first day home

[aslant]

okay. me and my broken-in-three-places ankle are back at home now, still high on percocet. the surgeon and her very cute PA came to unwrap my leg yesterday afternoon. under the eight layers of gauze and ace wrap was a still extremely swollen ankle. even i could see that. there was a moment in the ER on tuesday night when the doctor had a hushed consultation at the foot of my bed, the only word i actually made out was deformed, which made me sit up from my morphine-and-ativan haze saying, "did you just say my ankle was deformed?" ha ha. well, it still looked deformed when the surgeon unwrapped it.

for now i am at home, with crutches but not allowed to get up except to go pee and maybe shower (with the leg poking out since the splint can't get wet). an alarm goes off every four hours to tell me to take my percocet. i have a trashcan next to my bed in case it makes me nauseous...on the car ride home from the hospital kirk had to pull over so i could lose my hospital dinner out the car door. but as long as i stay in bed, i get light-headed but not nauseous. moving the leg in any way still makes me cry a little.

on tuesday i'll go back to see the surgeon, and if the swelling has gone down, i will have surgery to set pins and a plate into the ankle, on wednesday or thursday.

kind of dark, but here it is, splinted and wrapped, maybe four separate layers of gauze and three of ace wrap, plus the thick wet plaster layer of the splint. sigh. so painful, so ugly.

Comments

[nevers.livejournal.com]

oh, poor girl! (you are taking the percoset with food, right?)

for showering i highly recommend one of those shower chairs you can get from the drugstore, and duct-taping a trash bag around your leg so you don't have to worry about it getting wet.

i will try to get together a care package for you. any requests?

[nevers.livejournal.com]

also, you have plenty of pillows to prop you up to a comfortable sitting position right? and snacky food within reach for when you need to take a percoset? and a tv and computer and books? when i've been on oxycodone i've found myself without much of an appetite but really enjoying particular foods (applesauce, soy milk, ice cream, i seem to remember?) so if that's the case make sure kirk stocks up on them and eat them with abandon :) (also vitaminy things of course...). and make everybody you know come visit! okay those are all the useful things i can think of for now.

it must be really frustrating to have to lie around knowing your bones are a mishmash. at least the pain after surgery is the pain of things having been fixed and healing! poor girl.

[aslant.livejournal.com]

tee hee :) you are sweet! pillows, yes, though i want a 'husband' pillow now. kirk is on snack & meal-fetching duties for now. i have the laptop to watch movies, not sure if i'll get desperate enough to ask kirk to drag the tv in here.

my appetite is pretty low...though i'm thinking this is a good excuse to get that milkshake i've been craving for the last couple weeks! ha. i'm thinking pudding would be nice, too. i'm making a list for kirk :)

very frustrating, definitely. especially since every movement is painful in the extreme...what if the splint isn't enough and they are healing wrong already? i know that's sort of impossible, but still.

[nevers.livejournal.com]

yes, husbands are essential! i couldn't find one before my most recent knee surgery but i got a huge heavy pillow that worked will even if it didn't have arms.

i know how you feel -- whenever my knee was hurting i felt certain it was slightly twisted and would full and try to prop it up and align it just right so it would be happy. i had to remind myself that it had just been CUT OPEN and had all sorts of gory things done to it and of course it was going to hurt, and it didn't mean anything was going wrong. same for you!

[aslant.livejournal.com]

yes, good to remember. also, at least it encourages me to stay in one place once i've found a good position.

[aslant.livejournal.com]

yes, i'm taking it with food :) funny enough though, it says taking it with food "may decrease its effectiveness". wtf.

i'm going to send kirk out to get me a shower stool soon. i wish we had a showerhead with a snake attachment thingy, that would make my life a lot easier.

& aww, a care package! i guess i really need things to read right now, books, magazines, that's all i can think of :)

[nevers.livejournal.com]

how would you feel about books i love and highly recommend but would like back? is it worth it for good books, or probably not worth it for having to send them back?

i never had a snakey attachment at my disposal either.

[aslant.livejournal.com]

yes! that would be excellent! i'd be happy to send them back, promise it won't be a problem. i'll make kirk do it on his lunchbreak at work, since he can just drive to the PO. definitely worth it for good books. do you have some middle readers in mind? i think that's about where my attention span is right now, anyway.

[nevers.livejournal.com]

yes, that's exactly what i was thinking -- those narcotics are hard on the attention span. did you ever read the green knowe books? i am excited to pick a bunch out! do you have any problems receiving packages at home? i'll mark them no signature required.

[aslant.livejournal.com]

no, i never read the green knowe books. i am intrigued! shouldn't be a problem to receive packages at home, though you may want to put the books in a plastic bag inside the package, in case rain blows in on the porch :)

[urbpan.livejournal.com]

Oh no! I wish you a safe and speedy recovery! My other friend who was trying out to be in the rollerderby is finally back on her feet after breaking her leg back in the spring. I hope you have a good support network of helpers for food, laundry, etc.

Get well soon!

[aslant.livejournal.com]

thank for the good wishes! best of luck to your friend, is she here in boston? and yes, i have a wonderful boyfriend helping me out at home, and lots of folks offering help with everything. and luckily enough, we did laundry right before it happened! thank god.

[urbpan.livejournal.com]

She lives in Cambridge. She stayed with my wife and I for a while, and I took care of her car while she kept our dogs company.

[aslant.livejournal.com]

aha. is she tall, with dark hair? i think i met her at an all-league meeting, back in june. of course, i've gone and forgotten her name.

[urbpan.livejournal.com]

She's belen1974. I wont give her real name right here, but maybe I'll talk to you on a friends protected post later. She's my drinkin' buddy and best non-wife friend these days.

[aslant.livejournal.com]

ah, okay :)

[ricecricket.livejournal.com]

a story for you: when i was in sixth grade i broke my knee. casted from ankle to crotch. could not shower, only bath, with leg propped out of the water. pinched the fat between the top of the cast & the toilet seat a lot. i winced a lot. within a week of getting the cast off, i thought it'd be a swell idea to tape a trash bag around my leg & go swimming. predictably, pool water & kid piss seeped in. the cast became soggy. i then proceeded to chase a younger kid of the house where the pool belonged up & down the stairs. a crack formed around the knee. so i pulled the cast off.

moral of the story - avoid all sports save for pingpong.

good luck & patience in the healing.

[aslant.livejournal.com]

lol. i love the moral! ha. though even pingpong starts to sound dangerous. all that standing up!

i think i am the first person in my family to ever break a bone, funnily enough. i guess we are a cautious people. sounds like you have done it lots of times!

[ricecricket.livejournal.com]

pingpong is only dangerous when alcohol, & my mother, are involved.

my family is/was the opposite of caution. i've broken a finger, a foot, a knee & a nose. my brother's broken 8 fingers, his foot, his nose & slipped a disc. probably a few others. my mother's up there, too.

the standard joke growing up is that we were in casts so often that child services was going to be called.

you join good company. i would've been disappointed had you not broken anything in time.

[relativid.livejournal.com]

[aslant.livejournal.com]

!! that is so great :)
thank you so much! (i am kind of hoping they give me a rigid cast later, so i can draw on it!)

[l-aurore.livejournal.com]

oy, i'm so sorry! it sounds like kirk's taking good care of you and i guess, even though it's a shitty situation, it's a good chance to catch up with some good books. :) if you need suggestions, even though i don't know if our tastes match, i have a list of books i've read and what i thought of them (not very detailed descriptions, though) on amazon here: http://www.amazon.com/gp/richpub/listmania/byauthor/A1YWFQWL51OV3W/ref=pd_po_rvi_3/104-4890838-6574326?%5Fencoding=UTF8

here's wishing you well -- soon!

[aslant.livejournal.com]

aw, thanks :) and yes, lots of reading to do. thanks for the list link, i will take a look!

[mcfnord.livejournal.com]

i wish you a speedy recovery. ouchie!

[aslant.livejournal.com]

thanks :)

i like your little acrobat icon!