I've decided I should write a book called 'Things you shouldn't do when you're on crutches'.
The first chapter in my informative and picturesque book will cover things you can't carry even if you think you can. On this list is any type of liquid in an unsealed container. Because no matter how slow you go and no matter how little you have in there, the liquid will not stay in the container. And any amount liquid spilled on a floor with crutches is a bad combination and usually results in a spectacular slow-motion slapstick fall worthy of a vaudeville comedy act. And if you the slow-motion fall doesn't end up with you on the floor, the nightmare that is trying to wipe up said spill will commence. I'm pretty sure I resemble a baby giraffe at the watering hole for the first time each time I try to wipe up a mess, crutch legs splayed wide, stumble stepping as I go. Very pretty. I'd for sure have to include a chapter or two on what getting dressed is like when you forget your bra and attempt to remedy the situation by crutching from the bathroom to the closet. I'd title this chapter, Warning: Crutches are not meant to be used naked. EVER. No good can come from breasts swinging free as one lurches from one end of the house to the other, the parade of dogs trailing behind. Metal sticks near anyone's precious loveliness is a train wreck you can't look away from. I can only hope the neighbors have caught a video or two of this happening and I'll be able to recoup my losses and get myself a new pair of boobs. And of course, I'd need a chapter on the perils of cooking while on crutches. Taking things off a hot stove or out of a hot oven while supporting yourself with crutches can be a challenge, if not totally impossible, and requires a lot of awkward lurching and cussing. A simple sandwich requires lots of back and forth to the fridge and sink but the "meal" that broke me would be the brownies. The lesson is that making brownies at the one end of the counter furthest from the sink when one has two functioning legs can be messy. When one has one good leg, a boot and crutches, it's a failure waiting to happen. Pictures of the egg I dripped across the kitchen floor and down the right crutch would need to be included. That and video of the dog trying to lick the egg off later when I'm off balance and carrying the remnants of a cup of tea. (I refer you back to the chapter on carrying liquids. It should not be done.) I now have a pair of chocolate covered crutch handles that are sure to forever remain mucky because I was an idiot, dropped the spoon in the batter and fished it out with two hands despite knowing I had ten crutch steps from the sticky bowl to the sink. And then, because I don’t learn, I did it again. I feel no shame in telling you I ate almost all of the brownies as soon as they came out of the oven and cooled down enough to shove them into my face. I deserved every last one. Yeah, so far this book is really just a list of stupid things I've done to myself over the last eight weeks. It's very possible that no one else would need my dribbles of wisdom to get themselves through forced crutch captivity. It’s very possible that others don’t need to try something to know it won’t work. It's very possible I'm just special - bruised and chocolate battered boobs but special nonetheless. It is also very possible that another bad decision might be me licking the handles clean – don’t judge me. I have one swollen dead leg and a lack of chocolate in the house.
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Brother likes to say I go crazy in August. He says that I tend to call him with random stories that don’t show me in the sanest light. I say he’s an ass. But he’s not wrong. August is when I found out about ex-boyfriend’s extra curricular activities with people who were not me. It was also when I found out that karma was not going to get evil boss in time for me to keep my womb from imploding from the stress induced fibroids. Bad emotional stuff has happened a lot in August. Which is why, last night when I was telling Brother about how Baby Owl keeps trying to eat Pepper and he told me that would be a good thing, I understood. Not because we want Pepper eaten. That would be totally traumatic. But because, “My sister called me and told me that Baby Owl ate her dog” would make an awesome story. Especially since every story this year has been about what the dogs have done and how it’s affected my/our life, i.e. Broken Ankle and everything that's come with it. And every picture is an “Ick, I can’t look.” shot of the nastiness that is Broken Ankle or some variation of THIS: Family. They know you and your sick mind best.
For as long as I can remember, my mother has driven old cars. Not Husband's definition of ‘old’ which, is two car years. 'Old' like ten or twenty or thirty years with nothing electric or shiny or new 'old.' When we first moved to America, she carted us around in a VW square back named Henrietta. Henrietta was beige and stinky with no seatbelts and a rusted floorboard that mandated a swift hoist of your feet when she hit a puddle. We were mortified to be seen in her with our hand-me-downs and our Kenyan afros but Henrietta got us from point A to point B so Mom told us to get over it.
She followed Henrietta up with a Volvo with questionable environmental repercussions and doors that could slice off a finger. That thing was a tank and not only drove like one but sounded like one too. You could tell when she started the bugger up by the sudden flight of birds from the surrounding trees. Then Mom bought the car she still drives today, Nellie, a beat up blue rusty ’68 VW Bug. Nellie was purchased for me as my sixteenth birthday gift. Due to some lovely migraines with blackouts and a doctor’s note to not drive for a year, I didn’t get to drive Nellie. Mom did and still does. Nellie was a curmudgeon of a car. She was hot in the summer and cold in the winter. Her heater took two hours to work and smelled like exhaust. Her air conditioning was the two wing windows tilted just so and only really worked when you hit at least 30mph. She shook like an earthquake if you went over 50mph but would stall if you went below 10mph. And if you filled her gas tank up in the summer, it would overflow and saturate the carpet inside leaving you high on the fumes. Mom painted Nellie black and red, got her a new engine and seats and clutch and all the various bits and bobs needed to keep an old car running. But no matter what she did, Nellie still pissed and moaned about starting and would pop the clutch out of first whenever she felt like it, usually in rush hour traffic. Broken Ankle is like Nellie; it pisses and moans when starting, shakes if I go too fast and that sucker threatens to pop out of first whenever it feels like it. BUT she currently gets me from point A to point B so I am working on getting over it. I am “walking” people! Of course, "walking" means one step with Left Foot and then one very slow step with crutches and 20%(ish) of Broken Ankle. But that counts as "WALKING!" Yesterday, I went outside BY MYSELF. And I did some weeding, the big ones I could reach without bending over, BY MYSELF. And I came back upstairs BY MYSELF. Of course, I have to chant to myself, “Good foot first, bad foot second…” every time I step and it takes me ages to go anywhere and the swelling has been impressive. But it counts! So what if yesterday I was afraid my toes would pop off; they were that purple and squishy? So what if you can see the foam the indentation of the inside of the boot on/in my skin for hours after Boot comes off? So what if the surgery scars are PISSED OFF at this whole weight bearing endeavor? So what if nothing I do adds to the comfort and ease of anything and I moan and grimace so much I've got new wrinkles at the corners of my eyes? I'm still "WALKING!" Now, Husband is SO over the whole, “Look at my scar/swelling/bruise now...” conversation. (Heck, I even made Father-in-law participate in that via FaceTime so he's prepared when he gets here in a few weeks.) And I am SO over the random shooting waves of pain and the constant ache and the fifteen-minute hassle that is putting on of Boot and taking off of Boot. BUT, I haven’t had anything stronger than acetaminophen, chocolate and a hot bath since the dreaded Oxy withdrawal. I am able to get around a bit easier with Boot than with Stupid Green Cast. And each day is a bit better than the day before so there’s that. I know one day, I’ll be walking again without crutches or walkers or walls holding me up. That one day, I won’t have to think which foot to step up with and that I might get to wear more than just the one left shoe. That I won't be whispering, "You're okay... you're okay..." to myself under my breath with each and every step as I Frankenstein my way from room to room. I know that will happen by that day seems so dang far away... So for now, I’ll just take delight in the fact that I am able to put some weight on Broken Ankle and I haven’t broken back into the Oxy and I can get from point A to point B, just like Nellie. It’s the little things, people! I love gross pictures of wounds and surgery scars and cysts being popped. I peak at them through my fingers, watching the videos while cringing and nauseous and squealing. Heck, I have a picture of my womb in a special file on my phone to share with those like gross minds. But the mess that was my right leg yesterday was almost too much to take.
I am usually on the Internet seconds after something has happened to me or a family member or friend or someone on the news, checking out the good the bad and the ugly. Tell me you have an Anal Fissure and I'm looking that sucker up. Sebaceous Cyst? I'm all over the videos of that. But for some very smart reason, I didn’t look up anything having to do with Broken Ankle. First, it was because I was drugged to the eyeteeth and couldn’t even operate the Internet. But then it was because I didn’t want to know. I needed to focus on the immediate future – how I was going to get from the bed to the bathroom and back. That was such a process and was so dang exhausting that I couldn’t fill my mind with anything else especially pictures of what Broken Ankle might look like under the splint. Then, after few days, when the depression set in, I couldn’t look up gross broken ankles because I was never getting out of this tiny world I was now living in. A world where grumpy Husband, now known to all as Nurse Shrek, had to do every little thing for me. Asking for help is hard. You can imagine if I were having a hard time asking Nurse Shrek for help, asking friends would be even worse. And I had months of this helpless drama ahead of me. So I just didn’t look. Which would be why, when the splint came off four weeks ago, I was more than a bit traumatized at the mess that was my right leg. If that sucker hadn’t been attached to me, I would have denied it was mine. In what world could my pretty right leg be this hairy fuzzy yellow muscle-less bloody mess? At first, I couldn’t even feel much except the lack of weight from the splint. But when the stiches came out, I felt those, every tiny snip. And when the cast dude bent my foot into place, I felt that. Nurse Shrek was in the corner trying to ignore the whole removal process, turning green every time I squealed. Why Husband went into nursing, we’ll never know. Oh yeah, that’s right. Because he was forced to when the dumbasses slammed into me and snapped three bones. Poor guy. Nursing is totally not his calling. Anyway, three weeks of splint, four weeks of cast and I got complacent about what the leg looked like. I babied Broken Ankle and its massive cast. I made sure not to bump it or tap it or jostle it in any way. And every time I thought about what it might look like, I pushed that image to the back of my mind because I could do nothing about it… Then yesterday, I went in to the doc’s office to get the cast removed and the big tall dude with a sense of humor drier than my skin came at it with a saw. And every time I flinched, he laughed and said, “It won’t get you. I promise.” But his definition of ‘get’ was different than mine. His definition of “It won’t get you.” was “I won’t cut a bloody trail in your leg” and my definition was “don’t put pressure on my skin in any way at all because I will scream little high pitched screams and make faces and die.” And believe you me, his saw pushed on the cast and the cast pushed on my skin and the skin hurt and flinched and BOY did I not enjoy it. Finally the stupid green cast was off and my hairy stinky mutilated leg was free. And it was good. For about two minutes, and then the reality set in. My leg was even worse, even more dead than the last time I saw it four weeks ago. And yes, I mean ‘more dead.’ Sure, I expected hairy and stinky. Of course it would be hairy and stinky. It’s not been bathed for seven weeks. But purple and mutilated? Yeah, I hadn’t counted on that. I don’t know what I was thinking. Yeah I do, I was focusing on getting the cast off not on what happens next. I knew putting weight on it was going to be a challenge but I didn’t think about the scars and the pain and the pain and the scars. And then the lovely lady who fit me for my boot told me to take each step like I was stepping on a jelly donut and to not step to hard and squish out the jelly. Worst. Imagery. EVER to give someone who already thinks that a step is going to cause the bones to break and stick out the sides of Broken Ankle. I mean I was already worried that my little hops from the couch to the crutches might break Left Ankle and now I’m imagining stepping on Broken Ankle and jelly squirting out the sides of the incisions. Horrifying. But what's worse than my possible jelly donut squirting ankle? That would be the layers and layers skin that came off Broken Ankle once it was free. Did you know that your body gets rid of 30,000 to 40,000 old skin cells every day? Every freaking day! And that the top 18 to 23 layers of your skin, well those are made of dead cells. I'm not one for math but thousands of skin cells shedding layers of dead skin cells each day is gross. Seven weeks of a million plus skin cells gathering in a dry warm cast and dying off but not having anywhere to go until that stupid green cast came off and I rubbed my hand gently over the leg and it came off in sheets. SHEETS. OF. SKIN. PEOPLE. Well, that's the grossest thing ever! There was so much skin that when I took a bath yesterday to try and warm (trick) my ankle into bending more than half an inch, I shed enough skin from that one leg that I could have made a whole person!!! I know I tend exaggerate but I’m not kidding here. I could have made whole freaking person out of the millions of dead skin cells sloughing off my foot alone. Sitting and stewing in a bath of hot floating skin is the grossest thing ever. Grosser than that picture of my fibroid tumor filled womb. Grosser than having to pull the sandal strap from my shoe out of Joe Boxer’s ass. Grosser than the mess that is my scabby scars and mutilated bruises and misshapen calf. SO DANG GROSS! And that’s been my last two days – pain and skin. And more skin. And just when I think I've got it all, even more skin. I don’t have pictures of the bath skin person – you’re welcome - but if you’d like to see some gross hairy leg, purple mutilated Broken Ankle pictures, they are below. I'm off to attempt to 'flex' my ankle and pretend this isn't happening to me. Bones broken: Three.
Days since break: Forty-nine very long days. Days since surgery: Forty-two even longer days and very uncomfortable nights Number of Oxy pills taken: One hundred and two. Which is a terrifying amount but because some of those were 10ml and some were 5ml, if I were to break it down into just 10ml doses, it was really only 80.5 pills. Which isn’t really better but I did have a drill shoving screws INTO my anklebones which flipping hurt so pills totally justified. Days since last Oxy: TWENTY-TWO!!! How long withdrawal took to get off the freaking Oxy: Six long-ass twitchy, skin crawling, bitchy days Cost of my new jewelry i.e. the shiny plates and screws that are holding the mess that was my ankle together: Three thousand, eight hundred thirty-seven dollars, and ninety-nine cents. Cost of injection into sciatic nerve: One thousand six hundred and fifty dollars. Best $$ spent ever. Times I’ve fallen with crutches: ONE!!! Times I’ve dropped crutches and Husband has shouted “You Okay?” That would be about MILLION times – even thought I’ve told him over and over again if I fell, I’d cry out and he’d know it. Nightmares I’ve had about my ankle getting infected and falling off: Twelve bone shaking nightmares. Dog fights: One absolutely viciously terrifying dog fight resulting in an ER visit for Pepper, two ER visits for me and one for Husband. ER visits for me including June 9th: Three Total ER visits in my life: Five. That is five too many, folks. New allergies since surgery: That would be one itchy freaking mess of Penicillin with a possible side of Clindamycin. Size of left leg now above the knee: 16” Size of right leg above the knee: 14.75 “ Size of left calf now above the cast: 13.5” Size of right calf now above the cast: 12.25” Amount of hair on my leg: WE’RE ABOUT TO FIND OUT! Sqeeee!!! Pictures of the gory mess on Friday…that is, if Husband – who is creeped out by all things feet, hair and smell - is able to take them. Amount of $$$ we’ve spent on medical bills as of today since meeting Joe Boxer and Pepper the Wannabe Cat January 28, 2016 - including spay/neuter, Broken Ankle, Dog fight vet visit, ER visits and Valentines chocolate etc but not including food and dog beds: Fourteen THOUSAND, five hundred five dollars and twenty two cents. !!!! Approximately, Ten thousand of that was Broken Ankle. I shudder to think what that number would be without Obama Care. Without it, that total would be way WAY higher and surgery would have been a luxury not a given. Honestly, I can see how people lose homes over medical issues... Hours until I see my hairy old dead lady leg: ONE. Good-bye Green Monster. Hello, Bionic Right Ankle. Here. We. Go. |
AuthorMy name is ej. I'm a girl. I say that because with the short hair and the short initials, folks aren't always sure. More brilliant insights to who I am in About me Archives
April 2019
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