My wife says that she's been reading my posts on The Brown Knowser and on Facebook, and she says that I have a one-track mind.
That's not true at all: I still think a lot about sex.
She's referring, of course, to my posts about my foot surgery and mobility issues, with my crutches and my iWalk 2.0 peg leg.
And she's right. Since my reconstructive surgery, on November 15, I've pretty much been house-bound, recovering. I've been outside only a few times, primarily to move from the house to a car, to the hospital, or to the office.
I've only been in the office about four or five times. Moving around that much wears me out, and sometimes the weather isn't favourable to crutches. I can't sweep snow off my car, nor will I risk slipping on unseen ice.
Lately, when I do make it into the office, I use my hands-free crutches to get around. I can carry things and though I move much more slowly, I feel more stable. But I am finding some obstacles to be a major pain in the butt, and I'm only realizing how difficult it must be for those whose mobility is more restricted, permanently.
My woes, by comparison, are trivial, but they are still significant. I only see it clearly when I'm at work, and I need to use the public washroom.
The men's room has four urinals and five toilets. You wouldn't believe how thrilled I was when I switched from conventional crutches to the iWalk 2.0, and learned that I could pee standing up. It was like I was my old self again.
Having to sit, when you're in a cast, is a bit of a hassle. Let me paint you a picture (hopefully, not too graphic):
You negotiate your way into the cubicle and close the door. You find a spot to rest your crutches, hopefully, within short reach. All the while, you're standing on one foot—a foot that is suffering from acute osteoarthritis, and makes it impossible to balance for more than a couple of seconds. You rest a hand on a wall for further support, so that you stop swaying.
Now, with your free hand, you grab some TP and give the toilet seat a wipe. You don't want the ass sweat from the previous occupant. You then spin 180 degrees, ready to sit. But first, with that free hand, you undo your pants and pull them down as far as they go—on your bad leg, that's only to the top of the cast.
Very carefully, because your bad foot is sensitive to bumps and jarring, you sit down (using only your good leg) and do your business.
When you're done, you carefully lift yourself up (again, only with your good leg). You use one hand to keep yourself balanced and the other to pull everything up. Leaning against a wall, you zip up, tuck in, straighten up. Carefully, you turn around and flush the toilet, and then turn back the other way, grab your crutches, and wiggle your way out of the stall.
You move to a sink, preferably one on either end of the five sinks that line the wall, and position yourself between the sink and the paper towel dispenser. You scrub your hands, and then grab some towels, run them under the sink, lather them up, and wipe down the handles of your crutches.
More paper towel, to dry the handles and your hands.
Exhausted, you move through the door and make your way back to your desk.
With the hands-free crutch, it's pretty much the same, except you have to unstrap yourself from the device before you sit down and strap in before you exit the stall.
All of this is done relatively easily when you have the handicap stall to use. It's about 5 feet by 5 feet, with a wide door that gives you lots of room between it and the toilet. If it's occupied, you're left using one of the 3-by-5 stalls, which is hellish.
The other day, I found myself in the washroom, making my way to the back, where the last stall is for those with mobility issues. The washroom appeared to be empty, until I was near the back and could see a shadow and feet in the handi-stall. I wasn't in desperate need, so I made my way back to my desk.
I was using the iWalk 2.0 on this day. This is an important note.
About 20 or so minutes later, I made my way back to the washroom. Again, while there was no urgency in using a toilet, I did have a meeting within the next half hour, and I wanted to do my business before the meeting started. For surely, I would be in more need if I waited until after the meeting was over.
Again, the washroom first appeared to be empty. And again, it wasn't until I approached the last stall that I saw a shadow and a different pair of shoes.
I groaned, and turned to one of the other stalls.
I opened the door, hobbled inside, but when I made to turn to close the door behind me, I discovered that my cast still extended outside. I tried to pivot around, but had no room, and realized I was close to losing my balance. So, with the door open, I removed my leg from the crutch.
Hopping on my good leg, I picked up my crutch, moved further into the stall, and closed the door. I pivoted around again, leaned the walker against the door, and realized I only had a couple of inches between the walker and the toilet.
Moving to wipe down the toilet seat, my cast kept kicking the crutch, sending jolts of pain through my foot, and running the risk of knocking the crutch to the floor. Sitting down, my cast forward, I rested my bad leg against the peg leg.
Business completed, toilet flushed, I struggled to strap on the walker. And once I was ready to walk, I discovered that I couldn't open the door. I backed up, foot over the toilet bowl, struggling to maintain balance, I was able to open the door, but I had lost balance and hit the walls of the cubicle, shaking every one of them.
I was exhausted before I reached the sink to wash up.
I feel for people who face situations like this on a regular basis, who can't, like me, count the days before they're walking without an aid. I feel for those who have no option but to wait until the handicap stall is vacant, waiting for someone who doesn't need to use that stall.
I recognized the second set of shoes, knew who had taken the one spot that I could use with relative ease.
When I'm back on two feet, I'm never going to needlessly use the handicap stall. I have felt the anxiety of having to wait, of having to use a stall that was not designed for my situation.
Tuesday, December 11, 2018
Monday, December 10, 2018
Baby, You're Cold Inside
If it were me, I'd put a universal ban on "The Twelve Days of Christmas." That song really sucks.
For all of you who are up in arms over the fact that some radio stations have pulled the 1944 Frank Loesser song, "Baby, It's Cold Outside," I have a couple of questions for you:
If I hear Christmas music, I don't keep a mental inventory of what passes my ears. If a song doesn't play, I don't decry, "Where's... ?"
I understand the historical context of the song. I get that in the 1940s, it was scandalous for an unmarried woman to want to stay over with an unmarried man. The woman in the song is voicing the societal reasons why she mustn't stay, while the man is giving reasons to explain why, under the right circumstances, she could stay.
The "what's in this drink" phrase is, as part of this song, another reason for the woman to stay. If she can't drive, and if there are no cabs, then perhaps she should stay.
If people had been offended by the song when it first appeared (according to Wikipedia, "Loesser wrote 'Baby, It's Cold Outside' for his wife, Lynn Garland, and himself to sing at a housewarming party in New York City," and it was later sold to MGM, where it was used in the romantic comedy, Neptune's Daughter), where the context was understood, it would have never survived to this day.
That's my rant in support of this song. Let us now pause...
...Okay.
Some things don't stand the test of time. I'm a big fan of Star Trek and grew up on the original series. But when I watch some of the episodes today, I cringe.
Remember when Doctor McCoy and Captain Kirk were on the bridge of the Enterprise, and a young female officer is talking to Uhura and Scotty, who is smitten? McCoy, who sees Scotty's doting and remarks, "I'm not sure she thinks he's the right man. On the other hand, she's a woman—all woman. One day she'll find the right man and off she'll go, out of the service."
Throughout the Star Trek franchise, women are treated as fearful objects, in need of the men to protect them. Or simply as sex objects.
Yes, I cringe when I see these scenes, but overall I still love the shows, still watch them. But I wouldn't be upset if some of the sexist episodes went away.
There are lots of Christmas songs that don't stand the test of time, and not just because they're awful songs. "Santa Baby" makes me want to vomit. "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" is about a peeping Tom who manipulates children's behaviour.
I cringe when I hear these songs because I'm educated and in tune with what's going on in the world. I'm sensitive to other peoples sensitivities and even though I may understand the background to an old song, I agree that if some people cringe at it, then maybe we take it out of circulation.
For those who think society is going too far, I remind you of the three questions I had at the top of my rant.
No one is calling for bonfires, wherein people will throw their vinyl albums into the inferno and celebrate the total removal of these songs from the face of the Earth.
No one is suggesting that it be a crime to play these songs in public. If you like the song, play it. Enjoy it. Sing along with it.
But if you're going to make more noise than those who decided to retire it because it leaves a bad taste today, then you're the problem.
Congratulations: you've got the mindset of someone 75 years in the past. It may be cold outside, but you're cold on the inside.
For all of you who are up in arms over the fact that some radio stations have pulled the 1944 Frank Loesser song, "Baby, It's Cold Outside," I have a couple of questions for you:
- Are you avid listeners of those radio stations?
- Is your Christmas incomplete without that song?
- If the stations had quietly removed the song from their rotation, would you have noticed?
If I hear Christmas music, I don't keep a mental inventory of what passes my ears. If a song doesn't play, I don't decry, "Where's... ?"
I understand the historical context of the song. I get that in the 1940s, it was scandalous for an unmarried woman to want to stay over with an unmarried man. The woman in the song is voicing the societal reasons why she mustn't stay, while the man is giving reasons to explain why, under the right circumstances, she could stay.
The "what's in this drink" phrase is, as part of this song, another reason for the woman to stay. If she can't drive, and if there are no cabs, then perhaps she should stay.
If people had been offended by the song when it first appeared (according to Wikipedia, "Loesser wrote 'Baby, It's Cold Outside' for his wife, Lynn Garland, and himself to sing at a housewarming party in New York City," and it was later sold to MGM, where it was used in the romantic comedy, Neptune's Daughter), where the context was understood, it would have never survived to this day.
That's my rant in support of this song. Let us now pause...
...Okay.
Some things don't stand the test of time. I'm a big fan of Star Trek and grew up on the original series. But when I watch some of the episodes today, I cringe.
Remember when Doctor McCoy and Captain Kirk were on the bridge of the Enterprise, and a young female officer is talking to Uhura and Scotty, who is smitten? McCoy, who sees Scotty's doting and remarks, "I'm not sure she thinks he's the right man. On the other hand, she's a woman—all woman. One day she'll find the right man and off she'll go, out of the service."
Throughout the Star Trek franchise, women are treated as fearful objects, in need of the men to protect them. Or simply as sex objects.
Yes, I cringe when I see these scenes, but overall I still love the shows, still watch them. But I wouldn't be upset if some of the sexist episodes went away.
There are lots of Christmas songs that don't stand the test of time, and not just because they're awful songs. "Santa Baby" makes me want to vomit. "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" is about a peeping Tom who manipulates children's behaviour.
I cringe when I hear these songs because I'm educated and in tune with what's going on in the world. I'm sensitive to other peoples sensitivities and even though I may understand the background to an old song, I agree that if some people cringe at it, then maybe we take it out of circulation.
For those who think society is going too far, I remind you of the three questions I had at the top of my rant.
No one is calling for bonfires, wherein people will throw their vinyl albums into the inferno and celebrate the total removal of these songs from the face of the Earth.
No one is suggesting that it be a crime to play these songs in public. If you like the song, play it. Enjoy it. Sing along with it.
But if you're going to make more noise than those who decided to retire it because it leaves a bad taste today, then you're the problem.
Congratulations: you've got the mindset of someone 75 years in the past. It may be cold outside, but you're cold on the inside.
Friday, December 7, 2018
Thursday, December 6, 2018
On The Mend
It's the fatigue that still gets to me, three weeks on. I'm always tired, always snoozing.
It's why I haven't written any blog posts in a week. By the time dinner is over, I just want to lie down, elevate my casted leg, and rest until bedtime.
But there is progress. I have no trouble moving around on my crutches—except for last Saturday, when I stumbled coming down our stairs and landed at the bottom on my back. Luckily, I was only four or five steps from the bottom of the stairs, and I protected my foot above everything else. Only my right shoulder blade took the brunt of the fall (or is that landing?).
I've even negotiated the snowy outdoors, attending DD15's first jazz performance of the season, and getting to and from my car to make it into the office (but only on days where the weather doesn't make crutches an even greater challenge.
If it snows, I stay home. After all, I can't exactly sweep snow off my car on crutches.
DW did some research on hands-free crutches, and I've been using an iWalk 2.0 for almost a week. It takes some extra effort to strap it onto my leg and takes some getting used to walking on, but so far I've managed a day in the office without falling: stumbling a few times, but no falling.
But the effort of spending a day at the office wears me out and raises what is already a high heart rate. On Monday, I hit a record 172 bpm, surprising even me.
I've been to follow-up appointments twice since the November 15 surgery. The first appointment was to remove the staples from my hip, from where my surgeon harvested bone. The hip still aches a bit but is no longer sensitive to the slightest movement. A nurse also removed my temporary cast to check the status of my foot and place a more stable, fibreglass cast over my foot.
It wasn't until this first followup that I learned my foot is now carrying hardware. Eight screws and a plate hold the bone graft together. My surgeon proudly showed me the x-ray, but to me it looked like the foreign objects were dropped randomly into my open wounds.
I've been partially assimilated.
On my second followup, last Friday, the cast came off so that the stitches in the two incisions in my foot could be removed, and they could look at the progress of my foot.
The same nurse cut off the fibreglass cast. As she cut away the cotton and bandages, she remarked on how clean my foot was. No oozing of blood and other fluids. Once exposed, she sniffed my foot. "It looks clean and smells good. You should see some of the feet we've had to deal with."
A doctor, not my surgeon but an intern, examined my foot. "This is coming along very well. You're healing nicely." A male nurse came in with tweezers and a scalpel, and more bandages, as the intern walked out. He explained that pulling the stitches wouldn't hurt any more than plucking the hairs from the top of my feet.
He was right: it didn't hurt more; it hurt exactly the same.
This nurse wasn't sure if we'd be using another fibreglass cast, so he left me alone with my bare foot while he consulted. When he came back, he had the best news of the day.
"I spoke with Dr. M— (my surgeon), and he said that the progress was going so well that I'm to fit you with an Aircast."
An Aircast is a soft-lined cast with two airbags on either side of the foot, from above the ankle, down, and has a hard plastic shell on the outside, held together with Velcro straps. A pump on the boot allows me to regulate how much air to place inside each bag.
The most important part of being in an Aircast is that I can remove it, allowing me to have a proper bath. The intern had returned to explain it to me. "Under no circumstances are you to bear any weight on this foot. Keep it off the ground and keep it elevated as much as possible." Putting weight on my bad foot, he explained, could undo all the work and make my foot worse.
With the stitches out, the nurse placed a bandage over each incision. He then made a long sock out of a tube of thin fabric, and fitted it from my toes to my knee. He gently set my foot in the Aircast, tightened it up, and showed me how the pump worked. "Keep the bandages on for 48 hours, after which you can have a bath," he said. Be careful getting in and out. Get help. You can put a light sock over the foot, whatever makes you comfortable."
The intern told me that my next appointment will be in four weeks, on December 28. If my foot continues to heal as it has, I may be allowed to bear weight.
Six weeks after surgery.
Originally, my surgeon said it would take three months in a cast, and then another month in a walking boot. Now, my recovery time seems to be half that.
In high school, I split my shin in two while playing soccer. It was a diagonal snap that ran more than three inches across the bone. I was placed in a full-leg cast and was told that I would be in it for at least 12 weeks. In subsequent visits, I was told 10 weeks, and then nine weeks. The doctor chalked it up to a healthy constitution. I heal quickly.
I think my surgeon stated the worst-case scenario when he estimated three months. He most like likely built in a buffer, in case my incisions became infected, in case I fell and injured the foot. On the course I seem to be on, I'll hopefully be on my feet—both feet—in no time.
For now, I take it easy, listen to my body. When it tells me to rest, I'll rest. And so, if I don't post a blog entry on a particular day, you'll know why.
It's the fatigue.
It's why I haven't written any blog posts in a week. By the time dinner is over, I just want to lie down, elevate my casted leg, and rest until bedtime.
I've even negotiated the snowy outdoors, attending DD15's first jazz performance of the season, and getting to and from my car to make it into the office (but only on days where the weather doesn't make crutches an even greater challenge.
If it snows, I stay home. After all, I can't exactly sweep snow off my car on crutches.
DW did some research on hands-free crutches, and I've been using an iWalk 2.0 for almost a week. It takes some extra effort to strap it onto my leg and takes some getting used to walking on, but so far I've managed a day in the office without falling: stumbling a few times, but no falling.
But the effort of spending a day at the office wears me out and raises what is already a high heart rate. On Monday, I hit a record 172 bpm, surprising even me.
I've been to follow-up appointments twice since the November 15 surgery. The first appointment was to remove the staples from my hip, from where my surgeon harvested bone. The hip still aches a bit but is no longer sensitive to the slightest movement. A nurse also removed my temporary cast to check the status of my foot and place a more stable, fibreglass cast over my foot.
It wasn't until this first followup that I learned my foot is now carrying hardware. Eight screws and a plate hold the bone graft together. My surgeon proudly showed me the x-ray, but to me it looked like the foreign objects were dropped randomly into my open wounds.
I've been partially assimilated.
On my second followup, last Friday, the cast came off so that the stitches in the two incisions in my foot could be removed, and they could look at the progress of my foot.
The same nurse cut off the fibreglass cast. As she cut away the cotton and bandages, she remarked on how clean my foot was. No oozing of blood and other fluids. Once exposed, she sniffed my foot. "It looks clean and smells good. You should see some of the feet we've had to deal with."
A doctor, not my surgeon but an intern, examined my foot. "This is coming along very well. You're healing nicely." A male nurse came in with tweezers and a scalpel, and more bandages, as the intern walked out. He explained that pulling the stitches wouldn't hurt any more than plucking the hairs from the top of my feet.
He was right: it didn't hurt more; it hurt exactly the same.
This nurse wasn't sure if we'd be using another fibreglass cast, so he left me alone with my bare foot while he consulted. When he came back, he had the best news of the day.
"I spoke with Dr. M— (my surgeon), and he said that the progress was going so well that I'm to fit you with an Aircast."
An Aircast is a soft-lined cast with two airbags on either side of the foot, from above the ankle, down, and has a hard plastic shell on the outside, held together with Velcro straps. A pump on the boot allows me to regulate how much air to place inside each bag.
The most important part of being in an Aircast is that I can remove it, allowing me to have a proper bath. The intern had returned to explain it to me. "Under no circumstances are you to bear any weight on this foot. Keep it off the ground and keep it elevated as much as possible." Putting weight on my bad foot, he explained, could undo all the work and make my foot worse.
The intern told me that my next appointment will be in four weeks, on December 28. If my foot continues to heal as it has, I may be allowed to bear weight.
Six weeks after surgery.
Originally, my surgeon said it would take three months in a cast, and then another month in a walking boot. Now, my recovery time seems to be half that.
In high school, I split my shin in two while playing soccer. It was a diagonal snap that ran more than three inches across the bone. I was placed in a full-leg cast and was told that I would be in it for at least 12 weeks. In subsequent visits, I was told 10 weeks, and then nine weeks. The doctor chalked it up to a healthy constitution. I heal quickly.
I think my surgeon stated the worst-case scenario when he estimated three months. He most like likely built in a buffer, in case my incisions became infected, in case I fell and injured the foot. On the course I seem to be on, I'll hopefully be on my feet—both feet—in no time.
For now, I take it easy, listen to my body. When it tells me to rest, I'll rest. And so, if I don't post a blog entry on a particular day, you'll know why.
It's the fatigue.
Friday, November 30, 2018
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