Volunteering for Surgery (Have I really done this??)

I've had a bad left ankle for just about as long as I can remember. When I was eight, Cousin Yvonne was spending the night and we were jumping from twin bed to twin bed, for some unknown kid reason, and I got my foot tangled in the sheet. My foot went one way and the rest of me went another - break number one. When I was eleven, I decided (against parental directives) to take a short cut across the creek behind our house, on the way to feed my horse, by walking a log that my neighbor had put across the water, instead of walking a quarter mile up the road to the bridge. The log rolled, I hit the water and the rocks beneath - break number two. Later years of high school basketball brought several rounds of pulled ligaments, which I probably didn't allow to heal properly before resuming normal activities. Two severe sprains in adulthood didn't help matters and my determination to lose weight via working out and using the treadmill extensively finished off my poor ankle.

I can't remember being pain-free. I actually passed on a trip to Italy two years ago, because I knew I couldn't walk the required amount. My trips over the last few years are memorialized as, "the year my ankle swelled so badly I didn't go to the Empire State Building with the rest of you," and "oh yeah, that was the year we went to the Outer Banks and I had such trouble walking through the dunes because of my ankle," and "that was the trip where we walked all over Chicago, THEN did the DaVinci exhibit and I couldn't walk for three days, afterwards."

I gave myself a recurring ulcer by overusing OTC anti-inflammatories and had to step down to Tylenol, which doesn't do squat for the pain. Finally, about three weeks ago, I had had enough. No more Tough Grll. I collected my pathetic series of MRIs and Xrays, did my doctor research, picked an orthopaedic surgeon and called for the first available appointment.

He was the only one surprised by the new Xrays. I knew I didn't have any cartilage in that ankle three years ago, but there was too much going on in my life to have the surgery, then.
Now, it hurts so much that, last Sunday night, I would have agreed to have the surgery on my dining room table, right then, if I could have good drugs. Walking around on a bone-on-bone ankle hurts - a lot!

So, I'm scheduled for surgery on September 5th. I have cleared my work calendar, made arrangements to have a cleaning service scrub my floors and windows, organized my nightgowns and bed linens (I am a high count sheet whore, but that's a blog entry for another time!), and called in my former-nurse mother-in-law to help me get through the first two post-surgery weeks.

I will be out of service for all work purposes for the first five weeks of my twelve week recovery period! If all goes well, I can go back to work in a wheelchair (if I can figure out how to manage the transportation part) at the end of the first five weeks. I will be in a wheelchair, with limited use of crutches for getting to the bathroom, for eight weeks. I will be in a walking cast for another four weeks.

The extended recovery period is why I have put the surgery off for far too long. (OK, so there's that pathological fear of being anesthesized, too, but that's part of my control issue thing and I'm working on that, so we won't go there.) I cannot ever remember a time in my life when I was not productively engaged in something for a five week period. I guess I can find something productive to do from home, but I really do need some mental down-time, too. Being really busy and having constant pain takes a toll. The plan is to read trash novels, watch a zillion Law and Order episodes, along with all the Oz and Godfather episodes, and spend quality time with the fur kids.

I know my staff, back at the office, is more than qualified to run things just as well without me, as they run when I'm there. They are great folks. This is why it pays to always try to hire people as smart or smarter than you are! I have no worries on that score.

My mother-in-law figures the timing is just right, for her. She gets to leave at the end of two weeks, when I'll be moving from hurting and cooperative to healing and bitchy.

I'll let you know how things go. Hopefully, I'll be back on the adventure travel trail this time next year. I want to do the Windjammer Cruise on the Tall Ships off the Maine Coast next Summer, unless I go to cooking school in Provence, or the walking tour of Tuscany!