The Naivete of a Not Often Operarted on Person

I had surgery last week, on the tibia bone in my leg that refused to heal.  Now a nail has been shoved down the middle and a screw attached on both sides in a “so there” retribution for not healing.  I have only had one other operation and it was a long time ago and it left a minimal scar.  I had visions of the same thing with this one.

How I thought they were going to get a 14” or so nail down through my bone with just a tiny incision was beyond me, but thinking they might is the definition of naïve.  All summer I have walked like Frankenstein in this boot, lurching one foot ahead of the other and now I have the scars to complete the image. Too bad Halloween has past.

My other naïve thought was that, well I have been months at this, surely once this is in place it will be a matter of days before I am ambulating with greater ease again-or not.  LOTS of pain, lots of swelling, lots of clues that the hiking boots need to stay in cold storage a good deal longer.

In my quest for early answers of how zippy the cure would be, I turned to the Internet and tales from other nail driven leg surgeries.  What I found there were talks of 6 months, 18months, years really!!! But worse than that was that I stumbled onto a website for, I don’t know, do-it-yourself-doctors.  There, in full color, was a step-by-step guide on how the surgery was done. 

Now, I have always thanked God that they knock you out and you know nothing about what went on unless you are addicted to Dr. shows, which I am not, and even then, that’s Hollywood.  But here it was, in great detail, of slicing open your knee, reaming out your bone, shoving this nail down through the tibia etc.  And like people passing an accident, I couldn’t look away.  No wonder my leg is killing me, this was no simple procedure!

So here I sit, grounded today for yesterday I canned applesauce and my leg by the end of the day looked like a sausage ready to burst.  In 5 days time we will be taking to the highway for the 1,100-mile trip to our daughters for Thanksgiving.  The dog and I will be in the back seat and my husband will have to do all the driving.  I am naively hoping this works out fine. 

With trembling hands I also need to click “buy” pretty soon on tickets for a flight to Boston at Christmas followed by a 5-hour bus ride to Maine.  Oh please God, this is your naïve servant hoping there will be improvement by then and no layovers, sleeping in airports like last year.

Again, no natural history wonder here, just the wonder of how one fall could lead to such an altered year.  It is the very essence of an accident; an unexpected event that alters things for a good while to come.  May we all be thankful then, for the limbs that ARE working. 

In a Cauldron of Color with a Colorless Mind

It has been a month since I blogged. That sounds like the beginning of a Catholic confession doesn’t it?  And in a way it is.  I mentioned at the very end of the last blog that I seemed to be slipping back into my own version of SAD.  In my case I don’t think it has anything to do with light or the lack of it, but with heat. Cooler days at the end of August in New England have me all primed for my favorite season, fall, and yet when I come back to Texas I find myself in summer again. Can that make a person go over the edge?  In my case, I would have to say yes, for this is, eh gad, maybe the third time it has happened. If there are any PH.D students out there looking for a research topic, I can be your willing victim.

The very odd thing is, I was going right back to the Northeast for my husband’s reunion at West Point, and then he would leave and I would go on to ME and grandchildren and friends in NH, MA and RI.  Nothing but joy should have been coursing through my veins.  The world WAS a cauldron of color. I was there from the scarlet of red maples that line the highways, to the flaming sugar maples, all the way to late October and beech trees that seem to glow with their own inner light. Beautiful.  

 Yet the colorless mind didn’t budge.  Bless the friends that put up with me, bless my grandchildren who are too young to notice Nona wasn’t quite the same.  That may be because it seems the extrovert inside will rise to the occasion when children are involved.

Back home again and the unsettled, go in circles, accomplish nothing, mode of living continued.  Within days I found out that my fractured tibia still hadn’t healed and I would need surgery.  Which I just had two days ago.  Now I had a theory that maybe going under sedation would be like rebooting a computer and I would arise well.  Well, it almost feels that way.  So many kind friends have been praying for me, and I did finally find a Doctor who could at least explain what is happening, more or less.

She told me depression is the mind shutting down to take care of survival things only, no time to fritter looking at birds or calling friends.  So perhaps if I could convince my brain that, no there is not a saber tooth tiger in the room, we could get back to the frivolous part of life where joy is found.

My hope is then that I will return to a more normal me.  My goal is to at least be able to limp by Christmas, to take the dog for walks again, and to have eyes to see the beauty, the glory of God that so often surrounds me

So indeed, it was a confession. Maybe with that out of the way I will be able to write about nature again.  We had 6” of rain the other day-yippee and who knows, maybe that will set up a spring flower season to beat the band.  Oh, but it isn’t spring is it? It’s fall. Well, it still may make for a grand spring.   Just the fact that I can think that might mean the colorless mind is getting some new tints in it again. I hope so.