How I spent my summer vacation

Thinking of having a Triple Arthrodesis? Here’s what it was like for me.

I had surgery in April 2009 to fuse my foot bones due to degenerative arthritis. Almost 16 weeks later, I’m walking without a cane most of the time. Pain is still my ever-present shadow, but it’s getting more manageable.  No matter what discomfort I have now it’s a hangnail compared with the nerve entrapment pain of the last five years–it used to get me to break down in sobs some nights.

Click here to see my Facebook photos about my surgery:
How I spent my summer vacation–A Triple Arthodesis Adventure Album

Timeline:

• April 23: Surgery, Community Memorial Hospital, Menominee Falls, Wisconsin.
• April 27: Enter Cedar Springs Rehabilitation Hospital, Cedar Grove, Wisc. for extended physical therapy and nursing. Strictly non-weight bearing status, confined to wheel chair every moment not in bed.
• May 12: Temporary cast removed, first cast applied.
• May 20: Ready to go home, but hospital staff did not arrange for a knee walker. Begin battle to find a local vendor that will provide one at pittance offered by insurance company.
• May 25: Go home with knee walker and wheel chair. My elderly mother must drive me anywhere and I become one of those people riding in the little electric carts at Target.
• May 29: In-home physical therapy begins.
• June 4: Second cast applied. Find out that it was misapplied (too tall to bend my knee on knee walker). Orthopaedist not happy to have to replace it.
• June 29: Cast replaced by removable walking cast. No longer on non-weight bearing status. Send back wheel chair.
• July 23: Begin out-patient physical therapy, two times a week. Big help. Use cane less.
• July 26: Try on real shoe–like Cinderella, it fits (when I pull the laces out and open it REAL wide).
• July 27: Drive a car for the first time (whoo hoo!).
• By August 5: Walk around really well. Up and down ankle movement just fine. Side-to-side a little dicey. Uneven ground bears careful thought. I can walk around without cane most of the time, Pik n’ Save leaning on cart

My Mombo picked a fight with me at supper over US treatment of detainees at Guantánamo Bay Detention Camp.

I wish my parents would stop watching Fox News Network during Supper.

I am a socialist-leaning, New York Times reading, “Liberal”, it seems. Therefore, I, like all “Liberals”, am too stupid to realize that “There’s nothing wrong with using torture on our enemies, so the government can ‘keep us safe’”.

Wowee, Mombo. Maybe that’s why they ARE our enemies? And what happened to the “Do unto others” you had them drill into me in Lutheran Sunday School? Curse you Rush Limbagh! You’ve brainwashed my mom.

She got a bit too personal, when she pronounced “If you weren’t our daughter, your father and I would have nothing to do with you. I don’t know anybody who thinks like you, and I never want to.” Ouchie, Mombo. Way to let it out. Thanks for sharing.

Your mileage may vary

1. Bathroom safety bars are already installed
2. Your share of the rent is negligible because the mortgage is paid off
3. They admire you for knowing how to work all the remote controls
4. Dad does all of your laundry. “Hey, I ain’t doin’ anything else. I might as well do my share.”
5. Mombo is in bed by 6:30. Dad stays up ’til eight thirty
6. You can use their car mostly anytime, as long as you drive them to the doctors, WallMart, or Pik N Save
7. Somebody’s always home to answer the door.
8. When you fall off your knee walker in the garden, there’s someone to root you on as you struggle to your feet.
9. The freezer’s always full
10. There’s always pie!