The Daily Crutch

Wow. I am really, truly dumb. I have been in this ridiculous Aircast now for about seven weeks and I finally just now realized how it works.

There are four little hoses that you can fill with air to support the leg, one for each side. Or so I thought. The front of the cast comes off so the hose on that goes obviously enough to the front inflatable tube. When you inflate the remaining three and look inside you see 3 gray tubes that line the back and sides. I thought each of these inflated separately. Here is my first major error: I kept thinking the back inflates under my foot, so when I felt pain in my heel I would pump it up. Nope. Why did I think that? I have no idea. I guess the padding the doc put in there has now compressed and it no longer feels cushy, whereas before it felt so soft I assumed it was air? Maybe. Anyway, sometimes after pumping up the back I would find that my leg was being pushed forward, and my toes were dragging on the ground. So I would take my little deflater pump and try to suck the air out of the side tubes, but no air would come out. The pump would even stay collapsed after I squeezed it, like it was attached to a vacuum, and yet I could see the air pockets were still inflated. I couldn't even fit my hand and arm in there, and yet it wouldn't deflate. Well, it turns out the gray inflatable area was one big U-shaped piece and was filled and unfilled with the back hose. Then, there were 2 little green air bags under the gray that I couldn't see. Those were the ones that went to the side tubes. They were already empty, so the deflater couldn't suck anything out of them no matter how much I tried. I needed to deflate through the back tube to deflate all the gray area.

I'm such a dope, and I'm sure none of that made sense. When Blogger lets me upload a photo again I will post pictures of the inside of my cast.

In the meantime I am still on hold. Ten weeks after my surgery I still have an incision that isn't quite healed. It does look much better, however, and everything inside feels fantastic. It can get tight and sometimes does something my doc told me was "wound contraction" which is disquieting. Up until last week I was ok with everything but now I am getting impatient. Sigh.

The Daily Crutch

Yesterday was my 5 week visit with my doctor. It was supposed to be the day I got out of the air cast and began physical therapy. Well, unfortunately that's not what happened. Last Thursday was the last day for the wonderful woman who was taking care of me. Friday was the day my husband brought my 4 year old son to the New Hampshire Motor Speedway to see the NASCAR practice. Saturday my husband ran around doing errands and Sunday he spent all day at the track. Also on Sunday two friends were coming over to hang out and watch the race with me, and on Monday my father was coming up to see me for a few days.

What does this have to do with anything? Well, because of my visitors, and because I was on my own for so many days I started cleaning and cooking as if there was nothing wrong with me. And of course, the crutches just got in the way so I didn't use them. Because of all that activity, I opened up the incision. It is also infected. Even though this is five weeks post surgery I really am not surprised. When I went in after 10 days to get the stitches out they weren't ready to be removed and we had to wait an additional week. The problem is that I had the exact same surgery when I was 2 years old, and the doctor cut right alongside the old scar. So I have healthy tissue attempting to heal together with old scar tissue. So I think these kinds of complications should be expected. Obviously I exacerbated the problem, because I didn't have to make lunch on Sunday, or clean the living room; my friends would have understood. And if I had been more patient I'm sure my son could have done the majority of cleaning in his room.

The doctor decided I needed antibiotics, of course, and we both decided I needed a new plaster cast. If I had stayed in the aircast I'm sure I would have made it worse. I'm a fiddler. I can't leave things alone. If I am to heal, apparently, I need to keep myself away from myself. Now I have the equivalent to one of those cones they put on a dogs head to keep them from chewing their stitches. So now I promise I will be a good girl. Yes I will!

On a semi-related note, while looking for images for this post, I put the word "crutches" into the Photobucket search window. I learned that there really is a spelling gap in the nation's education system because what I got in the results were a lot of "crotches."

The Daily Crutch

I thought I'd throw out a quick explanation and then give the occasional update. I started this blog because not only have I wanted to for some time, but because at the moment I am laid up post-surgery. My achille's tendon was repaired and it takes a long time to get back on one's feet, or in this case foot, after such an operation.

This week I am walking around more but probably shouldn't since I think I might be stretching the incision. I have been getting a world of help from a great lady named Bridie. She has been a God send, especially for my four year old, Cameron. I can live with sitting back and watching daily courtroom reality shows while surfing the net and healing, but my son has been bored to tears. To counteract that, Bridie gets him outside as often as the weather allows. Today they went on an adventure. My son loves motor vehicles of all kinds, and trains in particular. So Bridie took him on the bus to the subway station, then transferred to a trolley. ("That was my first street bus I ever been on!" -Cameron) They got off somewhere (you'd think I would have paid better attention to their schedule) and had ice cream, chased pigeons, got back on board the trolley and made their way home. Doesn't sound like much to us, but he came home full of that enviable 4-year old exuberance and told the story of their day in breathless spurts of sentences that ended up having to be translated by Bridie. I am so glad they had fun.