Safety in numbers

So I'm grateful for the discussion forum I found on myfootshop.com -- the community of people there are so encouraging. I WILL get better. My butt and body ache from lack of activity. I'm going nuts being on my butt. I'm frustrated I can't be at work for meetings I want to attend.

But it WILL get better. And soon, I can click my heels (or birks) 3 times and make it so!

Yes, it is possible to over-do it

Monday November 20:
All I wanted was to get out....despite all of the ways my friends are getting me out: driving me to dinner, to church, to baptisms, to Thanksgiving dinners...I just wanted a little "night on the town" - a 2-block walk to the Bi-Rite market, for heaven's sake.

Of course, I failed to factor in the fact that once I was *at* Bi-Rite I would need to be standing around shopping. Oops. So despite the walk-breaks on the way back - at Dolores Park Cafe and the bus stop...I was POOPED by the time I got back.

Tuesday November 21:
My friend Laura takes me to the doctor. This is a momentous day: I get sutures removed and license to take (brace yourself) a SHOWER!!! Pretty darned exciting. I mean, I appreciate Wet Wipes (trust me, I *really* do now!), but the idea of having *water* be the cleansing agent for my body was starting to sound really appealing. That was, of course, until it hit home that I would be standing on my UNSECURED feet -- free of the security and safety of the surgical booties! Eeeipes!! I kept having visions of me falling in the shower...bad imagery - don't go there - visualize being clean and DONE with the ordeal. I finally made it, but resolved to sit on my butt for future showers.

Sadly, after those two episodes, my feet were finished. The next two evenings (why is it so bad in the evening?) I slept 2-3 hours each owing to the THROBBING pain in my feet.

Will I ever get better? When is it ok to "stretch" things and walk a bit? Stand up? Or do I need to be paranoid aboutit all? Can I ever imagine returning to work or being normal? Discouragement sets in!

NETFLIX is awesome...so is heat

Kelly knew it and ordered me two free months. I've watched Citizen Kane, An American in Paris and Cold Mountain.

I've also rediscovered my heater: I had written it off based on the estimate of the inspector when I bought the place - he said it was history. And the first furnace guy out here gave me a $5K estimate to replace it and the ducts. IN the absence of the nirvana washer/dryer, I resolved to wear sweaters and shiver.

But the washer/dryer repair saga has dragged out and the idea of a working furnace was getting more attractive every day. But I wanted a second opinion! And the guy from Apollos Heating was either lazy or beyond honest: he assured me the furnace and ducts were fine and it was probably my air filter - like $90. I took the filter out, cleaned it for now (though the junk on it made me VERY nervous - if am still fertile, that may have changed things-!).

And now I use it and it WORKS! I can be WARM at home! Which is totally great because I am about as pasty and vitamin D-deprived as one can imagine. I've even calibrated the 40 minute window we get sunshine in our gorgeous garden (part of the beauty comes from the foliage which, alas, can block the sunlight). It's from 11am - noon. So when I can, I run out and sit in the glare and drink it up. "Vitamin D, pour all over me baby!" Like a cockroach or a Brit deprived of fresh air and sun. Sigh.

People are so awesome

Laundry. Food. Visits. Bible studies. I'm surrounded by so many awesome people. It is nice.

The Parking Lot People

An interesting sideline to this story are the Parking Lot People: they are the shiny, happy, pleasantville attendants in the parking lot inside the 1920s art deco medical building. They are ALWAYS nice. ALWAYS helpful. And it only costs like $3 to park there.

My friend Kelly remarked that every car inside the garage was either black or gray. Hers is gray. It started to feel a little weird!

Post-op visit #3: NO MORE PINS!

Before the surgery, my doc told me I wouldn't have to have those screws I'd been readin g about. "I don't leave anything in your foot." Sounded good to me. So it was so strange on that first visit last week when I saw these little thingys protruding from my feet (in between my big & 2nd toe) - what on EARTH could those be?

"Those are your pins." Ah yes - the Pins. No screws - but pins.

Well, I suppose that makes sense, given that they are breaking your feet- your bones gotta know how to grow back! Such detail was not really where I wanted to "go" before the surgery, but now that it's done, bring it on. They broke the bones and reset them. Yippee. No wonder my feet are all black & blue. Suffice to say that when I cognitively was *aware* of the pins, that I became very very clear as to why I had that sharp kind pf pain in a triangular area at the top of my foot. Before learning this, I chalked it up to an amorphous sort of "healing" in "that area" - well now it was crystal clear. And made this day all the more meaningful: the pins were going to be removed! No more pin pain!

Tobee, unlike Kelly and like most people we know, opted not to sit in the room and look. I took one last picture of my feet with pins in them and then thrust my head back while the doc went to work. And it WAS work: it was not a gentle removal of an acupuncture-thin needle. It was a YANK of a strong, thick, sturdy needle that had made its home inside my foot for a while. It was not fun. It surely could not have been pretty.

Once that painful ordeal was done, the prickly pain of pulling out the stitches was NOTHING - heck, it was only skin deep. And the doc then confided that he hates doing the pin thing. "I dislike it more than you, trust me."

Glad he told me when it was done.

You mean I can't just yank this off your foot?

That must have been what my doctor was thinking - otherwise why WOULD he have done that during my 2nd visit? See doc, the thing is, these post-surgical booties have velcro at the bottom AND THE TOP of the foot ...I would have THOUGHT you'd known that from all the patients you see...but you surely must have, well, FORGOTTEN...or, forgot that I just had surgery? Peeling a bootie off the top of a post-bunionectomy foot is not the most kind gesture.

After I got over that shock, it was, however, nice to see the x-rays of me pre-op and on my first post-op visit. That is also when we got to see the "K-Wire" pin inside my foot. My friend Kelly was pretty excited to take it all in. She's a doctor wanna-be. Who else would want to sit IN the room with you and see your Frankensteinian feetsies? Every time they take the bandages off, I am reminded of how little I am bathing and feel like a mummy. My feet are essentially mummys' feet. I have one over on Steve Martin: I gotta "condo mada stona" AND the feet to match.