So this happened last night...seems like I have been through this before..

There I was, minding my own business on my porch, watching the light rain.

The mail carrier pulled up and put the mail in our mailbox.

It was barely misting at this point, so I open the screen door and proceed to place my left foot on the top step.

Suddenly my foot flies out from under me backwards, I fall, leg is trapped underneath me..and THIS is what happened...

That is a severely dislocated and broke in two places ankle.

The dislocation was the most painful thing I have been through. You can't see it in this pic, but my skin split in three places, the bone was slowly pushing it's way through the skin as it swelled more and more. It hurt worse than when I broke my right ankle. I had to endure that splitting with no pain meds, because they were about to put me in twilight to reset the bone and if they gave me more pain meds, I could possibly stop breathing. 

I also broke my tibia and femur in almost the same exact spots as the right one did. They sent me home in a soft cast thing until the swelling goes down so they can operate. I have an appointment Thursday to meet with the surgeon and have him look at it since all he saw were the xrays last night, he did not come in to see me himself. 

On the bright side, I do not have to be shipped off to recover, like I was last time. Dawn is here all the time, and my oldest daughter is now living with us ( One down, one to go ) so there are plenty of folks here to watch over me. 

I guess when I asked for some down time to take care of some things, I should have been more specific. On the bright side, the constant fear that I would fall and break the other ankle is over. 

So...it hurts. A lot. 

But I will live, far as I know, lol.

I suppose I will be writing more now that I am pretty much bed and couch ridden for the Summer.

 ( REALLY not happy...we had a lot of plans this Summer ) 

A lot has happened in the last three weeks. A new little soul. An older soul who only has maybe a year to live, my eldest daughter is back with me and hopefully my son will be too.

I also think that I should maybe never go outside. Terrible things happen on the outside lol.

How have you guys and gals been?

I will update as I know more...

I kind of have it, but then again, I kind of don't....

Writers block of course. More like writer's will to be honest. I stay so busy, or so occupied with other things, when I sit down here at the computer these days and even think about blogging, my mind draws a blank.

I find that the more I have to write about, the LESS I want to write. Why does it happen this way? As a writer I should be dying to get the words out, to share the experiences. Instead I find myself guarding them like a child with a most precious plaything...unwilling to share it with anyone.

It has been a whirlwind of activity the last three weeks. I think the last time I posted was right before Samhain, which is when I went into the doctor to get my walking boot officially taken off. That all went off with out a hitch. Hell, I walked 5 miles the day before with NO boot on...not that I told my doctor that. But I did it with no ill after effects other than being tired.

Oh wait, I remember what my last post was about now. My best friend, who had lost her memory. Well she still has not regained it but she is coping much better, most days anyway. Nights are hard, as it is when she gets tired, she gets overwhelmed easily. But she goes day by day and her heart remembers even what her mind does not. You can follow along with her journey HERE if you like. It was a fairly new blog before she lost her memory and there is much more content after she lost it, but there was enough before to see how the stress of daily life and a million other factors that have happened over the last 15 years attributed to her mental vacation ( which is what I call it. )

So back to Samhain, the doc took Xrays and said it all looked wonderful. I do still have two small broken parts in the posterior of the ankle, they are to small to use any screws or plates or anything to fuse them back together, and since they cause little to no pain ( usually none unless something hits me on the ankle or back of the ankle, then I feel every damn splinter lol ) and he showed me in the xrays where the toothpick sized slivers and little porcupine ball of bone fragments were already "bridged" with new bone growth. Meaning there was a shadow between the stable part of my bone and the broken piece of bone, which is the new bone growth making a "bridge" between the undamaged and damaged bone. In other words, I am healing as I should, and in fact a little faster than they expected. I only have one more appointment with them, which is on the 30th of this month and then they will turn me loose unless the hardware bothers me later.

I have a pic of my xray...only one angle though, but it shows the plate and two screws ( well it looks like one screw because of the angle, but there are two there, much to my surprise. I did not know that before. ) If you look on the right, ( which is the left of my ankle lol ) there seems to be a single screw jutting up at an angle into my leg...but there are actually two screws there, one behind the other basically. Funny thing...every time I look at this pic is make the side with the plate ache a bit. The mind does funny things lol.

So for the most part I am now left to my own devices, which is fine. It still causes me pain at times, and it still swells, but it will swell for at least a year he said, and as far as pain, well, every time it rains or gets really cold, I am in for a ride, which I already have experienced. I can tell you it is going to rain three days before a drop ever falls lol. I am back to normal for the most part though. I do move a little slower, a little more carefully...but I am told this is normal and the more time that passes from the day I got hurt, the less it will bother me. One day I might not even think about my ankle, like I used to not think about it before I got hurt lol.

Since I walked in the breast cancer walk, weekends have been non stop, on the go action kind of weekends. The weekend after the walk we went to the St. Marks River lighthouse and watched the Monarch butterflies migrate, and we walked about 5 miles that day, me with no boot on. I was very proud of myself.

Here is a pic of the St. Marks lighthouse. It has history. Look it up lol.

Later that same day we went down to the other side of the bay and went to the old fort which is the
San Marcos de Apalache Historic State Park. History there too.

The weekends since then have been filled with trips to the mail, and out to eat, and grocery shopping, and walking around the flea market. We all bought some new PS3 games so Jack has been playing the new Midnight Club racing game, Perth and myself play Skyrim, ( Oh yes, we have Skyrim, got it the day it came out lol ) and I am playing Grand Theft Auto 4 when I feel up to it.

I have not been playing much of anything for the last several days though, because I have the flu. Nasty, icky, shoot me now please, flu. So I have spent the last few days moaning about how shitty I feel to everyone who will listen lol. Jack even cooked last night. I just do not have the energy to stand up longer than a minute or two without feeling like I am going to pass out, so I just stay on the couch or in the bed or here in my chair. I feel different today though. Not better, just different. Yesterday I had sinuses clogged up so bad I felt like I was slowly suffocating to death, and today I can breathe better but my fever is up to 101, and it was only 99.4 yesterday. I will take hot and cold flashes over not being able to breathe any day lol.

I think that sums it up for now, It is a readers digest version, I know, but my energy is running out on me and I need to go rest for  a while. As these things usually happen, now that I have gotten over the hump of actually writing a post after not writing for a few days, that block will go away and I will be back more frequently. Once I stop feeling like ass that is.....

Happy Humpday folks!

I DID IT!!!

I did it! I walked 3.1 miles yesterday in the Making Strides Against Breast Cancer walk! All the way, never stopping, never resting, and I was hot footing it towards the finish line yesterday because my bad knee on my "good" leg was screaming lol. I DID IT!!

I was nervous all day, hoping I could handle it. If you count the three hours we walked around before the official walk I walked about 8 miles total yesterday. On my busted ankle. No pain in the ankle, then or now, but my knee on the other leg and the bottom of both feet hurt this morning. Nothing unusual though, I felt the exact same way when I started walking last Winter down the long dirt road next to my house. I got in the truck when we were done and once we got out of the town center where we walked I burst into tears. I was so proud of myself.


The walk yesterday almost did not happen since the company Jack works for totally dropped the ball and bailed on the whole thing. No one else from the company showed up. We went anyway because it was so important to me on so many levels. For one, I am a cervical cancer survivor myself, and so many of my family have died due to cancer, including breast cancer. It is a cause most dear to me. I also felt the need to go and represent, to show my husbands company ( we are friends with the boss so it was a personal let down that no one else showed ) what you were SUPPOSED to do. I was so upset that the company bailed, I felt like I had to go just to show them up and show them what it should have been like.

However, even though the cause was special to me in those ways, the most special reason was to prove to MYSELF that I could do it. When I got hurt, I got thrown into the worst situation I have ever been in. Considering my life thus far, that is saying something. The physical agony and not being able to do anything was bad enough, but the resulting mental anguish and deep emotional depression I was caught in almost did me in. I do not mean to sound lame or dramatic, but the honest truth is I considered many times how to kill myself just to make it stop. The pain, the helplessness, the frustration, the depression, the loneliness, the anger....it almost made me literally lose my mind. I was convinced I would never be able to walk again. After I began to heal, I still did not feel like myself ( and to be honest I STILL do not, but it's close ) and I was still miserable. Even after I came home and got rid of those infernal crutches and started walking with the boot ( and now without the boot inside the house, the air helped heal my incisions, you know, the ones that the internal sutures decided to crawl out of? *Shudders* ) I still felt like crap because I could still not resume life as I knew it before I got hurt. I could not stand at the stove or sink to cook or wash dishes for any length of time, and I STILL can't stand at the sink for more than 10 minutes. but I can cook with ease again ) I could not do laundry, or make my bed. I could feed us and I could walk Alex to the bus stop every day but that was about it.

I mean it is just a life changing injury, one that I never expected it to be. I have learned a lot on this journey about help and love and  being able to adapt, and how to do my best to hold the fragile pieces of my shattered mind together through all this. Bones are not the only thing that became fractured and splintered during this process. So for me, yesterday was my moment. My battle between who I was before I got hurt and who I became after I got hurt. The real me won. I beat myself. My shadow of despair now has a walking boot print on her forehead. I sat in Jack's truck, tears rolling down my face, saying " I did it" over and over again. Mr. Stoic Man himself grabbed my hand and squeezed it hard, with tears in his own eyes and said " You did it baby, you won. I am so proud of you!"

I mean yeah,sure, it is only a 3.1 mile walk...but for me...it has been a journey of a thousand miles...

I did it.

Now I leave you with some pics from yesterday. They were taken with Perth's camera phone so we all look shorter and wider than we really are lol...

Here is a shot of Jack, Alex and I...

Here is one of Perth and I....

 


Alex's pretty painted face...

Pic of Jack helping me down a hill during the walk. Uneven terrain is still hard for me, as are hills, so of course part of the route has both AT THE SAME TIME lol...

Perth and Jack....

Perth and Alex walking....

I took a few more of the band and some belly dancers and stuff but the camera would not zoom enough so you really can not see much. These were the good ones. So yeah. Pictorial PROOF that I did it lol. We had a blast and look forward to next year!

Time to clean house...

I just simply can not stand it any longer. Ever since I got hurt, my house has looked like crap. Since I got home, I have done what I could, but with 4 people living here now, there is just to much crap laying around and it is driving me insane. Not that Perth is messy, in fact he helps me clean, but we have simply been making it presentable.

I was going to do it today, but it was another wet and dreary day, my ankle was hurting, and every time any of us went out we brought back in mud and dirt, so it would have been pointless. It finally started drying out late this afternoon, and it is supposed to be clearer tomorrow as well, so today I took it easy and rested my ankle ( the rain and cold really do a number on it already ) and watched TV with Perth. Tomorrow I am going to clean and sage the house and get rid of the negative energy lingering around here. Quite a bit happened while I was hurt and it has built up in the house to the point everyone is acting odd. Jack and myself are snappy with each other, Alex is a wild animal and Perth has felt it too, so it is time for a good cleansing and sage session.

I have to call tomorrow and order a birthday cake for Alex's 7th birthday on Saturday. Mom is feeling run down right now, and with her health issues I did not want her to have to make a cake even though she makes the best ones, and I am just not a good sweets baker, so I am going to order a Hello Kitty cake. It is hard to believe that she is going to be seven already. Time is flying by it seems.

I have no clue what I am going to do for gifts yet, Perth and I will probably go shopping Thursday.

Nothing much else has gone on since I posted yesterday really. With the rain of the last two days making my leg ache, I have pretty much been taking it easy and hunkering down on the couch, resting. I got another one of those sutures that are coming out of my skin out last night so it is feeling a bit better today. I will be so glad when the 31st gets here and I no longer have to deal with that boot, not that I have been wearing it much. Only when I have to walk a long way like to the bus stop. It makes my foot hurt to wear it and the sides hit those incisions which are inflamed and I just can not stand it, it hurts to much. So I wear it when I feel I need some extra support or when I am walking a lot or cleaning or cooking and whatnot, but I do not bother with it just to walk to the bathroom which is only like 10 feet away lol. I have no pain other than the skin or if it rains ( which will happen for the rest of my life ) so I am just listening to my body at this point. I am full weight bearing so it is not like I am putting to much weight on it. For the most part I feel good, I just get tired really easy. I even took my first standing up shower ( I have been using a step stool to sit on ) the other day. That was pretty liberating. A little scary, as you have that " I hope I do not slip" fear in the back of your mind, but I still had my step stool in there just in case I needed to rest, which I did towards the end. But now I can step in and out of the tub like a normal person instead of having to sit down and swivel around which is kind of painful on my narrow tub edge.

I am improving every day, and as long as I do not over do it, I get along just fine. Having Perth here is such a huge help, I am so glad he is here, I would not be as far along in my recovery if it were not for him.

I guess that sums it up for tonight. More again tomorrow!

                                                                Photo Credit

Sometimes You Just Have To Scream...

I missed yesterday, I know, and I am sorry, but yesterday was a long tough day.

I try very hard to only post positive things about Jack and my relationship with him, out of respect and because 99% of the time, we are in a good place.

There is that 1% however, when things are not so great.

I do not usually post about it, but this time I feel the need to. Things have been very strained between Jack and I since I got hurt, because we were apart and I felt like he was not understanding to my needs and feelings of horrible depression and sadness and the fact I was in pain. I fully admit that half the problem was me, I was in agony and depressed and the pain and medication made me very unstable and angry and unreasonable. I felt like he did not care because he was not as upset as I was, because he was not there for me enough and seemed to be irritated at the fact he had to do anything for me when I came home on weekends. Granted, he could have been a bit more sensitive but he really was no different than he was when I was NOT hurt, so I am not sure why I expected him to totally change just because I was hurt. However I felt he should have at least made the effort, and it caused issues in my mind. *Never my heart, I still love him just as much as I did * I became sullen and petty, and he became angry and unfeeling and we ended up giving each other the silent treatment most of the time as tension kept building and building. Last night it finally came to a head after I wrote him an email telling him how I felt because I knew if I said it verbally it would not turn out well and I would not get all my thoughts out properly.

As we have Perth here with us now, the argument did not happen until late last night, in our bedroom. It got ugly and we spent two hours yelling and I was crying and we just blew up at each other. The tension had just reached critical mass and the pressure finally burst out of us. I said what I needed to say and so did he, and then, as fast as it started, it was over. The tension was gone, the horrible feelings of anger and frustration were gone and things were as they should be. That is just how we are to be honest. We hardly ever fight, and about twice a year we do that blow up thing and it is over and done with, and it will all be great for the next 6 or 7 months. This time was no different, it just seemed so much bigger than it was because we were both going through something totally new, me being hurt to this degree. I know this might sound bad to people but really, it is nothing major. Just letting off steam and its only verbal, never physical or anything like that.

Anyway, once it was over things were better, but it was two in the morning and I was mentally, emotionally and physically exhausted and I decided to just go to bed. So no post for yesterday. Today things have been great and jack has made very obvious attempts to be more caring and understanding and I have gone out of my way to not be demanding and a bitch to him because he is not reading my mind at any given time. I tend to forget this did not just happen to me, it happened to everyone around me, and they have just as hard of a time as I have had, just in a different way. It has been a learning process and as he is a Capricorn and I am a Taurus, neither of us like change very much and me being hurt turned our whole world upside down. I am just glad it is over with, both of us have a palpable sense of relief today. He even cooked dinner for us.

So that is why there was no post yesterday, and hopefully since the air is cleared here it will ease up the stress we have been feeling and my mind will unlock so I can write again lol. I am doing my best for NaBloWriMo, but life is busy enough without me having an added level of difficulty trying to get around and heal from this broken ankle, and since I post at night after the day is basically over, so I can write about anything that happened that day, it is easy to be to tired to post.

Tonight I made another step in my recovery, I took a shower standing up instead of sitting on the footstool I use to sit in the shower with, and while it was a bit scary and made me tired, I still did it and I am proud of myself. I am looking forward to hopefully walking out of my doctor's office on the 31st without the boot, as my doc seems to think will happen.

That is all for tonight, Jack and I are about to make a late night grocery shopping trip...we feel the need to have a little alone time, all things considering. Have a great night and rest of the weekend folks!

Tired today...

I do not know what is wrong with me, but I can not seem to get enough rest these days. Maybe it is because my body is trying to get rid of these infernal sutures, or maybe it is because of my moon time, or maybe it is because I am overdoing it. Maybe it is a combination of all of those things, I don't know. All I know is I am feeling like a zombie and I do not like it.

My leg hurts a lot today, I had to break the pain pills back out just to walk today. I am not liking this rejection of the sutures thing at all, it is almost as bad as the break was. I feel like my leg is on fire and there is nothing I can really do about it.

Today I rested, played around online this morning, and held down the couch watching episodes of the show Sister Wife. It is an interesting show, I quite like it.

I am trying not to get frustrated with myself about not being able to do much without being exhausted. I have NO patience when it comes to myself, it bothers me that I can not do the simple things like clean the house as I once did. I feel better so in my mind I should be able to do everything just as I did before, and that is just not possible yet. I ran the vac, dusted my entertainment center and desk and cleaned the 2 glass tables yesterday and I still feel like I ran a marathon. No matter how much sleep I get, I am still tired. I hate it. I have been cooking, and Perth, thank goodness, has been doing the dishes for me. By that time of the day I just want to lay down and go to sleep, yet when I get in bed, even as tired as I am, I lay there, unable to sleep because I am just not tired enough to sleep.  Or maybe I am TO tired, I do not know. I am so glad tomorrow is Friday, it means I get to sleep in over the weekend. Jack had to wake me three times, and Alex had to wake me twice before I managed to drag out of bed this morning, which is unusual.

I guess I just need to be kinder to myself and let myself heal, but it is hard when the clothes hamper is overflowing, there is three loads to fold, and other things need to be done and I am just to tired to do it. Perth has been a huge help and I am so glad he is here. Jack has been as much help as he can I guess, but I know he does not want to do it so it makes me feel bad about it.

I need to work on laundry tomorrow I guess, but I do not intend to do much else. I wish I were the type to be able to lay back down and go to sleep once I get Alex on the bus but I get headaches, and even if I didn't, guilt keeps me up.

I sound like I am whining and I do not like that either, but I needed to vent I guess. I will just be glad when all this is over and I can move on and not be exhausted and in pain. At least I got 5 good days in between having the cast off and when the skin pain started. That is a good thing, 5 pain free days.

I guess that sums up the bitch and moan fest for today. Maybe things will be better tomorrow. I hope you all have a great day.

Well it did not fall off!

My foot that is. I went to the doctor yesterday and the good news is that my incisions are not infected. The bad (ish) news is that my body is rejecting the internal sutures and I am having a mild allergic reaction to them. They are actually working their way out of my body, which the doctor pointed out. Little white threads which I thought were pieces of dried skin ( you peel like crazy once you get out of a cast ) and he told me that there was not a thing they could do about it but to watch it and make sure I do not develop a fever and to make sure the incisions do not reopen, but since I am 7 weeks post op that is not likely to happen he said. He told me I could take tweezers and pluck the ones poking out of my leg out, which made me panic, but after getting home and working myself over about it I plucked it out with no problem and the relief was immediate. The others are flush with the skin still and located in the incision so I am not touching those yet until they work themselves out more.

He was very pleased that I was walking without crutches and told me I was looking great, even with my incisions looking as they did. I have to go back on the 31st and he told me as well as I was doing he totally expected me to walk out of his office with no boot on when I leave. He cleared me to take the boot off when ever I want, including to sleep, as long as I did not try to walk without the boot. So at least I can take it off when the pressure gets to be to much, as everything touching the skin is painful to my leg.

That is about it for tonight, I am about to go get this boot off and watch Ave Ventura 2 on TV! Have a great night folks!

Ankle update tomorrow

Sorry for no real post tonight but it has been a very long day and I am just wore out. I will give a full update tomorrow but for those waiting to hear something, it is not infected and there is no changes in my recovery as far as the bones go, but the skin is another story. One that I will tell tomorrow lol. Night folks.

One step forward and two steps back...

So I have to go back to the doctor tomorrow. The incision over the plate in my leg has possibly become infected and is very painful. I was hoping that maybe I had just over done it, but even with rest it has gotten worse and more painful. I ruled out infection because it has been so long since I had surgery, but after doing some research last night, I found out it is possible to develop an infection at any time, even with excellent external care. Infections can still happen internally. My incision is very red, and hard and hot to the touch, and I have this weird egg shaped swelling below the ankle bone on that side, and now the rest of the foot is swelling and elevation and other anti-swelling measures are not helping.

So tomorrow I have an appointment with my doc at 11:30 in the morning. I am hoping it is nothing serious. It is frustrating, because I have NO internal pain at all, I can walk with no pain inside, but any pressure on the skin is agony. I have had to have my boot off most of the day, even though I am not supposed to yet, because the pressure of the boot is just to much to bear. I am not walking without the boot of course, so no need to worry about that. I do not know if I did to much to soon, or if, as Perth suggested, with me walking and using the muscle, it might have driven infection from inside the muscle to the surface. Not sure if that is possible, but it sounds plausible. I am really hoping that egg shaped swelling is not a big pocket of infection. I am assuming they will take another set of x-rays to see if anything has changed in there. I am not sure if infection can show up on an x-ray, but if it can, I hope they can spot it if that is the case. I fully expect to be put on antibiotics, and I am really hoping they do not want to stick a needle in that egg to drain it to see if it is infected. As tender as my skin is right there, that would be just agony. It started bothering me Saturday, and I was hoping that it would go away since I have rested for two days, but it is getting worse. I have had to start taking my pain pills again and it had been several days since I have needed to do so. I am trying to not be scared, and to not be frustrated...I just hope it is something easy to fix and will not require them to recast or go back in there and fix or remove anything. The other side of my foot is doing fine, the incision looks good and is not really painful, other than from the swelling making the whole foot puffy and sore due to the skin stretching.

I took it easy today, other than getting Alex on and off the bus, and I made lunch and dinner. I sat on the couch most of the day, watching Season of the Witch ( which was okay but not what I expected ) and the first episode of the first season of Sister Wives ( which should be interesting ). Perth and I had some yummy chicken stir fry for lunch, and I made sub par baked spaghetti for dinner. It was not as good as it usually is, my seasoning was off on the sauce so it was rather bland, but I was hurting by then and just wanted to sit down, plus I made more noodles than usual since Perth eats like a horse ( which makes me happy, considering he has had to eat out of a box for he last year and a half ) and I think it was to much for the amount of sauce I had made, so it watered the flavor down. I kept apologizing, as it was no where near up to snuff, but they liked it for the most part.

Jack says that they are going to tell me to stop doing so much, that I overdid it, which is possible. It just sucks because the bones feel fine, no pain inside at all, so I am really confused as to why this has happened. I wonder if the boot itself is the problem. The constant rubbing of the skin and the compression of the ankle, making it square for awhile after the boot comes off might be doing some damage to it internally. Or maybe I came off the crutches to soon, even though I am allowed to put as much weight as I am comfortable with on it. To many speculations and not enough answers. Hopefully tomorrow I will know more.I will update tomorrow evening and let every one know how it went! Below is a pic of the painful side. I know the angle is bad, but that swelling under my ankle is prominent and egg shaped. My foot has not swollen that like in a couple of weeks so it is alarming for me.

The next step along the path...

I am home guys and gals. After a month and a half over at my parent's house after I broke my ankle and had surgery, I am home for good.

More on what has transpired since then in just a sec, but first I want to mention that I am participating in NaBloWriMo this year. I am always wanting to post more in my blog but have trouble with staying in the habit, and as NaBloWriMo is all about writing a blog post every single day for the month of October, it would be fun and get me back in the habit of posting, especially since I have not been posting hardly at all since I got hurt. Check it and the other blogs out when you get the chance, and if you do, stop by and tell them you saw them on NaBloWriMo, makes us all feel good!

Now, where was I? Oh, home, right. Last Monday, on September 26th, I got my cast taken off and put into a walking boot thanks to my father, who still had his old one and let me use it. If he had not had it, I would have been put into another fiberglass cast with a strap on sandal of sorts that would let me walk. If I would have had to be stuffed into another miserable cast for 4 more weeks, I would have lost it. I just know it. The change in my life has been immediate and for the better. By the next day I was walking with one crutch. I had walked from my parent's house to the bus stop there and got Alex off the bus, twice, with no problems. Wednesday I was ready to go. I came home.

That Thursday, I moved my best friend in here with us until they find a place of their own. I have hardly been home since then, as we have gone to dinner and shopping and to lunch and have been spending a lot of time together. I am exhausted, but happy.

Over the last 4 days, I have gone from one crutch to no crutches, although if I get tired I use them, and always take them with me where ever I go. We walked about Wal-Mart for two days in a row, and I used no crutches. I walk around the house with no crutches. It is wonderful. I can take the boot off when I get tired, and to shower. I have to wear it as much as possible until Wednesday however, per doctors orders. Turns out I had a Trimalleolar Fracture which means : (courtesy of eMedicineHealth )

• "Tri" means three so in a trimalleolar fracture, all three malleoli (medial, lateral and posterior) bones of the ankle are broken.

• These are unstable injuries often caused by a large amount of force, disruption of the ligaments, or a dislocation.

So yeah. That is what I have. I finally got to see my X-Rays, which were interesting. Two screws in the left side of the ankle and a place and 5 screws on the right side of the ankle. I have a mostly bionic looking foot now, seems more metal than bone in there!

I love my Doctor, Dr. Andrew Wong, and his staff. I have had to have similar surgery on my left knee many years ago, and had his colleague, who was a monster. I could not stand him, or his uncaring staff, so I was a little worried about Dr. Wong. I was very surprised at his excellent bedside manner, his attention to me, and the wonderful staff he had. Dr. Wong came to see me every single time I was due in for an appointment to have my cast changed and x-rays taken, instead of just letting his more than capable staff handle it. He always asked how I was doing, and was very attentive and answered any questions I had truthfully and in a straight forward manner. He listened to any suggestions I might have, and was so happy that I managed to find a walking boot so they would not have to put me in another cast. He said he had been thinking about it, and the fact I did not have insurance so could not afford the 200+ dollar boot, and it had been bothering him enough to see how he could get around it. That made me feel really good, and let me know he really did care about his patients, he was not just in it for the money, he genuinely wanted to help people. I am very thankful he was on call the day I got hurt! He told me I was free to put as much weight on it as I was comfortable with, and I asked when should I try to get off crutches, and he said any time I was ready, but within the next two weeks if I could get started. Two days later, I am walking without them, even I do walk a bit like I am a drunk penguin. I can CARRY stuff in my hands again! I can not tell you how much of a pain in the ass that has been lol. I have to leave the boot on as much as possible, aside from showering and small breaks from the boot, for ten days, which is this coming Wednesday. Then he said I can sleep without it and leave it off for longer periods of time if I will not be walking for a while, like during a movie or something. My foot feels really odd when the boot is not on...I put my hurt foot on the floor while I was trying to get into the shower to sit on my shower seat ( no weight on it, just enough to lay the foot flat on the floor ) and I was disturbed at the feeling my foot was not even there. It is still largely numb over at least 3/4 of the foot, as the nerves are still regrowing ( the lightning strikes that travel up and down my leg from the foot let me know this is going well ) It was strange after the constant heavy presence of the casts and then the boot, it just felt like my foot was missing. I was actually HAPPY to get out of the shower and put the boot back on, it made me feel more...whole...like I really did have a foot. Very surreal and unexpected.

So all in all, my recovery is going well, and things are looking up. I am mobile and very happy to have my friend here with me. It would have been quite a shock going from being surrounded by 5 people all the time to having NO ONE here during the day. So I am thankful for that. I am alone right this second however, which is nice. Everyone else went to the flea market, but I have been walking around and surrounded by noise and people for most of a week and I just needed some down time, so I sent them without me. It was the right thing to do.

It was hard leaving my parent's place to come home. As much as I missed Jack, having my kids there with me all the time was soothing to my torn soul. I have been walking around with those two massive holes in my heart for years and I am happy to say those holes are considerably smaller now. It was also nice to be close to my Mom and Dad, and Dad tried several times the last two days I was there to get me to stay longer. That made me feel good. I know we were a pain, but at the same time they liked having Alex and I there all the time.

So now starts the next steps along my path of life. Learning how to walk correctly again, healing more, taking care of my house and family again, and having one of my closest friends here with me, and then near by after they find a place, are all waiting for me as I hobble down the road that is my life. I am looking forward to where the path leads me next!

Floating in limbo...

The countdown has begun. I have just six days before I go back to the doctor, and if my ankle is still in "good" shape, meaning if the bones and hardware have not moved, I will get a walking cast and will be in the home stretch of this cast business. I considered trying to beg the doctor not to put another one one if I promised not to put any weight on it, but as they want me to start using it soon, I guess that would be counter productive. Besides, who am I kidding, I am putting light weight on it NOW in order to get up and down stairs, so I will need the protection and support of the cast.

After I get the walking cast on Monday, next Friday here will be my last day at my parent's house, and as much as I wanted to go home in the beginning, I am now pretty happy to be here, and I am not looking forward to going home and being with out my older two kids. It has been a dream to be with them every day, and I will miss them terribly. My son is so sweet, he has gotten up early several times on school days just to make he and I French Toast for breakfast, and he goes out of his way to help me with things.

I just feel as if I am in a perpetual state of limbo. Waiting on the leg to heal, waiting to go home, waiting for changes to come to my household. I wish I could say more about that, but I am afraid to jinx it, and if anyone wants to throw some good vibes and positive energy my way that Jack and I achieve our goals in this situation would be much appreciated!

I can take care of myself now, and would already be home if I were able to get Alex on and off the bus, but as I can not make it to the bus stop yet I will be here until I can get used to walking on the walking cast when they put it on.

Other than that, not much is going on. I read a lot, and I spend time with the kids, and I go home with Jack on weekends. Lather, rinse, and repeat.

Last weekend I did manage to cook for the first time since I got hurt, made some yummy potato soup from scratch, and I cleaned the kitchen and the counters, and even managed to do a load of laundry. I can do for myself now, it just takes me a lot longer to do it, and I have to sit down a lot. I have begun to try to build my endurance, last Friday I stood outside on the front deck for 15 minutes while waiting for Alex to get off the bus and I thought I was going to die. I was on my crutches and it was warm outside, and suddenly I got dizzy and nauseous and my good leg wanted to give out. A friend said it sounded like vertigo, which would make sense as I am always sitting or laying down, so being up for that long made my body freak out. The hardest part of all this now is how weak and tired I am when I get around on my crutches, so I have been trying to exercise my legs with leg lifts and modified sit ups to strengthen my back muscles, which have weakened as well and cause me some discomfort. All of this is better than the agony I was in the first two weeks, so I am not really complaining lol.

So now it is just a waiting game. It is amazing how well the body adapts to injury, the cast is somewhat "normal" now and unless I am hurting I hardly think about it. I was talking with a friend last night and he said that soon I will be back to normal, and I had to disagree with him,.as with the hurt leg and all the changes that have or are about to take place, what was "normal" before I got hurt will never be the same again. Granted, in another month all the casts will come off ( hopefully ) and I should be ambulatory, but I will have pain and swelling for a year or more, and my gait will take that long to be somewhat close to normal again, if ever. I may walk with a cane for the rest of my life, I just do not know, and none of us will until time passes. I found out that the people I thought were my friends were not, and that one of those friends is actually a relative of Jack's, which somehow made it worse. So that part of my "normal" life is done and over with. The other two things which I can not name yet will also make sure that what was normal before I got hurt will not be normal after. Not in a bad way or anything, but I AM a Taurus and you know how we feel about change.

One thing I am glad of is that the soul crushing depression is over. I expected the physical pain, but the mental and emotional pain just about did me in. No one tells you that part. They tell you that your injury will hurt, and here is some meds to help, but no one tells you about the depression, and loneliness and sadness and guilt and frustration. No one helps with that, they usually make it worse. people think that " Oh it is not that bad, she is not curling up in a ball crying, she can deal with it herself." Well at first, you CAN'T deal with ANYTHING yourself, and even later, when you can, you still need help, and when you are the type who does everything for everyone else, it is HARD to ask someone else for help, and even worse when and if you get an attitude for asking. So if you know someone who does not have use of a limb, show some kindness, because their life has an added level of difficulty that you simply can't fathom unless you have gone through it yourself. This has certainly made me gain respect for those who have lost limbs totally. I will heal and this nightmare will be over, but for these people, it is now a way of life, and they deserve some kindness and help.

That sums it up for now. I hope everyone is doing well!

The Joy of a broken ankle

There is none. Let me tell you that right flippin' now.

You all know what happened. Tried to crawl up on a step-less porch via bucket, flip flip caught on edge, I fell backwards and landed with all my weight on my right ankle, breaking it in three places and had to have surgery resulting in a metal plate and several screws.

It has been 17 days now since it happened and it feels like years. I have had to stay at my parent's house during the week because I can not take care of getting Alex on and off the bus, and until recently, I could not take care of myself either. I am so glad my mom took us in and let us stay and take care of things, but I am not overly happy there. The upside is I am with my family and my other kids, that is amazing. The downsides are I am away from Jack 5 nights a week, I am away from my home and pets, and because I thrash around and move a lot I was keeping my mom up at night, who needs her rest, so I have to sleep in the recliner. Oh and it is hot. I am used to 73 degrees at night and 76 during the day. They keep their place at like 77 all the time and that is hard for me on a normal day, but when you are on mega doses of heavy duty pain killers which make me sweat just from standing up from a sitting position, it is a special form of torture. I can't turn the air down there because it makes their utility bill go up, which I understand, but I am still miserable. Not to mention the recliner is like a warm body cocoon which just adds to it. Also, it is the only comfy chair in the house, the only other living room chair is a glider which is okay for maybe an hour. The recliner is my Dad's chair, and as it is directly in front of the TV, when he wakes up it means I have to move. So I jump from bedroom to bedroom during the day trying to get some cool air and sleep and be able to stretch out. Again, I am grateful that they are moving their world around to help me, but it is still not the best of situations, for any of us.

It is also awful because I am the person who cooks and cleans and takes care of everyone, and I hate not being able to do anything for myself. I can not even get a drink alone as with crutches there is no way to carry it. At least at Mom's I do have the wheel chair so I can carry stuff. Also, people are so used to me doing stuff on my own, people seem to forget I need help, or give me attitude when they do help. Jack has taken excellent care of me, and I love him for it, but he does not do it happily. Granted he is exhausted having to work full time and then come see us in the evenings and then having to take care of the house, but it is not like I enjoy being trapped on the couch or the bed, and making me feel like the biggest burden in the world is not helping matters. I try not to get upset though, I know that no one means any harm or does not want to take care of me, it is just hard having to depend on other people when they rather be doing anything but having to deal with my crap.

I got my staples out and a hard cast put on last Wednesday, which was very painful. It felt much better after the fact though. Then I had to be dumb and I got my cast damp in the shower Monday night, so I had to go have a new one put on yesterday. Well since I get a walking boot put on the 26th of this month, they decided to put my foot in a flat on the floor position inside the cast, stretching my tendons and ligaments to get them ready for walking in a few weeks but damn it hurts! I had finally got the pain managed, and was even weaning myself off so many pain pills, when they go and do this and I spent half the night crying in pain while I tried to sleep. My whole leg is sore. On the bright side I got to rub and lightly scratch my leg and foot for about 15 minutes yesterday before they put the new cast on, and it felt so good. The foot looks much better, it was not a fraction as swollen as it was last week, and other than the two wicked scars that are forming and the fact that the foot is all shades of black and blue and yellow from bruising, it looked like a normal foot. I am unable to move my pinky toe however. This might change and it might not. There was a lot of damage in there.

So this has not been easy by far, and I will be very glad when it is over and done with. I hope I never have to repeat the experience, I will tell you that.

I still have to keep my foot elevated most of the time, so I have not been able to sit at a desk to blog. I have a tablet pc ( like an iPad but it is an Acer ) that I am using to stay as connected as possible, but it is hard to type anything of length on it like a blog post. So I had to print some documents out this morning and decided I would write since I was here lol.

That about sums it up for now. This post was more of a vent than an update but I needed to get it out of me so I could let it go and hopefully things will get better as I heal. Any healing anyone wants to send is very appreciated!

I am still reading everyone's blogs, I am just not commenting much right now due to being on the tablet instead of a normal PC.

I hope everyone is well and I will be back as I can!

Still here....

Just a quick note to let everyone know I am still alive! I have had surgery and I now have a metal plate and some screws in my leg. I am in a hard cast until the 26th and then I get a walking boot and then I can start putting partial weight on my ankle.

I am still spending the week at my parent's place, and coming home on the weekends. I still have to keep my foot elevated 90% of the time so blogging and such will be sporadic still as it is a pain to blog on my tablet.

That is it for now. Just wanted to give everyone an update!

Busted Ankle

Just wanted to let everyone know I broke my ankle Sunday afternoon whilst trying to hop up on Vix' back porch. My flip flop got caught on the edge of the porch and I over compensated and fell about 4 feet, with all of my weight on my right ankle. Shattered it in 3 places.

I had surgery Monday, and I have been recovering at my parents house. I will continue to be here until I am healed, as I can not walk for almost 3 months and I can not be alone due to the severity of my injury. I now have a 5 inch metal plate in my leg and several screws. I have to go back in a few days and get the staples taken out and a hard cast put on, right now I am in a semi-soft fiberglass cast.

My parents have been so kind. Taking care of me and making sure Alex is cared for while I am out of commission. I wish Mom had a lap top so I could blog from bed but she does not so I will just have to make baby posts. I can sit here for about an hour before the pain gets to be to much and I have to go elevate it again.

Hope you are all well!