Yesterday was my two-months anniversary since dumbass Joe ran his stupid head full speed into the back of my ankle; broke the bone and I step-cussed and broke two more. Two-months since Husband became Nurse Shrek and was suddenly responsible for the care and well being of three dogs, the house and all that comes with running it and one whiney weepy drugged up broken wife.
It’s been a looooooong two-months. I figured I have spent a lot of that time focusing on what I can't do with stupid Broken Ankle so today I'll just focus on what I can do: I can walk WITHOUT crutches! Yee Ha!!! So what if with every step I’m lurching like a drunken toddler walking on a ship in a storm? And so what if every time I take Boot off Broken Ankle is swollen to the size of my good left thigh? And so what if Broken Ankle and Foot will forever be purple and twice the size and I’m going to have to get a whole new set of shoes? And so what if Husband/Nurse Shrek still won’t look at the scars or touch any part of my right leg despite my emphatic pleas to “Please look at it. It’s really cool how my finger print stays in the swollen bit for hours.” I. Am. Walking. So, there is that little bit of light in the darkness that is our crappy world today - me, wobbling about the house, hands outstretched, feeling for the closest wall or couch or table but doing it WITHOUT CRUTCHES! Which means I can let go of my self-imposed 'no drinking while on crutches' rule and I can drink again!!! Heck, I already walk like I’m drunk so guess what I'm having for breakfast...
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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.
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. I am now apparently allergic to penicillin. Taken it all my life, have one broken ankle, get very expensive ankle jewelry and now I'm allergic to penicillin.
And by allergic I mean turn into one horrible massive big itchy hive. And by horrible I mean hives in my ears. And hives on my scalp. And hives INSIDE the stupid big green cast that made the damn leg swell into an irritated inflamed mess and cause me to contemplate cutting the sucker off at the knee. After having scratched all the skin off the rest of my body, that is. And Pepper the Wannabe Cat is now a shivering growly mess whenever Tigger the Dog is near while Joe Boxer is still trying to figure out what the hell happened. My life right now is trying to monitor smelly dogs while stomping about on crutches - which isn't as glamorous as you might think. And this morning, while Husband was drying the dog dishes with a paper towel, I informed him that he just used a dishtowel to do that, he’d save on paper towels. He smiled a smug self-satisfied smile, and said, "I like my system. I’m in charge. I have all my legs." One. More. Week. |
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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