New Wheels

Today, I showered for the first time by myself in my upstairs shower. I was kind of scared about it. We have a shower that you walk into, but it has a single 4" tall step. So I had to crutch into the shower, leave the crutches outside, use the shower seat for balance and sit down and start the water. It felt nice to be back in my shower with all my stuff. It felt awesome to wash and shave my injured leg (I stayed away from the suture line).

My foot seems to be a giant ball of confused nerves (go figure). So I was afraid that the rain from the shower might be painful. It wasn't. But when I rearranged my leg and water ran down the back of it over the suture line, it felt like my whole leg and foot were asleep. It wasn't necessarily painful, but it also wasn't comfortable.

At the end of my shower, I was kind of nervous, because I had to hop, without much to hold on to, back to my crutches. I had to crutch out of the shower to the floor mat, grab my towel off of the bathtub and towel dry there. I was nervous that I would slip on the wet tile and fall, but it worked out okay. I still don't think I'll fell safe to shower at home without a "back up" person being home.

Anyway, I dried off my hair and upper body and then I crutched out of the bathroom to the bed to sit down and dry my bum leg and foot. I wanted to be sure I got all the water out between my swollen toes, so I wouldn't get gross stuff growing in there. But my main concern, and I knew from X-man's cast experience that this was going to suck, was that all of this nasty skin was peeling off of my leg and the bottom of my foot. Like 4 weeks worth of skin that normally flakes off your body without you noticing was stuck in the cast and just became layer after layer.

Putting my foot into the boot is okay, as long as I'm not trying to put my foot up. If I elevate my foot, it feels like the boot is restricting my foot. Like it's a giant squeeze machine. So, I put it on when I'm up and about (it doesn't seem to hurt then) and I do my flex/ point exercises when I'm elevating it.

For some reason, by the end of the day, it feels like my foot is going to burst out of a very tight skin.  Not cool.

However, my left foot feels much better today because we got the okay to get me a Roll-A-bout cart. MacTroll ran over to rent one from Carle Medical supply. It's a lot easier than the crutches and I don't feel like I'm going to fall over. It works now that it's okay for me to be more mobile. I still have two more weeks of non-weight bearing, but I'm starting to get more "Loosey's afternoon out" experiences and I'm okay with them (i.e. I can sit in a restaurant for up an hour without being in crazy pain, and that's a good thing!). It'll also be my only wheels for a while. I don't see the doctor again until Nov. 7. I might be driving shortly after that period.

When my left leg starts to get tired, I can only make it up a certain number of stairs hopping on one foot. I get scared (like I'm going to fall backwards) when I'm about three away from the top of the stairs. I also get pretty tired after being out of the house for more than an hour. I'm hoping that the Roll-A-bout allows me to be more mobile without me totally misaligning or breaking the rest of my body to make up for the giant cast weighing down the heavy leg that I'm not about to use.

The scooter is parked down on the first floor. I use crutches only when I'm up on the second floor. But I do have to say, if you have a busted leg, X-man is VERY nice about running ahead and getting doors for you, or pushing the handicap button so they open automatically. It's really very sweet.

This is an updated look at my foot from today. It is swollen, but I also have always had kankles... so it's really not too bad. It's a lot of Steri strips. In addition to feeling like my skin is too tight in the ball of my foot, I also think that my arch is now higher in my left than my right, and that I somehow got some kind of callous on the ball of my foot from the hard cast rubbing against it.

Damn!

Well, that was a tiptoe forward. The nurse took my second cast off, took out the rest of the staples and put me in a boot. Then the doctor told me that I have two more weeks of non-weight bearing (i.e. no walking) So, I called in my Mom to help out the week of the 15th.

The only real good news was that I can shower and wash that leg, which is good because it was getting pretty gross. I also have exercises I have to do.

On the other hand, I am officially out of the basement. So, you know... I'm moving on up.

Will it or won't it come off?

Tomorrow morning, I'm calling the doc because my cast is loose -- really loose. So loose that I swear if I concentrated, I could maybe figure out a way to entirely wiggle out of it. It was kinda loose on Friday, but now, it's just ridiculous. My appointment was for Wednesday, and Tuesday's he is in Danville. So, I'm going to give them a call at 8 a.m. tomorrow and see if they have any openings. I get kind of excited thinking about it. Because what if he takes out my staples and I get a walking cast? What if I get permission to start trying to relearn to walk and to pick towels up off the floor with my foot and weird helpful stuff like that? I'd be so freaking happy to move forward and be quasi-mobile.

I'd call today and leave a message for them to get when they walk in. But, alas, any messages have to be left with an answering service, and I really don't want my doctor knowing that I called him on a Sunday. That seems kind of rude.

My Dad is coming on Tuesday to help take care of X-man. He's going to be walking the kids to school on our days and taking him to his after school activities. If I'm still laid up, I'll be moving back down to the basement for a bit of privacy. It's been a nice break up in the bedroom, but I have to admit, I'm actually less independent up here. The human car wash shower isn't really friendly to someone who has to gimp around. The temperature controls are too far away from the sprayer, and I have to take my crutches into the shower, if I use it. So, instead, MacTroll's been washing my hair using the sprayer on the bathtub and I've been giving myself baths using a washcloth.

I can see at all the skin under my cast is starting to slough off. That's pretty gross. It's like dandruff on my leg, and well, that and not moving for nearly a month makes a girl feel very unpretty.

Wiggly Teeth

The family went to Meijer today where I got the chance to drive my first Amigo cart. (The motorized carts with the basket in the front.) The good news is that I didn't run anyone over. The bad news is, by the time we got to the end of our shopping, the cart was on red and X-man had to push me back to the charger. :-) He was a very, very good helper today.

While we were at the store, we eyed some caramel apples. X-man is sporting three slightly wiggly teeth. So, we bought three apples. X-man had one for an afternoon snack. Now he has one really wiggly tooth.

His thumb has been pruning from his spit as he tries to earn himself some extra cash via the tooth fairy.

The Little Sad

Last night, as I was getting ready for bed, I got sad. I could hear MacTroll and X-man upstairs and wanted to be near my family.

I lay down with my foot up on the pillows feeling ostracized.

Then I said, "Fuck this."

I got up on the crutches and made my way upstairs. When I was three stairs from the top, MacTroll met me. "What are you doing?"

"I miss my family. I want to go upstairs."

And so I did. Since the sensitivity of the staples has been reduced. I didn't have to worry about cats walking across my leg. I slept for the first time in my own bed with MacTroll and Lily and it felt -- not lonely.

Then in the middle of the night a thunderstorm came through. The window was open a crack. It was lovely to hear and smell the rain.

Even though it's not sunny and bright today. I feel more sunny and bright. Plus, I have a very cuddly puppy. I don't think I want to go back downstairs for a while.

Drop Dead Diva

Since I've been stranded at home, I've introduced myself to some new television. One of the "suggested" items in Netflix was a show called Drop Dead Diva.

It starts with a clueless blonde, size 0 model who gets in a car accident, goes to purgatory, refuses to give up on her life and ends up pushing a button on the angel's computer and sending herself back to Earth in the body of Jane.

Jane, an obese, very smart lawyer.

This show makes me very uncomfortable. I've only watched two shows, and I don't think I could stomach any more. But my big issue is here is this ultra thin woman, who has a gorgeous, smart boyfriend and a best friend. She drives a fancy convertible. And yet, when she gets to purgatory, it's explained to her that she's done nothing bad in her life AND she hasn't done anything good. She's basically just taken up space -- yet she has all of those things.

And, yes, if I keep watching, I might find out more things about Jane. But in the first two episodes what is very clear is that Jane is smart. Very, very smart. Yet, she can't seem to keep donuts out of her mouth, dresses poorly and is entirely work obsessed. Her only friend (since no one seems to call the main character or even e-mail or text her) is her cat. Her apartment is soulless and lonely looking. And I'm thinking, what the hell?

The trick is that Jane's soul and her memories have departed and the model's soul and memories have moved in. She spends the first two episodes staring at herself with a self hatred that is entirely uncomfortable. Like all of Jane's goodness is totally null and void because of the size of her body. Yet at the same time, the angel explains that Jane's life was one of value, (She jumped in front of a bullet to save her boss, which is how she died.) but it appears as if no one else on Earth valued her at all.

And that's what made me turn it off.

According to Netflix the show had/has at least three seasons -- on Lifetime.

Oooohhhh, that explains so much. I've turned off the TV now and have picked up a book. I think I'll take a Netflix break.

*** I forgot to add. The word FAT has been everywhere this week. Including the calling out of a TV journalist in Wisconsin, Lady Gaga, and Christina Aguilera

I was happy to find this article professing the insanity of it all.

Things that make me laugh

We have two neighbor children who come down and ring our doorbell and play with X-man. One is a five-year-old boy and the other is his nine-year-old sister. They are delightful kids, and I enjoy them very much.

Yesterday, the boy came down and rang the doorbell. X-man and the the boy to his room to play Legos. Moments later the doorbell rang again. His sister gave him a stern lecture about how he didn't tell their mother where he was going, and she as worried.

MacTroll supported her concern and said, "You have to tell your mother where you're going. You could be stuck in a ditch somewhere..."

Suddenly, the sister said, "That's a BAD WORD!"

"D-I-T-C-H, with a D!" MacTroll exclaimed.

Not only was it adorable that she called him out on what she thought she heard. But it was really funny to think about someone, somewhere being "stuck in a bitch."

On a side note, happy birthday to Clawdio, our cat. He's 15 today!