My Ankle Needs To Get Over Itself

Seriously. I can only get around with crutches. As my daughter points out, I am terrible with crutches. I wobble, I careen around. The dogs both scramble out of my way as soon as they hear the sound of my crutches. I can't carry anything. Well, I can carry things that I can suspend from my fingers as I'm holding the crutch handles. Imagine yourself unable to walk straight and with no useful way to transport things and see what you can accomplish in a day. Plus I'm so out of shape now that my heart actually starts pounding a little when I stand up for more than five minutes. I know, I know, I'm going to work on that.

Since surgery I have repeatedly asked my husband to please do one of three things for my ankle: first choice, grab one of those Star Trek medical doodads and run it over my bones so they will knit up pronto and apparently painlessly; second choice, cross one arm over the other, blink hard and nod (like the genie in pink); or third, wriggle his nose, making that little "tinkle-tinkle-tink!" musical sound (like Sabrina). I'd go with Star Trek first because, hey, it's Star Trek, and also the other two potential cures seem to make the world jerk sideways a bit, and always go hilariously wrong for twenty minutes. His only response to my impassioned requests is to say that the late 60's clearly had a lot of wish-fulfillment fantasies. Dork. He doesn't even try.

On account of diligent practice, I can now move my hoof up and down and side to side, but not as far as it used to go. It is not far enough yet that I could walk, but I'll keep pointing and flexing. Maybe by the time the doctor says, "go," I might be able to. My foot turns beet red every time I put it on the floor. When I show him, my husband points out that I have soft tissue damage, too, so what can I expect.

I'm off pain meds, huzzah! The only real pain now is stinging from the skin being stretched too hard over the scarred areas and screws, which makes me make faces when I do my exercises, and weird twangy nerve jumping when I put my foot on the floor. To which my husband again replies that I have soft tissue damage and I should just be patient.

You can imagine what a comfort he is to me.

love,

cat

Das Boot

This is the inside of Inside Cat's right ankle. I am particularly pleased by the orderliness of the repair. You can see the plate and all eleven screws. I have so many in my thin little tibia there because I broke it in two places. As the doctor said to me, "When you do something, you commit, huh?" Yeah.

So Friday we went to the part of Pill Hill that is by the river. You know, the part you can get to by gondola. See, a long time ago someone donated the top of a westside Portland hill to the University of Oregon. The university built a medical teaching hospital on it. And a dental school. The Veteran's Hospital, too. And the Shriners built their facility on it. And the famous Doernbecher's Children's Hospital was built up there for children with cancer. And there's the Casey Eye Institute. I think there are a couple other institutions of a medical nature crammed up there, too. The whole thing is lousy with hospitals and parking garages. You drive up this steep winding road in a long line of cars to get to "Pill Hill." I know it well. Our son had four surgeries up there when he was a boy, four summers in a row. Finally, a few years ago, additional property was obtained at the bottom of the hill, by the river. Another medical center went up, and a Swiss-style gondola was built right over Interstate 5 so that people could float up and down, high over the houses and I-5, from the hospitals at the top to the medical center at the bottom. I got to ride on the gondola for my first doctor's visit, because the young woman who set the appointment for me failed to tell me exactly where my appointment was, so silly me, I went to the main hospital. I didn't see much, I was in a wheelchair and so my view was basically of sky. Rick said it was nice.

Eeeeeenyway, Friday at the bottom of the hill I got my cast/splint thing off and x-rays taken and my stitches pulled out and the surgeon came in and looked at the x-ray and declared it Fine and rattled off a bunch of instructions for me (both times I have met with him he has never touched or even looked at my actual foot. I assume he had to come into some kind of contact with it during surgery. Though he did have a resident in there with him who could have done it instead, so I suppose it is possible he has never touched my foot. I can't blame him, it is not a pretty sight).

Though my poor foot really was frightful, I was happy to see it again after three weeks. Yes, it's been three weeks; I can't believe it either. I'd show you a picture of the bruises and stitches and iodine stains with wisps of cotton stuck on but you'd just say ick and try not to look at it, so what's the point. Then the nurse came in and fitted me with The Boot. It's a fine thing, black and velcro all over. It has snazzy little air bags in it you can inflate and deflate for support, just like Air Jordans. It only weighs ten thousand pounds.

If it's been a while since you've broken anything, let me tell you how the world has changed. It used to be that doctors would use wet plaster and cotton and place a cast on you that remained for weeks and weeks. You would feel itchy underneath the thing and have to try using a long stick of some kind to get in there and get some relief. It used to be that you could not get your plaster cast wet or it would fall apart. It used to be that your cast would be signed by friends and family with snarky or sometimes sincere little get well wishes, and drawings by your talented friends. It used to be that your cast got grubby and an unfortunate smell would waft from it as the weeks went by. Then, finally, the doctor would scare you to death coming at you with his/her zippy little saw blade and the cast would be cracked open all the way down. You would get your appendage back and learn how to use the shriveled limb again.

Not any more, friends. We're well out of the Dark Ages. Now, long before healing is complete, you get The Boot. You are encouraged to take The Boot off and stretch your stiff muscles and work at regaining range of motion. You are allowed to remove The Boot to shower. You don't need to wear The Boot when you sleep. You can remove The Boot, prop your foot up and watch TV. You can scratch all you want. Seriously, it feels like a magic trick every time The Boot opens up and reveals that white cotton sock. There's my foot! I feel like I am cheating. It's wonderful.

Four more weeks of not putting any weight on it at all, though. Still a looooong way to go.

love,

cat

So, What Does Inside Cat Do for Fun?

Since I kind of committed, let's talk about hobbies. You know how you can fascinate a baby by jingling keys in front of his/her face? I never got over that. I get drawn into just about anything - I reach for any shiny thing that comes along. My mother used to scold me, “Jack of all trades, master of none,” and tried hard to get me to focus on one thing. She didn’t care what one thing, just one, instead of wanting to know everything about everything. It didn't help her cause that I grew up in California smack dab in the center of hippy-hippie everything. I remember taking summer classes on tie-dying, Japanese paper making, basket weaving and macrame. I had long-haired art teachers who encouraged experimentation, so I made things in clay, learned stained glass, metal casting (specifically, making jewelry), a little wood carving. I love it all. I can’t help myself. Reaching for those dangling keys, I still want to know everything about everything. I've tried to stick to things that are affordable and don't take a lot of space so my family still loves me. So regretfully, I don't have a glass blowing studio, stained glass equipment, kiln and potting wheel, a shop full of woodworking tools, a loom, spinning wheel (though I desperately want one), sheep (for spinning, you know), bee hives, a printing press and all the other things necessary to turn me into a one-woman village. This actually does make me a little sad. Let's explore some of my more recent interests, just for fun:

When we were moving to Alaska, I decided I needed to give up my freshwater fish tanks. I loved the fish and frogs and the plants I had growing in each tank and I enjoyed learning about them, but I did not want to figure out how to transport the tanks. Also, I looked around online and could not find any information on stores selling fish in Alaska. I was wrong, there are several tropical fish stores in Anchorage. So now you know. But I gave up having my arm wet to the elbow and my fish went to a very deserving young man. I still miss them, even though that 50 gallon tank took up a lot of real estate in our little house.

My new hobby in Alaska was houseplants. I figured I'd need the green during the long dark winter (which actually was lovely, white and brown with pink sky, but I digress). So I bought a no-nonsense plant stand and lights and started collecting African violets and orchids and various other pretty leafy things. Anyone who saw my tiny jungle office in Portland knows I loved plants already. When we moved from Alaska back to Oregon, I gave away my lovely healthy houseplants and decided I would focus on gardening in the yard in Oregon. Which I did.

Now I am grounded, incarcerated, a big fat couch potato. I need a new hobby to drain off some of my fascination with everything. No problem. I grabbed a crochet hook from my knitting daughter, begged some yarn off her and started crocheting. I can do that easy even with my left foot propped higher than my heart. I ordered a big box of the Right Colors from the Internets for my Broken Ankle Memorial Blanket and got going. I may even have other projects on the hook (OK, I do...).

I have not abandoned the garden. My husband has kindly agreed (with only one little -suppressed- sigh of long suffering) to keep the garden alive. He loves me that much. My daughter helps me with the herbs I brought inside for the winter. I sit at the table with my brick of a foot propped up and she brings the plants and we both fertilize and water and deadhead and all that. It's nice. I am very grateful for the assistance, so the plants get to live.

I tat; I've tatted for years now. In case you are blinking at me like this, 0_o tatting looks like this. It's a kind of lace. You can scroll through the pics, if you are interested, to get an idea of some of the variety available. There's more to it, but it's my hobby, not yours, so I won't bore you. I mostly make jewelry (earrings, necklaces), beaded purses, ornaments and garlands. I've also been noodling with making wedding lace as a potential side business. All my tatting stuff is packed up in the shed at the moment. The thing that's really cool about tatting is people are just in the past couple of years developing new techniques, so it is an evolving craft.

Last Easter-ish I made the Ukrainian Eggs in the fuzzy picture above. You do it with eggs (I used brown eggs), beeswax and aniline dyes. I buy the specialized copper and birch tools I need from Powell's book store, or sometimes online. It's a Russian thing, though lately I've run into Russians who never heard of it, so I am guessing it is a Western Russian thing, as the Ukrainian in the name indicates. Russia's a giant country and I suppose it is not surprising that people at one end of the country don't know what people on the other end are doing. Getting to make the eggs in the picture was the incentive I gave myself to finish our tax forms last year. By the way, my brother-in-law made the cool wooden bowl they are sitting in.

Another sort-of-hobby all my life has been "get in shape." Except that it's more of a wish. I've never stuck with an exercise regimen for long. I've never been particularly fit, but I could generally get through a day without huffing or puffing. I realize that at the moment I am slowly deteriorating into a sack of flab. One day I will be tortured by some otherwise nice person who happens to be a physical therapist. At that point, I have already resolved that I will make peace with the Wii Fit and start using it. I will not stop until I am able to walk or even jog a 5K run. I know, my dreams are overwhelmingly big. Maybe you and I could work on it together, what do you think? Let me know. You have plenty of time to decide. No need to rush.

My new hobby/skills include brushing my teeth at the couch using a cup and a bowl, digesting while prone, learning to use crutches, um, what else? Not much. Just hanging out, surfing the 'net, watching cable tv, napping. I am becoming a world class napper. Good for healing.

What do you like to do?

love,

inside cat

On the Import of Fruit, particularly of tropical persuasion

I've been told that since I am a big baby and achood facebook, I need to update my blog more often. The word might have been "eschewed" but who really talks like that, Mary? ;) Hmm. I am chained to the living room couch for at least the next six weeks with this broken ankle. Nothing interesting is going to happen to me. What shall I write about?

I think we will all die of boredom if I chronicle my convalescence step by step. We could work on the eternal question, "Are we human or are we dancer?" for a while. Blogging through Julia Child's cookbook has been done. So today our topic is fruit.

First, cantaloupe. Our cat, Kaleo, is, to put it politely, supersized. He's a big muscular guy for a cat anyway, but he really put on weight when our daughter's kitty died five years or so ago. I must admit I did not pay attention to how Kaleo was handling the loss of his beloved. They had been inseparable and I should have expected some response from him but I just didn't think about it. I had my own sad and I was busy. So three or four days after the death of the other cat, I finally noticed where Kaleo had been hanging out: inside the 20 pound cat food bag, gorging. He gained four pounds (for a cat, that's a LOT) in less than a week. To quote Dave Barry, I am absolutely telling the truth. We had a depressed cat who tried to eat himself to death.

So we put the cat food in a container with a lid and tried to help him lose some of the weight he gained, but really ever since then he has been obsessed with stuffing his face. He steals food. He sneaks food. He begs for food (mostly "ham" because it's one of the few words he can say). He thinks about food all the time, you can tell. It came to a head last Christmas, when Rick and I came to visit. Kaleo (who stayed here with our kids) was struggling to jump up to the place where the cats were fed. His spring was sprung. I thought he might be having hip problems, like older adults sometimes do, so just in case we took him to the vet. After x-rays and various tests and such the vet told us he was overweight, charged us three hundred dollars and put him on a diet. Three hundred dollars to find out our cat was fat, which I already knew. I'm still not over it. Anyway, this three hundred dollar diet plan included a list of things he could eat and how much. My favorite item was Cantaloupe, because the quantity allowed was "as much as he wants." I suppose some cats eat cantaloupe. Kaleo won't eat fruit. Not any, not ever. But he was crazy hungry on his diet, of course, and so was sniffing mightily at anything anyone was eating. I kept a text message Steph sent me last winter that said, "Kaleo thought he might want some cantaloupe, but upon consideration, he thinks not." I am pleased to report he has lost a pound or two since then, and he has enough spring in his hind end to jump up again. He's also getting more energy - for the first time in years, he is getting playful, even. I recommend the three hundred dollar cantaloupe diet. We need to get our money's worth out of it.

Mango. I've been thinking about diet because it occurred to me a day after surgery that if I eat "normally" while laying on my back doing nothing, I am going to have to go on the cantaloupe diet myself. I like cantaloupe but I like mango even more. Given the choice, I will take mango flavored you-name-it over any other option. (My second choice is peach.) Guess what I found out? Mango is not good for people who need to diet. If fruit can be fattening, mango is fattening. This is true of most everything I like to eat. I think learning to walk again in a few months will be hard enough without extra weight straining my joints. So I'll have more cantaloupe, less mango. Portion control is my new watchword.

Bananas. There are two things about bananas. One is that I like them very much and tell myself they are very good to have because they are one of the few foods containing potassium, which I miss when I don't have enough in my diet. However, bananas have a well-known -um- binding quality that is not helpful to me at this time. I am on a steady (but decreasing) dosage of oxycodone, which has the same trick of putting a stopper on the human digestive throughput system. I was eating a banana to take my pills a couple of days ago and suddenly realized that I have a problem... Rick went to the store and got yet another pill for me to take, and now all is well again. But I should probably go easy on the bananas.

The other thing about bananas is that they confuse our dog Snickers. Our daughter will ask, "Bananas?" at those moments when Snickers is soulfully nose to nose with her, and invariably it causes Snicks to tilt her head sideways, as if she is trying to get her brain in a better position to understand. Lately our daughter has discovered that "Papaya?" is as perplexing a question to the dog. Now, Snickers, like Kaleo, won't eat any fruit or vegetables voluntarily. None of our animals like fruit. I thought for a while our son's dog would eat grapes. But though I briefly fooled myself into believing he was eating them, Shinobi just licks grapes, takes one bite to break them open and leaves them on the ground for one's toes to discover later. So who knows why Snickers is so curious about bananas, since no one but the humans eat them. Perhaps she'd like to know more about potassium.

Winter is coming. Right now pumpkins are ripe, of course. Unfortunately I've never been a fan of pumpkin, except the roasted (salted) seeds. Did you know the only native American fruit that provides potassium is the pawpaw? This is true. I have some seeds planted in our backyard right now. They have to be exposed to a winter before they will even think about growing. In fact, it could take up to two years for the pawpaws to sprout. I will have to be patient.

That's enough about fruit, though no doubt the subject of patience is going to be a theme for me. Next time (possibly): Inside Cat's various hobbies.

love,

cat

An Important Decision

So, amazingly, I went home yesterday at 5:30 from a surgery performed at 2:00 pm. And I remember both pre- and post- op. I am very impressed with the precision of the anesthesiology team. By the way, has anyone else had surgery lately? What did you think of the little air blower that pumped warm air into the front of your surgical "gown"? Discuss.

Rick got to see my xray pictures. I had told the doctor to do a good job with me, and he said he'd do his best. Apparently he followed through: I have eleven screws in my ankle, and a titanium plate. To compensate, I say I should be allowed to take one pound off my scale weight from now on. The resident who assisted in the surgery came to see me after and said he was sure they couldn't fit another screw into my ankle. They buttoned me up good and tight.

I was sent home with a list of things I must watch for and things I must do. On that list was, "Do not make any important decisions for the next 48 hours." Come on.

Dana came and babysat me today, and did what all good babysitters do: she kept me company, helped me to the potty and made a nice lunch. She also fed me applesauce and rice crackers. We both napped. A good day. :)

I also had Nurse Chloe with me. She has several jobs: she makes sure I am comfortable, makes sure I stay still and watches the tube that runs from the nerve block box to my body. Of course, you need to understand the emphasis. She is not making sure **I** am comfortable; it is more like, "Am I comfortable, Chloe?" As you can see, she does an awesome job making sure I stay still. As for the shiny tube full of novocaine she watches, as long as it has no sharp teeth marks in it, we are all ok.

This lazing around stuff is not working out to be quite so easy as I'd dreamed. I am saddened to report the nerve block is wonderful but has limits: it only works for the right side of my leg. The left side of my leg, I am told, is served by a different nerve. I admit half a numb ankle is better than none of a numb ankle. But my leg keeps cramping from being stuck in the same position all the time, and my ankle swells and gives me lots of not fun sensations when I get up and then yells nasty things at me when I put it up again. I pant and grit my teeth and bear it for about ten minutes after every excursion off the couch. So I've made an important decision. I am never getting up off this couch again.

love,

cat

Couch Potato Salad

Except for periodic waves of nauseating pain (and I do admit, that is a negative) and not being able to move, it occurs to me that I am in an ideal situation. I am waited on hand and foot and completely excused from every adult responsibility. I can't cook, clean, do laundry, buy groceries, or scrub the toilet. When I drop something, someone else has to pick it up. All I have to do is try not to be cranky, and practice patience. I can nap, watch TV or movies or play video games - anytime! I can read uninterrupted. I never have to change out of sweats. I can craft to my heart's content (I have decided I will crochet a Broken Ankle Memorial Blanket. I already picked out a cool pattern). As we all do, I have the tubes of the internet to delight and inform me from all corners of the globe. Lap o' luxury, I'm telling you.

Wednesday at the civilized hour of 11:00 I will report to the orthopedic surgeon to have my ankle screwed back together. I'll have many incisions. The doctor will hand me back to Rick, slightly the worse for wear but with my foot properly attached, late in the afternoon. I am told that for me it will go like this: I will remember entering the doctor's office, and then I will find myself at home on the couch at night with my leg propped up, saying something along the lines of, "Wha' happen'?"

I am also told I won't be in pain because I'll have a cool techy "nerve block" attached to the back of my knee. It's this plastic thing that will inject some kind of novocaine into my leg for two or three days and numb me down to my toes. When it runs out, we just take it off and throw it away.

I appreciate the help we have been offered, very much. You are all wonderful. Thank you! :)

Since I won't be ambulatory for weeks and weeks, I attach this dancing video for our (marginal and slightly horrified) mutual entertainment: solid potato salad. Keep watching until they get past the vocal portion of their presentation and start doing the wacky circus things. If physical therapy is anything like that, count me out.

Just like an astronaut going around the back side of the moon, I'll see you on the flip side... (sample picture below)


love,

cat

The Bigger They Are...

Apparently, I am one of the bigger, because I fell hard. Yesterday (and I apologize if this is like the third time you are hearing about it…) I got tangled up in the Most Evil canvas and wire chair on the planet. I was just walking into the kitchen, minding my own business, and it reached out and grabbed me. Please skip from here to the next paragraph if you are grossed out by abnormal things happening to the human body. Right now, dear friend. OK, for those of you still here, the horrifying details: I wrestled with the chair, lost, and found myself on the ground, in an amazing amount of pain in my right leg. My right knee was bent to the right but uncomfortably overextended. And my foot, my poor foot, (really this is gross, feel free to skip ahead) was backwards. Flat against the ground, pointing 180 degrees in the wrong direction. Aaaa! Did that make you shiver? I shivered, and possibly moaned. I don’t think I’ve seen many scarier things in my life. I turned my foot back around with my hands. There were some really crunchy sounds. I was too startled to even use any inappropriate language.

Welcome back, if you skipped ahead. Suffice it to say I twisted my ankle so hard I was pretty sure I had broken it. I crawled to the couch, got my cell phone and called Rick. I felt I had to move quickly, before I passed out or something. But apparently the pain I was feeling was about as much as I was going to feel. Chris rushed Rick home and Rick took me to emergency, where I was swept right into the back and then left sitting there forever, as usual. But then they gave me morphine, so all is forgiven.
There are three bones you can break in your ankle. Turns out I broke all three. Next Wednesday, I am going in for surgery. I won’t go into details, but pins and plates were mentioned, as well as a loooooong recovery time. Two weeks on the couch with my foot elevated for sure, and then four to six weeks hopping around on my left foot. Six more weeks of only putting my foot on the ground, no weight, then physical therapy. In six months, the orthopedic surgeon tells me, I will be feeling pretty much able to do most of what I could do the day before yesterday.
I am grateful to God for many things today: my family and their unquestioning willingness to take care of me; medical insurance; God’s grace that I didn’t break open my fool head. Couches and pillows. Oh, and percocet. Wonderful stuff!
Thanks for listening. All is well. You can see the picture of my huge cast. It’s not gross unless you are scared of elephants. If you ask me, I am totally rockin' the paper pants.
love,
cat