The Little Steps of Progress…

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

It’s time for a small update on the recovery process of my foot after my fall on stairs two years ago.

I now know that dystrophia is a long slow process, that pain is unfortunately one of the primary symptoms and that there is no fast-track to full recovery.

Whilst it may look like not much has been happening in the last year or so, in fact there has been very steady progress.

I started out with no movement at all from the top of my ankle downwards and not being allowed to stand on it at all, to being able to stand on the the heel and almost centre part of my foot, with only my toes and the area around the ball of my foot still  ”stuck”. (the circled area in the photo)

Of course this means that the final part of the natural walking “step” can  still not be made, but I’ve  progressed to walking with one crutch instead of two, at least on flat surfaces.

I’ve included an edited photo to show you how things look at present. The red lines indicate the curve that the inside of the foot should take, clearly bits still stick out a bit too much on the left foot. When the ball of the foot becomes functional again the section just below it will start to support the bones as they should and then the idea is that the protruding bits should start to move back into place.

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

The Specialist says that the bad news is that there is no fast route to this happening… and warned me it could take years.  Pain is one of the primary symptoms so physio is a very fine line between working though the pain but not ignoring the fact that pain is also a signal from the body that a limit has been reached and manipulation should stop.

I have a new respect for people with permanent disabilities, the hassle of constant niggling pain is more than annoying, sometimes it’s like a low level headache and sometimes it’s like sharp needles. Needless to say Physio is a tough workout and strong painkillers, rest (elevations) and ice packs are the order of the day afterwards.

A recent assessment puts things at 70% recovery and we are aiming for 90%. Once we reach this, then every percentage point after that will be a bonus. Predictions are also that I might be driving again around March some time, but in the meantime my company pays a taxi  to and from work and since a few weeks I’m also working part-time from home.

Life is literally about putting your best foot forward, it’s about counting our blessings too. One foot might present a lot of limitation at the moment, but there are some people who would give anything just to have legs.  I accept  the reality that I have good days and bad days, that if I push to physically do a lot on one day then I will have to suffer for it for up to three days afterwards: but is that an excuse to “not bother to do much”? No.

We each have an allotted “allocation” of days on this mortal coil, and no-one know how any days they will get. The wisest thing to do is to use these days as wisely as you can, making the best of the lumps and bumps that life gives you and appreciating and understanding that what might be one of life’s valley’s is at least…. not a crevasse.

What to Do with Your 1000 Marbles and Learning to Drive the Bus…

Annoyingly I’m still on crutches and will be until at least the early New Year, but the good news is that progress is steady and we are pushing hard during physiotherapy sessions (and exercises at home) to do the maximum possible rather than just the minimum.

It’s not the comfortable option and I’m half wishing I’d bought shares in a certain company that manufactures pain relief medication, but progress is now noticeable.

The daily problem of my foot swelling up is slowly driving me less crazy, and apart from days when I go a bit  ballistic and really over-do things, my foot has progressed from looking like a large balloon to a half hearted inflated one at the end of the day.

Of course I have down days and days when the pain is just too much, or  feel the frustration of still being on sticks  after all this time: this usually results on me taking it all out on poor Himself  or getting  tetchy with the kids. On the whole I’m trying to focus on the positive and mutter less when it just hurts like stink and doesn’t quit.

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

My view on pain and how I handle it has changed a lot over the last year,  the sharp stinging sort of pain is one thing but the constant nagging, thumping pain is often the worst because you feel like it has been going on forever and that it will never end.

I’m learning slowly that sometimes physical pain is something that you just have to get past,  not that it goes away in this situation,  but that you try and focus on other things and tune it out so that it becomes something in the background chorus line of life and not taking the lead role on centre stage.

There have been times when I’ve asked about stronger pain relief,  but that’s not possible because we would then mask the bodies natural limits and take away vital “Stop” signs that I need to feel to know when you’ve reached the edge of safe limits.

Never before have I so keenly felt the  truth of the maxim “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” (even if I do sometimes wonder just how close to death you might have to go to get tougher).

I am reminded daily that Character building comes in many forms and that it isn’t a question of the size of the difficulties being thrown at you that matters (after all  being pelted with 1000 marbles will probably hurt just as much as getting hit by a bolder as big as a bus) , but it’s how you deal with the onslaught that matters.

It’s not just physical pain that we fight daily, it’s also other things in various parts of our lives:  the way you respond when your kids won’t stop fighting,  how you handle anger or when someone who is always asking for a favour or help comes with yet another request, facing up to the truths about yourself,   your insecurities or fears, the deeper motivations about why you want to eat too much junk food or spend to much (or maybe inversely,  not enough).

Apart from the issue of pain, my nemesis at the moment is I’m having a small  emotional rebellion about the weight I’ve gained during my last year on crutches… some months ago I cut my sugar intake by 95%,  drastically reduced the amount of of white carbs (rice, pasta, bread, potatoes) and started watching portion sizes.

Himself has commented (without me even asking) several times that he can really see a difference as the weight is falling off, but I’ve been a bit despondent because I don’t  feel  any different in my clothes at all yet. (I haven’t attempted to get on scales in the last year because I can’t figure out how to get a scale to work when I need to still  put my weight on the crutches…. balance on one leg? Yes,  it’s a possible solution but remembering that I’m accident prone: maybe not).

Staying positive, upbeat and motivated when you are really working hard at something and not seeing any result is just as difficult as dealing with an issue like pain. I’m sure all of us have  physical, emotional, physiological or mental  hurdles  that we confront daily… maybe a bad habit,  confidence, loneliness, body issues or character trait.

I am a perfectionist who is keenly aware of my own imperfections, and the  seemingly “lesser”  problem of plodding onwards  with just faith in the goal rather than on tangible evidence turns out to be every bit as difficult as overcoming a  seemingly “greater” problem like pain.

We all have our 1000 marble problems and in our lifetime we will be in a tiny minority if we don’t hit a few obstacles the size of buses.

I suppose the trick is to use the love and support of those around us to turn those marbles into wheels, then take the wheel and then take charge  and drive that bus away.

A Big Step Forward… and an Apology…

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

Here’s another update on my foot… I’ve been busy in recent weeks seeing Doctors, Specialists and looking for ways to speed up the healing process. So far it’s been boring, frustrating, painful and slow. But I have been doing my physiotherapy exercises and grinning and bearing it as much as possible.

That’s not to say that frustration levels and emotions haven’t been a little too close to the edge some days, generally it’s the tiniest thing that sets things off,  the long and the short of it is that not handling pain well,  means you have a very much lower tolerance for other things that are not going 100% either.

Wednesday this week saw a milestone: a shoe on my left foot for the first time in just over seven months. I’ve been making fruitless attempts with my own regular shoes and slippers every now and again for ages now but the orthopedic one I finally got into, was two sizes bigger than my regular shoe size and was the only one of several I tried that I could get on anyway, so no choice in style or colour. (not that I’m knocking  “functional”  right now in any way shape or form.)

The trying process was also painful, and Yes, the crutches will still remain for some months yet, but at least with a shoe I’m hoping for more side foot support and that this will speed up the healing process because at this point it’s fair to say that I’m sick to death of not being able to walk properly, drive and get out much.

The shoe is what’s called an “anti-shoe” and is raised at the toe and ankle ends, a bit like a flattened out “u’ shape.

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

Standing on them gives the same wobbly  feeling you had as a kid when you stood astride the middle axsis of a see-saw and tried to keep both ends horizontal.  Hopefully  the rolling motion will allow me to also make the rolling motion of walking with my foot, albeit at the moment with no weight on the front half of my foot just yet, as the weight stays on the crutches but at least it’s a beginning.

I wouldn’t go so far as to say they are comfortable to wear, I lace the left foot  as loosely as I can and grin and bear it and the Doctor advised I will have to build up wearing time anyway so that I can get used to the unnatural balance they give, but  they are a step forward.

The two flights of stairs to our house are still a difficult obstacle and it’s true that one can get a little paranoid when negotiating them when you have my track record for accidents.

Generally things are  progressing, but very slowly, which is to be expected the surgeon said yesterday but we are both keen for the fastest possible progress within the limits of the damage.

The physio said this week that I can expect the pain to remain constant  for the next months but that I need to learn to do more within the same pain limits.  This honesty at least helps me to (in theory) be less frustrated but reality is that it’s still one day at the time and there will be good days and bad days as we work to achieve this.

It’s been hard to write posts on less good days and impossible to find the will or clear headedness to sit and reply to comments, for which I can only deeply apologise. I have  been keeping many of the posts of you fellow bloggers (you know who you are) and read them on good days, but again, comments have been beyond me for the most part. It all takes energy that I simply don’t have, since pain that just won’t quit wears me down and focusing energy on things like the physio exercises takes precedence.

There are brighter moments of course and I have stumbled into some (hopefully) good ideas for fund-raising for the disabled kids of  Himself’s and my favourite charity (handcraft efforts that can be done when I am on the bed with ice-packs) but me being me, I couldn’t have a go at a pattern without making some changes so multiple  ideas are in the experimental prototype stage at the moment,.

What that means in reality is that my R & D technique is rather hit and miss so there’s a tray of felt fabric bits next to me that also contains scribbled drawings on scraps of paper that when transfered to the “model” still don’t quite fit (don’t ever ask me to go into building construction, the gaps I can manage between bits would be frightening LOL)

Of course this too has been a slow process,  I have been stitching just a few days a week and not at all some weeks, but if I can use at least some of the time to formulate  and refine ideas for more productive times in the future then not all is in vain.

I’m wishing that I can again become a more active member of the blogging community in the next months but reality is that my resources, both emotionally and physically are somewhat depleted at the moment so please accept my sincerest apologies if your comments are unanswered, I do  appreciate them vastly, and I am lurking on your blogs on good days.

Here’s hoping that slipping on a pair of shoes after so long also signifies slipping into a new and positive next step of the recovery process.

Plodding on, One step at a Time…

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

I thought that today I would do a progress report on the mending process of my foot.

It’s a been a difficult time of late as we step up the physiotherapy activity and try to put more pressure on bits of my foot that are really unhappy about the demands I want to make on it.

Slowly but surely since March, the edema (swelling) has massively reduced, but we still have the daily struggle that my foot is several sizes bigger at the end of the day than is it is at the beginning, that I can’t get any of my shoes to fit even the least swollen moments and that the pain is constant.

I totally understand that working through the pain is a severe necessity, it’s literally a case here of “no pain no gain“. I totally understand that we need to be pushing the limits as far as possible because not being able to push my foot up 90 degrees to my leg will result in shortened calf muscles if I don’t, and shortened calf muscles is a disaster that would mean I’d never be able to walk straight even after my foot works again.

It’s far easier to say “push through the pain” than to actually do it, but I have been persevering and it hasn’t been fun. There have been times when I have simply pushed too far and the result has been three or four days of complete misery afterwards, sucking up strong prescribed painkillers, sleeping very badly and sitting  trying not to burst into tears every 10 minutes.

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

I’ve seen frustration levels that I never thought I had and I’ve had “words” with my surgeon where I vented by taking a list of question I said I really would like answers for please.

I asked for some straight answers to some very blunt questions.

I expressed my frustration that when I came out of the operation at the end of November that I was told “six weeks in plaster” and that when I turned up naively with a shoe six weeks later, they smiled like I was a little kid and said ” oh no, it’s always 10 weeks in plaster for this injury” .

I had told my boss ” six weeks in plaster” now I felt like an idiot going back and saying “noooo, sorry, another month yet“.

The hospital is a busy place and I know there were plenty of people to see before me and even more to see afterwards but telling me “more x-rays before the next appointment and see you in a month” every month since February just puts me on hold for another four weeks and gives me no clue what to realistically expect next.

I am under no illusions that repairing this mess has been mega complicated, that when your foot is the size of a small melon that’s it’s not reasonable to ask even a surgeon for a rough date when it will be back to functioning normally.  There is no crystal ball to see into the tissue layers, there are limits to what can be done and seen at different stages of the mending process.

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

I expressed my frustration of being told I could get the plaster off and walk with the pressure bandages supplied, I wore one home from the hospital that day and it hasn’t been on since.

Dystrophia needs help for these sleeping muscles to wake up and not nice lazy devices to relieve them of their work. If we want them to function again, we have to start today, now, directly before more movement is lost.

I asked the thorny question of the surgeon:  Best  and Worst case scenarios please, nothing in stone, no guarantees, just the best you can do today, with the information we have right now.

He explains that there are two things in this equation:  First, Percentage of healing we are aiming for and hope to achieve.

The majority of people will achieve near to 100% back, (I certainly aim to be in this group). A small percentage will achieve almost all back, but it will be more difficult to achieve and a minuscule percentage will loose a percentage of  function on a permanent basis.

The second factor in the equation is: Time.

That varies from individual to individual and many many factors get thrown in that will influence how long it all takes. This is where no-one can really say accurately because the healing process uncovers complications (or not) as it progresses. No-one can predict this bit in advance. I don’t expect them to give me any written guarantee, but a guesstimate would be nice please.

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

Based on information we have right at this moment, my Best Case Scenario turns out to be: walking more or less hopefully back at full function by Christmas, and Worst Case Scenario is much the same outcome, but only by this time next year.

I can not expect to be driving a car (ours is manual) at least before Christmas even in the best case scenario.

Suspecting that recovery was literally going  too painfully slow, and with discussions with my very pro-active physiotherapist , I went armed to my last appointment with the surgeon with a detailed letter from the physiotherapist outlining in medical lingo what bits were now working and what bits are still stuck and requesting an urgent appointment with a rehabilitation specialist, which after expressing my list of hard and unhappy questions he obligingly pushed through as fast as was possible.

I saw the rehabilitation specialist  last week and she is in the process of making a report for the surgeon that will outline goals I hope to achieve by set dates. In order to achieve these goals they agree that I need an especially made adjustable shoe made that will give maximum sideways support to my foot in all the necessary places, but allow me to slowly extend pressure and encourage just up/down movement to the front of my foot that is currently not possible because supporting two directions at once is just too much to achieve at the moment.

I’m assured that it will look more like a sneaker shoe than an old fashioned orthopedic boot and I’m waiting on the specifications to arrive (any day now) so that we can go immediately to the shop and get the wheels in motion. Oh not actual wheels, but you get the gist.

The last three months have been the toughest, if I thought that seven plaster casts were bad then I hadn’t reckoned on the effects of long term pain and not knowing when it was going to end. There has been the few weeks that have been more backwards than forwards and there have been more tears than I wanted to know about, along with frustrations of missing kids special school events, special family outings and a multitude of other things.

There are many days when I want to fling the crutches out the window, even with the special shoe I will need them for some time yet, but they are a hassle and it’s the small things that irritate and upset most: like people hanging up before you can get to the phone or not being able to  scoop up the kid who’s just fallen out of bed in the night and needs an instant cuddle in their fright and pain.

Himself has been wonderful, he’s gaining multi-tasking skills that he never knew possible. Some days are bedlam, drop off kids, deliver me at hospital or physio, go home to work for a bit until he has to collect his mother for a Dr appointment, see a client ,pick me up, work some more, get the kids, cook dinner and then work into the night to get the work finished. He’s renovating too in between everything else.

At best this is temporary, at worst it’s long temporary and I’m just sick of it already. I SO wish I could just walk again. It’s  hard to have the incentive to participate in anything much when the pain just won’t give up. It  wears you down. I’m trying every day to be positive, after all  many people suffer far worse every day of their lives. But I’m not perfect and some days are hard going.

I peddle on my little “cycle” and exercise with the gadgets I got from the physio. Let’s hope that the new shoe when it comes, speeds things up a tad. Progress IS progress, so “onwards and upwards” as they say… but some days real progress  just can’t come fast enough.

Free at last!

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

Free at Last!

Free of paster casts I mean of course  … anyone who has ever been in one  knows,  you are generally sick to death of  it within after day two of having it put on, so 10 weeks is mind-numbingly long even when common sense  (or in this case, Doctors) tell you it was necessary.

In case you’ve never seen one before, they use a small specialized oscillating saw to cut plaster casts off. It  rather defies logic by being capable of cutting hard materials but not soft ones,  and it does produce an unnerving buzzing sensation though which I can only best describe as semi ticklish. This sensation was at it’s worst when I still had the metal pins in… and whilst it’s not all together pleasant, luckily it doesn’t hurt.

The paster department people told me that it’s unusual that they have to do so many plaster changes on a patient for one injury but that’s simply because I managed to do some rare damage to myself.

Various hospital staff have asked if I would mind medical students and plaster technicians learning from my case (I didn’t mind), so there  have been lots of x-ray studies on computer monitors, and a heap of medical jargon that was the explanation to go with it as people learned something new, (so this stupid fall’s been good for something then! LOL)

Kiwi Daughter was very curious right from the beginning to know what was going on under the plaster works, where the pins were etc, so my pocket-sized point-and-shoot camera went with me to the hospital so that I oblige her curiosity… the plaster specialists were actually delighted by this and had a lot of fun getting into the photos, which helped to inject a little humour into (most) of the experience over the course of my visits.

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

Staff would ask when I came in if I had bought my camera and we documented progress.

On the desk where the plaster department  handle the administration, there was a wooden doll of the kid that artists use to practice figure drawing and getting proportion right. Their little model had different coloured plaster casts of various lengths all over it’s limbs. There was even one around it’s middle.

I have one of these wooden figures at home and jokingly told them that it needed a cast to match mine… they laughed and to my surprise said that this could be arranged. I needed to have x-rays done after my red cast was cut off, so whilst  I was away they decorated my artists dolly with a little reminder of their department. They even added an arm cast for fun too.

My kids thing it’s a riot that dolly now has coloured paster.

One thing that I didn’t expect is that my foot would be so swollen,  The Doctor said I’m supposed to walk with a pressure bandage for support and to keep my foot raised up at all other times so that the swelling can go down.  A good solid shoe for support is recommended as I start to walk with crutches, but I found when I got home that I can’t get into even my oldest shoes, and it’s hurting  far more than I anticipated so I’m back on maximum pain relief.

Luckily our physiotherapist is also a friend and she says it’s clear there is too much swelling at the moment, so a quiet weekend with my foot elevated is prescribed and she will come over on Monday to see what  the next step will be.

 

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

Today’s pain is less than yesterdays so progress comes in small steps, but it’s a good start…

Just Hop’in-a-Long… Ensembles in Purple and Red.

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

It’s week 10 and I’m still in plaster.

When Cast Number 5 was removed  in week 8 we had a little while to see how healing was progressing… things seem to me to be going well, so we wait for the Doctor to arrive with a verdict.

I had been talking myself into the idea that the fluorescent yellow cast would surely be the final one.

I mentioned this to the Doctor when he walked in and the look on his face and the fact that he laughed before looking at me to check that I was serious,  told me that I had definitely been wishful thinking.

Reality check.

That’s how I ended up in Cast Number 7.  A nice Purple little number,  thinner version of the previous ones and shorter too.  A rubber sole straps on underneath, and so I can practice standing and taking steps.

It’s always rather painful for at least 24 hours after a new cast is put on, so I wasn’t surprised when the Friday was not an easy day… but by the end of the day I know something wasn’t right and that was confirmed over the weekend as I had a band of intense pain around the back of my leg. The cast felt really tight and the skin there was really hurting.

I stuffed cotton wool balls  down the there with difficulty even though there  was not really any gap and whilst it alleviated the pressure for a while, once the cotton got flat the pain was back with a vengeance.

I couldn’t sleep much and poor Himself had me jiggling and turning every night trying to get comfy to no avail. I sat with my leg raised as high as possible an constant supply of ice-packs  against the plaster to relieve pain (yes, they work!) and waited for Monday morning.

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

We phoned the hospital  Monday and were back in the plaster department soonest to fix the problem. They cut the purple cast off and it revealed an ugly red band of skin around the back of my leg,  it was clear that it had been too tight to take up the swelling that came every time I stood up.

Cast number 7 is again a short walking cast, this time in Fire Engine Red.

The colour seemed like a good idea at the time but now every time I look at it , it looks like I sneaked into Santa’s  wardrobe and thieved part of his ensemble.

I also got more padding around the back of the cast so the good news is that I have been standing an walking more and more and although short bursts go better than longer attempts, it is at least progress.

A suggested alternative to the rubber sole was that I might try on one of Himself’s shoes.. since for ladies, their men-folk’s bigger shoe size could accommodate the cast quite well and be more comfortable than the strap-on rubber sole.

Well we tried it, and giggled a lot before totally  and completely abandoning that idea.

Himself has abnormally massive feet, to match his overly tall length. Size 47′s  to be precise and even with a cast on, my size 38′s were swimming in his shoes. We tied the laces tight and there was still room everywhere inside LOL.

We agreed that attempting to walk  in loose small boats would be an unwise recipe for disaster,  so rubber sole it is.

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

I go back to the hospital at the end of this week and will see the trauma surgeon who did the operation in November, and if he is happy with progress then maybe I can finally leave hospital without  plaster for the first time in months.

Please cross ya fingers and ya toes! …Here’s hoping!

Cabin Fever, “Franken-Foot” and the Pain of Blissful Ignorance.

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

I probably have the lowest pain threshold known to mankind. You figure that out fast enough when the dentist puts in half a dozen injections in your mouth (a procedure I handle badly enough anyway) waits a short while,  starts poking around and asks if you can feel something.

Invariably I can.

So she adds one or two more shots, the work starts and then she shifts slightly left or right and  suddenly I’m leaving finger nail imprints in her expensive dentist chair armrests  and making it perfectly clear in dentists-chair-speak that the anesthetic missed a spot.

I parted my firmly shut eyes long enough to wipe away the tears squeezing though them and saw the look of  shocked amazement on the dentist’s face that I could still clearly feel pain despite how many injections had been given already. Fortunately she used to this by now and probably gets a discount on her bulk orders of anesthetic before my visits.

If you’ve ever sat in a dentist chair then you will know what dentist-chair-speak is. It’s when your dentist tries to put you at ease by asking you a question, so here I am, being asked where I went on holiday…  Come on!,  I have my mouth open, most of my mouth is doped up to the nines and in happy-land, my tongue can’t make sense of where anything is to make normal speech  and they are busy working whilst you “open wide” , but  alas social etiquette demands that I trump common sense and logic and requires  me to at least attempt an answer,

So I try and reply “Portugal” and naturally it comes out as “agggh aahhh alll”

I swear all dentists have a warped sense of humour.

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

My insurance company has paid a small fortune for the work, but probably if they look closely at the bills then in amongst the list of dentist techno-jargon they’d see what looks like a severely inappropriate number of anesthetic fees. If they are investigating this now, “Yes I am still alive and well, Thanks!”

My husband, knowing this from the off,  wondered how on earth I would survive the year and a half year procedure getting  implants. (The complete and utter truth is that I was blissfully ignorant if what the full procedure would actually involve.)

My Best Friend had it done and described it all… in layman’s terms. Sounded a little grim, but not  too bad.  I didn’t find out until afterwards that she was having a section of her top teeth done, and that I needed work on almost all my teeth top and bottom.

The Implantologist described it all again, more in dentist-speak (yeah yeah, of course I know where my “Lateral incisors” and “Second premolars” are! Come off it, who am I kidding?) I was too cowardly to own up, and nodded a lot.

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

I was spurred on by the fact that my regular dentist had outlined the necessary plan of action via the non-implant route. In detail. Really in detail,  there is definitely such a thing as too much information. It wasn’t pretty, and I mean seriously not pretty. And worse, it wasn’t nearly so permanent, so there was very possibility that this plan needed redoing every decade or so.

Had I been ninety years of age it might have looked like the better option.

I’m not ninety so I got though the Implantology saga on the basis of two thoughts, (A) It will all be worth it in the end (B) Too late,  they’ve started, there was No going back. Both thoughts turned out to be correct.

By now, you may have realised that I’m a Wimp.  Yes, that’s with a capital “W”.

I appreciate that I’m very lucky to be living in this day and age, since the stupid accident missing one single stair way back in November and the rare damage I inflicted on myself is only repairable back to normal use with modern day specialist surgical methods.  I’m very grateful to have not only had that surgery, but to have had it within 24 hours of rearranging myself into an unhappy mess.

I understand completely that all the work they have done is completely necessary but it’s still a source of frustration that some parts of recovery are still mind-boggling slow going. Mostly means the healing process, and I have to take one hundred percent responsibility for that one LOL, so Yes, I’m annoyed with myself.

When we visited the hospital just over two weeks ago, after a month in various plaster casts the Doctor announced that hopefully the pins in my “Franken-Foot” can come out next visit. ( I called it that by the way, not him) OK,  Just two weeks more. No worries. I’m cool. Two weeks is ages yet. All  in good time. Right?

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

Wrong. The first week was cool, I thought happy thoughts, but at the start of the second week I started to worry. In the middle of the second week I started to sweat.  Himself noticed and told me not to worry. By the morning of the appointment he assured me that he would take the Dr aside and explain in no uncertain terms that pain and I didn’t get along well at all and ask for a local anesthetic to be put in before the pins came out.

He did, They wouldn’t.

The pins are embedded in the bones. and bones can’t be anesthetised, there  is such a small depth of skin that any injection would hurt like crazy and be useless. The Pink plaster cast is cut off. It’s grin-and-bare-it time.

I bore it, I didn’t grin.

I’m not squeamish and can watch any operation on TV etc, but this time I didn’t look. Himself said that they used a special tool around the pins and then just got a good grip and pulled very very hard. Yep, to say I felt it was an understatement.  I gripped Himself’s hand very hard indeed. He literally suffers being married to me sometimes. Sorry Darling, I promise to wipe your butt if you get old and incontinent.

The last pin was definitely the worst. The whole room figured that out, no doubt about it. I tried to be brave … and failed.  It bled like crazy too and the assistant pressed the swab really hard, as soon as the stars cleared I begged to do that myself.  Stupidly my brain said that if I pressed it hard myself it might hurt less. The intelligence of Brains is over-rated.

After the pins were out it was straight back into plaster. Cast number 5. I chose fluorescent yellow because it looked more cheerful than I did and I needed some of that to rub off.  I also scored a black rubbery sole that fits underneath it so I can try standing and walking soon, still with crutches but a start.

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

They put the pins in a little bag for us to take home as a souvenir,  but the little sods are so sharp at the ends that one of them sawed a little hole in the bag and escaped.

I’m keeping the other two because Murphy’s Law says that if you have your own tools from the operation then likely you will never need them ever ever ever again. I’m not superstitious but well, may as well hedge my bets.

So here I am at the start of week seven in plaster and hopefully by the end of week eight I will have stopped supporting the plaster-of-paris industry. Today I have a severe case of cabin fever, since the only times I have been outside in the last six weeks have been for hospital visits.

It’s not just the crutches that are the biggest hassle, it’s more the two staircases I need to get up to get inside home, one stone and one semi-spiral, with triangular steps at the bottom, very crutch friendly (Not).

Staircase handrails have inherent design failure in that they end slightly before the last stair, or in the case of the lower staircase, three steps before the lower stairs so this makes every trip downstairs a potential accident waiting to happen. You know I’m accident prone don’t you? Best stay upstairs once I’m there and keep out of trouble.

I know that Cabin Fever isn’t terminal, I have more than most  to be Thankful for and I’m mending. Thanks for letting me rant, it certainly helps.

.. and if you are about to jump up from your computer to get yourself a cuppa,  (or throw up because of the photos) say a big “Thank You” for your mobility, you won’t appreciate it nearly enough unless you loose it.

I certainly didn’t.

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

There are photos because  Kiwi Daughter was desperate to know what was going on under the cast (future medic?) The Photo above is the “Christmas Special” …  then  after some larking around, came the Hot Pink…

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

…and my latest accessory, the sunshine Fluro Yellow delight… sans these little blighters.

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

.. but with detachable foot ensemble for my first steps…

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

I must Thank both the Gijpsmeesters  (Plaster cast specialists) at the hospital, as they are experts in getting the five casts on and off with the least amount of pain possible and that’s much appreciated.  They also loved the photo taking procedure and got themselves into the photos pronto. They clearly have a great deal of job satisfaction. Bravo!

I’d Far Rather NOT …Have Broken my Own Record.

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

I’m interrupting my postings on our recent trip to Portugal with a bit of personal news…

I sometimes think I’m the most accident prone  person on the planet. The Family joke has been for years that if there is a hole 10 cm (6 inches) across, then I can fall into it.  They are not wrong.

I often score bruises, bumps, scrapes, sprains and general minor self-destruction injuries, and know that my fingers, wrists, ankles and feet are weak points due in no small part to the hammering I submitted them to doing childhood gymnastics.

Different Physiotherapists have told me over the years that ex-gymnasts, trampolines, ballet dancers and skiers make up a not inconsiderable bulk of their regular clientèle, sustaining injuries that become weak points to haunt them in their later adult lives.

For a taller than average Gal, I have smallish feet and very skinny slim ankles so my ankle ligaments should officially be renamed my Archillies Heels… and I probably should have given up being sporty at a very young age, after taking some dramatic tumbles from beams, vaults, and high bars, and let us not miss the “taking a tumble” whilst tumbling floor mat exercises that I am at least severely happy happened well before the advent of YouTube.

I’ve torn ankle ligaments so many times that if I had ever kept count I should be seriously nervous,  stupidly I added snow skiing and volleyball to my list of sporting achievements and ditched them both after spreading the pain to the knee and hand sections of my anatomy.

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

Last month I set a bit of a record, not one that I wanted to hold mind you.

The first was my first tumble down steep Dutch stairs… now falls and slips on stairs here are all too common in the Netherlands as Accident and Emergency Doctors and Radiologists were quick to tell me.

Actually  if you saw the steepness and narrowness of most Dutch staircases then in my case it’s a small miracle that it took eighteen years of  living  here before it eventually happened.

In that tumble I fell backwards onto the steps themselves and got bruises mostly down both arms and a little on my legs and butt… x-rays were made because my left arm was less than agreeable about being fully bent or straightened but even though I slipped down at least 5 steps I escaped rather lightly and nothing broke.

Two weeks later, Himself was running in a 10 km race through the Hague and the kids, friends and I cheered him on at a good vantage point at the 4 km point, sadly instead of picking him up at the Finish Line, we picked him up at Accident and Emergency Dept of the Hospital  since at about the 7km point a small nagging pain suddenly blew up so bad that he could no longer walk and over-stress on his right ankle meant it swelled up and he sported crutches for the first time in his life.

He’s still getting physiotherapy for it and it probably will heal even faster if Little Mr. would remember not to keep jumping enthusiastically on it whilst playing every now and again.

Drs. said that he should have stopped running when the warning signs emerged, but in his case there were no warning signs at all before the race and he was already slowing down then the tiny pain kicked in so the rest was as big a shock to him as it was to everyone else.

Fast Forward several more weeks to last Friday, 26th November. I took the day off for an event at Kiwi Daughter’s school, and since I didn’t want Himself walking more than he had to, left him with Kiwidutch Mother-in-Law whilst I rounded up kids from classes etc.

The staircase has the main flight of steps in two parts, and then a change of direction at the bottom that means that there is a single very wide step at the bottom and then down to the floor of the corridor proper.

At it’s most simple, I got down to the wide step and thought it was the floor and basically just walked off it in ignorant bliss. I remember my brain telling me that something was wrong because the floor wasn’t where I was expecting it to be, then a sense of ” I’m falling” and then just “Ouch”.

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

I could hear people around me saying ” it’s swelling fast, get that shoe off” and ” don’t move her foot” and once the stars cleared, my left foot was a faint sideways “V” shape within a swollen mass. Off to hospital and this unnatural position of bones was confirmed to be extremely unnatural and requiring surgical repair.

Luckily (?) due to an incident on the same foot earlier this summer http://kiwidutch.wordpress.com/2010/04/28/oops-shes-done-it-again/ they had the older x-rays on hand, which turned out to be a big blessing in disguise as I apparently managed to do some extra damage in a way that happens very rarely indeed and that necessitates a specialist trauma surgeon to fix.  According to the trauma surgeon who chatted whilst we got ready for the operation,  it’s so rare, that 99.9 % of the time A&E Doctors miss it completely and it comes to light when complications invariably develop later.

Certainly the A&E Doctor who did see it in my case was very proud of the fact and took special delight in telling me so, a fact that I appreciated far more later than at that precise moment. Sadly it was now Friday evening and my specialist surgeon wasn’t available until Saturday, so the immediate remedy was a plaster cast “v” shape and all, to avoid even more damage and an intensely uncomfortable night.

Saturday saw me in an operating theater having a spinal anesthesia, whilst they put things right. They gave me some stuff to “ help me relax” and as I looked dreamily around the nuts and bolts of an operating theater I honestly thought that the operation took 15 minutes, but Himself tells me that in reality it was a bit more than two hours.

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

After a short stay in hospital I’m now home with the fractured bones back facing the way God intended them to, ligaments reattached and three pins to hold things in place and the extra damage repaired. I woke up from the operation in plaster and there I will stay for the next ten weeks.

I also inherited Himself’s crutches since he’s just been declared fit enough to walk carefully without them and for the last few days have been very limited in movement. They say that the pain gets better after the first week or two… I’m counting the minutes.

Luckily the blog has been more or less on auto-pilot, as I loaded most of the  Portuguese trip into the schedule earlier. So… I’m doing a lot of sleeping and trying hard not to move at all. Thank goodness for laptops. I did manage a photo out of the bedroom window today as the discovery of fresh snow was delighting the kids.

All I need do now is to change my Middle name to ” dis-as-ter”…  and probably my bed is the safest place right now, all that ice and snow outside,  just an invitation to an accident in my case.

Living two staircases high complicates matters even more, and I report to the trauma surgeon in two weeks time… until then I’m parked up immobile and determined to not add to my record year of injuries.

Tomorrow I’ll take you back to our Portuguese trip…and when the pain lessens I will have time to read some more blogs… in the meantime here’s some of the snow that my kids have been enjoying today.

(photograph © Kiwidutch)