Day 108: Demoted back to the recliner

So on Monday, I graduated myself to an office chair🎉🎉🎉,  but by Wednesday I was demoted back down to a recliner ☹

My foot has to be elevated or the swelling is UNREAL by end of day.  Also when I'm in the recliner I ice more often.

So I've given up my dreams of an office chair for now. Recliner all the way baby!

Day 85: Last wedge & rounding a corner

I had read horror stories online.  Taking out the last wedge and transitioning to flat was reportedly the worst transition yet. I was pretty nervous but at the same time excited because walking had become a billboard on the side of the highway not too far ahead instead of a speck on the horizon.

So I removed that last wedge, and you know what? For me, it was the easiest removal yet.  I used the crutches one time and then ditched them again.

Later in the week, I would explain that looking back, I realized that Monday I turned some sort of corner where I got A LOT of my life back. The recliner became somewhere I rested instead of the place where I lived.  It was a momentous day!

Bye bye wedges!

Day 56: At the pool

I spent one BLESSED afternoon at the pool. I couldn't go in the water.  I just sat in a pool chair basking in the sun. When I got too hot, the kids would fill their squirt guns with pool water and squirt me.

May sound lame to you,  but for a girl who'd been confined to quarters all summer... well, it was a MUCH better view than the one from my recliner.

Day 51: Lonely 4th of July

I spent the Fourth of July all by myself. In a way it was actually a big step forward. My family had not left me alone very much. But I was super lonely.

Partly because I had overdone it on Saturday at a family picnic, and partly because the day before I had removed my first wedge, I had to really take it easy on the 4th.

So my family went off without me to serve with our church in the parade, and later the kids went to fireworks and a cookout as well. But I got to binge watch A LOT of Hawaii Five-O!

Day 17: Post-op Appointment

My long-awaited post-op appointment involved x-rays (everything looked great), inspection of my incision (I had a hematoma that bled pretty bad), and re-wrapping the whole thing back up in the plaster splint/cast.

The doctor said everything was on schedule. I needed to return in two weeks for another check-in.

We hit rush hour on the way home, so I was miserable by the time I got back in my recliner. So. Much. Pain.

Day 8: The Surgery

Monday, May 22, I arrived bright and EARLY for my surgery. There were the usual Kastner debacles: check-in was MESSED up, they couldn’t verify my doctor’s privileges at this hospital… You know, the kinda stuff that ALWAYS seems to happen to John and Jami. However, after a few delays, I was on my way to the OR. I remember being wheeled in, my doctor greeting me just outside the OR, and then nothing until I woke up. After the surgery I through, this was a piece of cake! I don’t feel ANYTHING at all. This is gonna be NO problem.  (The anesthesia just hadn’t worn off.)

Post-op

When he came to talk to John in the waiting area, my doctor told John that this was “the worst damage” he had ever seen. He even pulled out his cell phone and TOOK PICTURES to share with his doctor buddies. (Avert you eyes if you get easily queasy.)

My Achilles was basically shredded, non-existent, barely even there. He also said that he “had to shave a lot more” off my heel bone than he thought he would have to. Basically, in true Jami fashion, I made my doctor’s leader board for AWFUL injuries.

I got home, crawled up the stairs, and got myself situated in the recliner I would basically live in for the next three months. Still I wasn’t in much pain. My worst complaint was the itchy, sore throat from the intubation, until bedtime. 

The view from my recliner

A little before bedtime, the anesthesia wore off. I was using my pain meds as instructed yet STILL I did not sleep ONE wink that night.  I would literally take a pill and about 30 minutes later get a bit of relief. I would just start to doze off and then 45 minutes later I would jolt awake in INTENSE pain and sit there waiting for the next 2 hours and 45 minutes to pass before I could take a pain pill. It was MISERABLE.

As instructed,  I kept my leg elevated most of the day. I also lived and died by an ice pack on the back of my knee.