it's write).

OK, I was feeling fine fo sho now.  So good in fact, that I rolled back over to the bathtub and squirted in some bubble bath and filled that bathtub to the very rim with steaming hot water and bubbles.  Then I heaved myself over the bow again and sunk into bliss.

This was when I made my first mistake.  I didn't realize that bubbles are so wet.  And I also couldn't really judge the depth of the water.  Long story short - I got my cast wet.

Man, bandages and plaster really soak up water in a hurry.

As soon as I realized what I had done (which was instantly), all my joy was taken from me.  So...I just got back out (as gracelessly as I had gotten in) and sat there nekkid on my scooter, trying to assess the situation.  I finally got out my blowdryer and sat there for the longest time, holding it till my arm hurt, and then decided I had done the best I could.  The plaster seemed to be holding.

It takes a lot to knock me down when I'm in a fine mood, so as soon as I got bored with worrying about this (about 3 minutes), I scooted back into the closet and got out REAL CLOTHES - real pants, not workout pants, and a real shirt, not a T shirt, and a REAL BRA and even cute panties - and got dressed.  I put on makeup -even mascara, which I had been avoiding for days - and even spent extra time on my hair!  Yes, life was mighty fine.

I felt so good, I even did what housework I could on a scooter - which isn't much, and that in itself is a blessing.  Hey, this isn't so bad - feel good, look cute, and capitalize on the inability to actually do much work!

I decided to brave the big outdoors, and I even scooted down my driveway to the mailbox, which was an adventure because the driveway is a pretty pronounced downward slope, and I found out that my rear brakes on the scooter don't work all that well.  Note to self - don't use the scooter outside barefoot.

In the mail was some stuff I had ordered with wild Vicodin-inspired abandon a few days ago.  Honestly, can life get much better?

I opened the blinds in the den wide to enjoy that brilliant Texas sky, settled down on the sofa with my new toys and my Kindle and a cherry flavored Coke Zero and began to entertain myself.  It was then that I noticed something odd about my cast.

It seemed to be getting WETTER.  I don't know any other way to describe it. I had only dipped my cast into the water for a split second - and only the calf part of my leg at that - and now, even my toes were wet.  What the heck?

Here's what I think happens with all that gauze and bandage stuff.  I guess it is just HIGHLY absorbent, and must retain moisture like crazy.  So - I had to put my toys aside and scoot back into the bathroom again - this time to get serious with that blow dryer.

With great trepidation, I unwrapped the Ace bandages.  Yep, all that gauze was wet, wet, wet.  The plaster splint seemed unaffected, which was good, but a leg full of wet bandages cannot possibly be condusive to proper healing.  Damn!

I didn't dare unwrap the gauze under the bandages, because that stuff is fragile, and I could tell there would be no way to rewrap it - and I didn't have any new gauze.  So - I broke out the blow dryer again and this time sat there for, I don't know, a long ass time, thoroughly bored, with my leg in a very uncomfortable position, drying the results of my 2 seconds of inattention.

Come to think of it, 2 seconds of inattention is what put me here in the first place - I think this whole thing started when I fell off that stepladder a freaking YEAR ago...grrrrrrr, my mood was deflating.  "I don't WANT to go back to the doctor - I don't WANT to get a new cast - I just want to have a carefree day!"

Eventually, I got everything pretty dry, though sitting here the next day, I can tell that things are still a little damp.   This is my project for the day.

But - back to yesterday.  Michael came home about the time I got redressed  - whew, I didn't want him walking in on that scene and thinking I was a complete idiot.  I'm quite sure he wouldn't have approved of any of this - from the exuberant bathing to the mad dash down the hill on the scooter.  By the time he got home I was feeling chipper again - and very cute.

'Wow, you look...normal," he stated as he stood in the doorway with his arms full of bounty.  He had been to Lowe's so he was also in a fine mood. 

"I feel fantastic," I announced.  "What did you buy?"

"A jack!  And some..." and then he rattled off a list of manly items that I couldn't possibly repeat, since I have no idea what he was talking about..."and I got a great deal on all of it - you wanna come see?"  So off we went to the garage.

Oh, the day was mighty fine.  Autumn leaves were swirling in the breeze, the sky was a brilliant shade of azure, and I was sitting there in semi-skinny jeans, watching my adorable husband revel in his new man toys.  I decided I wanted him to take me out to eat.

Michael looked delighted.  "Let's go!"  I decided on crutches as my modus operandum and off we went - into the real world. 

And get this - we got to use my handicapped placard and park RIGHT BY THE DOOR.  It was the coolest thing ever.

In the restaurant, everyone treated me extra special because of my crutches.  People held doors open for me, let us get seated first, acted like they really wanted to hear what had happened to me.  I saw a man hobbling about on a walker, and I smiled benevolently at him and said, "I know how you feel."

He looked at me and said with a snarl, "Really?  Did you break your hip a year ago, and go through three months in the hospital, a year of rehab, and come to grips with the reality that you will spend the rest of your life in excruciating pain?"

Startled, I replied, "Well, no...but I tore my Achilles tendon and had to have day surgery..."

He looked at me for a moment in silence and then swung his walker around and stomped off.  His wife patted me on the shoulder and looked over at Michael with eyes filled with compassion.  "I hope your wife recovers quickly."

Well.  I guess I'm not REALLY one of the cool disabled people after all.  I'm obviously a novice.

Suddenly, I felt tired.  And my ankle started throbbing.  And I realized that the meal I had just consumed had probably added three pounds to me - reducing my weight loss to a mere pittance.

When we got home, I broke down and took a pain pill, which immediately hurled me back into that foggy, sickly state, and which also caused the usual 3 am Vicodin wake up call.  I woke up with my heel burning and throbbing, and I realized something profound:

I am not yet recovered.

Melanie - take it easy.  There's a reason why you took two weeks off from work.  You need to rest and let your body heal itself.

So...today, I will take it easy.  I will find that healthy middle ground somewhere between sitting on the sofa in a daze, wearing a t-shirt with a ramen noodle dried to my breastesses, and hurling myself down the driveway like a NASCAR racer, dressed like I'm going to the club.

My reality is this - I'm healing, but I ain't there yet.

18. Caregivers, caregivers, lend me your ears

Not that my two aren't perfectly fine. But listen up:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/pets/category?cat=2283

I am a lucky girl.  For starters, my caregiver is not only FREE, he's also GENEROUS.  He also happens to be my husband, who, for whatever reasons, apparently loves me enough to have a pretty good attitude about all this recent chaos in our lives.  His tenderness toward me was manifested in these words he spoke to my doctor as we met just prior to my surgery:

"Doctor Langford, the woman laying here is the light of my world.  I cannot imagine life without her, or even life without her precious and adorable foot - in perfect working order.  If you harm her in any way, I will hunt you down like a werewolf hunting down dinner in the streets of London under a full moon.  I have spoken."

Actually, what he said was,

"Doc, if I thought it would get her to shut up about her damn foot, I would let you cut on ME.  Have at it and I sure hope it works, so we can both have some relief."

Yes, Michael is sensitive that way.  But to give credit where credit is due, he DID take time off from work just to sit around and look at me - to prepare my meals, stock my little cooler each day, watch helplessly as I struggle to get around, reassure me that he loves me as I sit around like Jabba the Hut...it can't be any fun for him, and he's a man who does enjoy his fun.

We've made it through a week now, and we've managed to remain civil towards each other.  But - let's be honest - it hasn't been all peaches and cream all week either.  Personally, I am glad for two living areas in our house, because this allows us to get away from each other for awhile each day.  And every once in awhile, he jumps up from the recliner (apparently without any external stimulation) with a semi crazed look in his eyes and announces loudly, "I'M GOING TO THE STORE DO YOU NEED ANYTHING GREAT OK BYE!" and darts out of the house.  He comes back a little while later with cool things like ice cream, solar powered porch lights, cameras...I think he just has to go somewhere and wander around in the land of the living for awhile before clambering back down into our little wolf spider nest.

Meanwhile, my world has gotten very, very small.  Things I never paid much attention to suddenly loom into great importance.  For instance, I noticed a piece of paper on the floor - the corner of a sweetener packet.  Now - how did that get there?  I certainly didn't do it, now did I?  No - he obviously did that.  Just left a piece of paper on the floor.  Like a caveman.  Men are pigs. 

By the time he got back from the store, this piece of paper over in the corner had morphed into a Rand McNalley roadmap of Texas.  Michael wandered into the den, carrying the latest bounty like Captain Bligh carrying a breadplant before the King of England, only to be met with my eyes gleaming like rapiers.

"What?" he said, looking warily across the room.

I looked at him with a pained expression, and said softly with exxagerated politeness, "When you get a moment - at your convenience of course - and not like I'm trying to tell you what to do - but - when you can find the time, I wonder if you would mind..."

He looked at me with narrowing eyes.

"...If you wouldn't mind, taking a moment to..."

"Yes?" he growled, eyes glinting like a wolf's.

"Would you please PICK UP THAT PIECE OF TRASH LAYING ON THE FLOOR IN PLAIN VIEW, THE TRASH THAT OBVIOUSLY YOU DROPPED AND NOT ME BECAUSE HOW COULD I EVEN DROP SOMETHING ON THE FLOOR WHEN I CAN'T EVEN CARRY ANYTHING IN MY HANDS???"

To which he replied, also in a faux courteous voice, "Don't even go there. Before you is the man who has cooked every meal, washed every dish, helped you take a shower, mopped, swept and vaccuumed the entire house, washed all your panties in the delicate cycle, and bought you an expensive camera.  I will leave that piece of paper on the floor until I get good and ready to pick it up, and you can just sit there and look at it - perhaps for days."

I guess my advice to caretakers would be simply this - keep up the good work.  And keep going to the store.