Home

Home from Mercy Hospital in Charlotte with a new ankle.  Now I feel like the Bionic Woman, or at least I will when the swelling goes down,  I am out of a cast, and there is no more pain.  More tomorrow, including photos of X-rays of  my new ankle, the Wright Prophecy.

Tomorrow is the Big Day

My surgery is scheduled for 1:15 tomorrow and should take about 2 hours.  Unless there is a problem I will be released at about noon on Thursday and allowed to come home.

The implant that will be used is manufactured by Wright Technologies and is called the Prophecy.  It is custom made for the patient - very hi tech stuff!

Counting down

I know I will go stir crazy during my recovery, so I made sure that I got outside both Saturday and Sunday. Saturday I volunteered on the Congaree canoe tour.  The park is littered with fallen limbs from the recent ice storm, and there are numerous portages and difficult spots on Cedar Creek, but spring is on the way, evidenced by the flowering of the red maples.

                                  

 


Stumpy Pond where I paddled on Sunday is different every time.  Yesterday the water was very high due to the release of water from the dam.  Previous times when I have been there the rocks were visible, and the water formed small pools around them.  This time what we saw was whitewater!  The banks of the pond look pink from a distance with the red maples sporting buds.

This afternoon I will pick up my knee scooter, and will be almost ready for my surgery on Wednesday. I have lots of clean towels and underwear.  Tomorrow I will make a quick trip to the grocery store so that there will be something here for my care givers and me to eat.  Bit by bit items are being crossed off my to do list, and although I am constantly thinking of more things I need to do before the surgery, the list is getting shorter.

Good Friends

If I ever doubted my friends and family, my experiences lately have restored my faith in friends, family and humanity.  People have been so kind, thoughtful, and generous.  Several wonderful people have volunteered to spend time with me during my recovery so that I will not have to be alone, and others have offered to help me out with rides to the grocery store and such.  I have also received what will surely be delicious homemade dishes to keep in the freezer and heat up as needed.  Last night my Aquafit students brought me a beautiful bunch of flowers that is brightening up my kitchen, and the scent of the stargazer lilies is perfuming the entire room.  (And I am not even sneezing!)  Thanks, everyone.

Here is a photo of the flowers.

I know I will go crazy being inactive and unable to get out like I'm used to so for the next few days I will be doing as much as possible to enjoy my independence.  I may be very tired by the time I have the surgery!

Getting Ready

Monday I bought a shower stool and put it together  It will come in very handy and will be very easy to disassemble and store once it is no longer needed.  I also checked into getting a knee scooter.  Insurance will not pay for it.  Rats!  I bought a walker for $7 at Goodwill a few weeks ago, but I'm not sure I will use it.  It seemed like a good idea at the time.  I have my crutches from when I broke the leg back in '82 and have replaced the rubber parts which had succumbed to dry rot or whatever it is that happens to rubber.  I have a plastic thing to put over my splint or cast to keep it dry when I shower.  Since it will be difficult to put on pants I bought a couple of night shirts and a couple of the baggy fleece lounging pants.  I guess I'll manage to get by with a few skirts and baggy pants for a while.  I have a couple of pars of pants that have the zippers at the bottom so that you can put them on without taking off shoes.  I don't know yet what the cast or splint will be like or how big it will be.  I can only guess based on what I have seen other people wearing.  One way or the other, I'll manage to clothe myself.

Each  day I think of something else I should make sure to get done before my surgery, like cutting back the roses.  I'm trying to write things down as they occur to me so that nothing will be left undone.  Sometimes I  think of things at really inopportune moments - like when I'm driving or in the shower.  But I  guess it will all  get taken care of one way or the other..   I hope arrangements have been made to cover my classes, but that is one of the things that is really out of my  control.

10 More Days

My ankle seems to get worse every day.  I'm thinking that it's all in my mind and that it's been this painful all along but that I just didn't let myself acknowledge it because it wouldn't do any good to dwell on it or even think about it.

I wonder how it will look once my recovery is complete.  I know there will be a nice, neat scar running down the front of my ankle and onto the top of my foot, but what shape will my ankle have?  I've thought that the bulging sides of my ankle were due to swelling, but something the doctor said made me think otherwise.


Here are my ankles side by side.  It will be interesting to compare before and after photos and also to have a record of how the whole thing progresses.  

Pre-op appointment day

Today I had my pre-op appointment with the doctor.  My surgery is scheduled for February 26, two weeks  from tomorrow.  I was concerned that my appointment would be cancelled due to weather.  When I left home shortly after 8:00 sleet was falling and had accumulated on the windshield, but quickly the sleet turned to rain. Then it turned to snow - great big fluffy flakes - where Wilson Boulevard crosses I-77. The snow kept up until near Rock Hill.  By the time I got to the clinic in Charlotte it was snowing again.  By the time I left almost two hours later everything was covered except, fortunately, the streets.  From then on the snow was steady until I got almost back to Columbia.

Here's the parking area outside the clinic.