It’s been over a week!

Thankfully I am experiencing very little real pain. I don’t need to take the OxyContin any longer but I’m taking all of the other medications I’ve been prescribed on top of my usual pile.

My biggest issues are my toes and the incredibly annoying itch. My toes go very numb and feel like I’ve been out into snow.The moon boot isn’t too type, I don’t think that the bandage is too tight because it wriggles around a bit when I’m putting on or taking off my cast protector to shower.

I open up the moon boot so my heel is still protected but my toes get some fresh air during the day. No moving though! I just have to focus on the itching being a sign of healing but it is very distracting.

I’ve made an effort to escape from the house. Friday was a lovely day and I really wanted to be out in it so I set myself the challenge of getting to my local cafe. If I couldn’t make it back then I’d just have to Uber.

We have a very steep driveway:

It doesn’t look it in the photo but it was like climbing a very steep mountain. I 

used my knee crutch and both of my elbow crutches to walk because I didn’t  want to have my foot slip and have a disaster. So looking like something a kin to a praying mantis I walked 1.5km to my local cafe.

Once I’d filled up on yummy sticky black rice and tea, I actually felt quite confident on achieving the return trip.

Shore Road Cafe - beautiful presentation.

I made it back alive and well. Hurray. I feel much healthier and I was making  goals to help me move through my recovery mentally and physically well.

Nauseous!

Today is not a good day. It’s my I feel sorry for myself day. Having surgery has triggered my MS to flare up. My left leg feels like someone has whacked it and since it is the one carrying the load it’s making moving around pretty hard. My hip also hurts and I’m not sure if the bursa that I had a steroid injection in is not happy or it’s an MS thing. 

I have to take the oxycodone to cope with the pain at the moment but it’s making me nauseous. It’s easy to say nausea is better than pain but when you’re not feeling the pain but you’re definitely feeling the nausea it’s hard to remember that. I’ve been using crutches to go to go to the bathroom because it’s easier than having to put on the knee crutch, walk to the bathroom, take the knee crutch off, manoeuvre to the toilet, try to get up off the toilet with no rails, get the knee crutch back on, make it back to my bed and take it off again. They are fine to go down stairs but I still can’t get my head around the getting up the stairs - getting my good foot up to the next step while balancing on the crutches. Crawling up the stairs seems easier until you reach the top and have to get from the floor to standing. 

I had a wobble last night and nearly landed on my foot but fortunately broke my fall with my head against the corner of the wall. I think the problem resulted from leaning back too far on my crutches. There’s upright and then there’s oh shit.  I’m hoping at two weeks I’ll get a cast because moon boot and bandages feels so vulnerable. Plus my toes are really screaming with nerve pain. Hopefully the gabapentin will hit that on the head. I ended up opening up my moonboot and putting an ice pack under my toes last night to get some relief. 

Having missed the physio has left me a little on the back foot (ha ha). I’m having to use dr google a lot to check to see what I should be doing. Elevation seems to be a big thing. I’ve got a pillow in the bed and so far it has stayed where it is supposed to and not ended up on the floor.

I’m still quite woozy and ready to fall asleep without warning. No good when you’re trying to drink a cup of hot tea. I’ve come to just in time to see the cup just about tipped sideways enough to pour tea all over my abdomen. A burn is just what I don’t need right now.

I really need to be more vocal about my MS making it more important to stay in hospital a bit longer. I’m always tossed out before the little old ladies who’ve had the same surgery. I think they focus on my age and forget that my brain is Swiss cheese. I’m also technically home alone, my sons are here but they are hard to get hold off when I need them. My husband had a running event on an island so camped over there. At least it meant I could wake up during the night and not have to worry about disturbing him.

Hopefully my nausea will settle and I’ll get a better hand on moving around and then I can settle down and read or watch Netflix. Nausea makes doing that harder. It is very preoccupying. Especially the possibility of having to get from my bed to the bathroom quickly. That’s just a recipe for a whole bunch of nope.

The deed is done

Yesterday was surgery day. I went in at 11:15 to find out I wasn’t on the day list because someone ballsed up and put me down for the day before! It was all sorted out in the end  and I made it to the admissions ward. It was a bit of a rush there because I’d been so long in reception but everything got completed.

I walked to theatre admissions next. The surgeon came and marked my leg and discussed the surgery including where she’d take a bit of bone to graft if necessary. It was the top of my tibia and the first place I looked after surgery was there. No dressing so no graft, yay.

Then the anaesthetist came and discussed my anaesthesia. He decided since I had MS a general was the best option. Funny how it differs from doctor to doctor! I told him I needed to avoid overheating so he promised they wouldn’t put the heat blanket on on top heat.

Once they were sorted I was walked into the theatre. It was freezing! The operation table was so narrow but they had arm rests so it wasn’t too bad. The anaesthetist said he was going to put a cannula in my hand and I thought “you’re welcome to try.” He obviously looked at the veins and decided that my one drain pipe vein in my left elbow was a far better idea. The last thing I remember was him saying he was giving me a relaxant and looking around at the theatre noting I did feel relaxed.

I woke up in the recovery room in full MS blow out. My legs were spasming like crazy and my teeth were chattering. I had the usual fight about it being a normal side effect of a GA and the nurse wanting to warm me up and me saying if she did I’d get worse. We worked out a compromise. 

I had local in the site in theatre but when it wore off it was very painful. They kept topping up my morphine but it was still sitting at a five (someone has hit me very hard with a hammer). The anaesthetist was called and he ordered oxycodone. I was warned it would make me drowsy and it did but it hit the pain beautifully. I don’t remember anything more in re overly,I just magically appeared in my room.

I had a pump on my left leg to help prevent blood clots. Every three minutes it would feel like someone had grabbed my ankle. I also had my moon boot on! I thought they were a bit confused taking it to theatre with me but no, they were right. When I had the calcaneal osteotomy I had a soft cast but this time it’s just bandaged so the moon boot forms the support.

Pump on the left and moonboot on the right.

It’s really weird trying to sleep with a moonboot on. I was a bit drowsy but watched some tv and waited for dinner since I hadn’t eaten since 6:45pm the previous day. They have fabulous food at Mercy but not after a GA. After a GA you get a light meal. It wasn’t bad at all and if I hadn’t seen the full menu today I’d have never been the wiser. Dinner was good but breakfast was cold toast and porridge with stewed apple and apple juice. Since I’m allergic to eggs I couldn’t have the hot breakfast which was scrambled or poached eggs. On the full menu the cooked breakfast included delicious offerings such as French toast with bacon, banana and maple syrup as well as the cold toast and cereal. I had the chicken salad for my main meal with pumpkin soup and the entree and creme brûlée for dessert.

Delicious salad but not the best for someone with an egg allergy!

I struggled a bit with pain during the night but tramadol and paracetamol seemed to ease it. I was really tired but the foot pump kept waking me up when I drifted off. I had a book and I found reading a paragraph or so sent me off to sleep. That worked until 4:15am. From then on I was wide awake and unable to even snooze.Fortunately the night nurses were characters and entertained me. They also gave me another oxycodone when I said it felt like someone hit my foot with a hammer. One of them joked that it was a baseball bat. We decided the other night nurse had done it and hidden the weapon. 🤪

I was being closely monitored and once they got over the fact that 100/50 is a normal if even slightly high blood pressure reading for me they settled down. The real concern was my oxygen saturation’s. I was sitting at 93% so I spent a fair bit of time with first the mask and then the nasal prongs delivering delicious oxygen.

I was released just under 24 hours after I arrived. I had the surgeon and anaesthetist visit but didn’t see a physio so I’m struggling to go upstairs if I’m using crutches. The I-walk is no problem but it’s a bit difficult to put on in a hurry. I remember good leg goes to heaven but I’m not sure how everything else fits in. When I went down to do something in the kitchen then I ended up crawling back up the stairs. Not the best when our house is accessed 

So that’s about it for now. Once I get a clear head and stop sleep typing I’ll do another entry.

Practising with my knee crutch

I’ve got my Knee crutch out of storage. I lent it to a friend who was a bit shorter than me, had a cast on her left leg and didn’t have knock knees like me. So I had to readjust it completely. I rewatched the videos to get me re-clued in again.

It’s set up perfectly and I’ve been round and round the house and up and down stairs, including carrying a cup of tea. I just have to buy my parrot, striped shirt and eye patch and I’m set!

I’m being fused!