Little Death

Days are getting shorter. The time change happened Halloween weekend and now the evenings are dark. I've been thinking a lot about last winter. The anniversary of my ankle is coming up. 

Number One: Skiing is off the list this year, possibly forever. 

Number Two: I wore heels successfully for many hours on Halloween. 

Number Three: I am running 5x/week, faster than ever. 

Number Four: My ankle is still visibly larger than its twin. The scar is dark brown and tight. It is sore and stiff in the mornings. 

Number Five: A student asked me if I could change one thing about myself, what would it be? And I said, I would change that I broke my ankle. 

My dad says it was a "little death." He said it's the price you pay for living. I think he is right but I still mourn for the loss of my perfect wholeness. Also for the fact that I didn't know that I was actually perfect and whole, that I always thought something was wrong with me, lacking, less-than. That I still sometimes feel that way, albeit much less often. 

I don't want to give up this blog, so perhaps it will morph into something less ankle-centered. But possibly still body-centered. The amount of time I spend on my body is a little excessive, but. But I do anyway. 

Day Quite A While

Let's see, it's been...almost five months since the injury. 

I am walking all day every day without pain. 

I am doing yoga. Handstands are taking on a particularly interesting glow for me right now. Triconasana, not so much. But yoga is really helping with stretching out the scar tissue and the flexibility/range of motion. 

I am not running so much, although I have recently. It just doesn't feel good. My left knee is wonky from the slight impediment to my gait. However, a chiropractor will be contacted in the very near future so hopefully that can get somewhat worked out. 

The best time to run is after acupuncture, which is also EXTREMELY helpful. 

Western medicine did surgery on me and cobbled my ankle back together, but Eastern medicine is going to heal my joint. I strongly strongly suggest acupuncture for healing from sprains. Or healing from anything, really. It's subtle but strong. I go to this kinda sketchy place in Chinatown where there are a bunch of different non-english-speaking acupuncturists, whom I'm not at all sure are actually certified. One of them puts five needles in my ankle and that's it, another one does twenty, in my ankle and leg and forehead and hand and neck. Although he was treating me for a cough, too, so maybe that's why. He also went a little over the boundaries of professionalism while giving me a "complimentary" leg massage afterwards-- yanking my thong to the side so you can really get to my lymph nodes is frowned on by me and other women, buddy. So I plan to go back only on the weekends, when the 5-needle lady is there. 

Nonprofessional acupuncturists notwithstanding, acupuncture is the single most helpful thing I've done for my ankle so far. 

It is shrinking down, the left ankle, and I can wear cute shoes again. No heels yet, although that is my ultimate goal. Fuck running; I am more interested in regaining the ability to wear stilettos. The scars are there, though, especially the outer one, and I am poking at it daily to try to break up some scar tissue. 

I will return to physical therapy as soon as my medical insurance company stops dicking around with my coverage. Beaurocracy is an unsightly thing. I have had to make innumerable phone calls. Meanwhile I'm receiving $400 bills daily. F you, HIP. Get it together. 

I am having a hard time accepting that my body will never be the same again. My gorgeous, gorgeous right ankle and leg are the marker for what I once had and did not appreciate. I will always have a thicker left ankle; I will always have these scars. The leg does not taper elegantly as it once did. And I just have to accept that. 

At least I can walk, right? This may all be part of learning to love and appreciate my body, but I wish it wasn't so freaking permanent. Leave it up to me to have to endure pain, disability and disfigurement in order to gain some self-love. 

Despite my surgeon's instructions not to put any weight on my ankle until he sees my x-rays on Thursday, I started hobbling on it a few days ago.  I had a vivid dream that I was walking, and when I woke up I was like, Okay. It's time. 

This ankle is way un-flexible. All kinds of scar tissue, swelling, muscle atrophy, etc. My physical therapist says I sprained my ligaments, in addition to breaking the tibia and fibula. I actually have two physical therapists, Mike and Jesse. Mike is a big bald black guy who stretches out my hams and glutes; Jesse is a little jewish guy with a baby face who massages the shit out of my foot and ankle. I can feel the scar tissue breaking up when he does it. Yesterday after the foot massage (which is excruciating, by the way), I could see a bunch of veins popping up, which is a good sign. They say when I start weightbearing exercise the muscles will be able to help pump more blood, which will bring down the swelling. Which I can't WAIT for, because I still can't wear normal shoes on my left foot. My right side is all stylish, wearing cute shoes, and my left is still encased in the robo-boot, all black felt and velcro straps to the knee. Not cute. 

Week Eight-=-One On One

I had my first appointment at One On One physical therapy last night. It was pretty great to have someone touching that ankle and stretching me. They gave me exercises to do at home, which I'm supposed to do 4 times a day. That seems excessive to me, but if it makes things heal faster, I'm bout it. I am a good little follower of directions. 

There was a girl there wearing the shortest black shorts imaginable and a shrunken softball jersey top, running around in her New Balances and long dark hair, doing exercises and smiling. I met her when my therapist called her over. He said this was her first day walking without her boot. She and I conferred about how great it was to get out of casts-- she was in a hard cast for 7 weeks and the boot for 8. That's longer than mine took. Is taking. She broke her talus snowboarding. Her ankles looked perfect now, both of them.  It gave me hope. Later, Tom called mine elegant and reassured me I'd have the other one back someday. 

Afterwards I took myself out to a prix-fixe dinner at an Italian restaurant in Brooklyn. I sat there with my robo-boot under the table and didn't even think about the ankle. It was nice to be out, alone. I watched people walk by the restaurant and ate my filet of sole and drank my Pinot Grigio. Then I had to take a car back to Bushwick, which cost 25 bucks, taking the shine off the evening slightly. No matter. I'll be able to take the subway soon enough. 

Day Something-- Spring Equinox

Yesterday, Goldman finally looked at my ankle and said, That looks great. You are ready for physical therapy.

I pumped my fists in the air and said, Yessssssss.

But I still don't want you to walk on it. Two more weeks before you can put weight on it, he said. 

I was so happy to hear the words "physical therapy" that I didn't even care about the walking part. He wrote me a prescription for PT 3x/week for 4 weeks. 

He also told me I can sleep without the Robo-Boot (joy of joys!) and that I don't have to wear it around the house, only when I go out, for protection. At last I am unfettered by heavy, clunky casts!

I am getting so good on those crutches. Also, I have been hopping. A lot. All over the house. I woke up in the middle of doing something the other day and looked around me. Where were my crutches? In the other room. How did I get here? Did I fly? No, I hopped. My right leg is so diesel right now. And yeah, my left leg is, as my mother says, "all dweeby." But PT will start to fix that. Meanwhile, I'm  doing pistol squats: on my right leg, lower myself all the way to sit on the ground without using my hands, and then raise myself back up again on the same leg, without using my hands. Diesel. That's biology for you, my father-in-law says. Humans are adaptable.

Spring is here. This has so been the Winter of My Discontent. I am incredibly happy to feel the milder weather and to open my windows to the breezes in the neighborhood.

I have been wanting to plant things, as I always do at this time of year, veggies and flowers, digging in the dirt, but alas I live on the 3rd floor with little to no fire-escape real estate. I've been staring out the window into the back yard every day, wishing that I could somehow get access to that big patch of dirt down there and grow something. was downstairs, picking up the mail, which is sort of a long journey (stairs are tough when you only have one leg) and the highlight of my activity for the day, and I stopped by the downstairs' neighbor's door. They were cooking pasta and asked me to come in. We started talking about the backyard, and it turns out, they want to plant things too! And they want our help. They're giving us keys to the basement so we can access the yard through the bulkhead. 

So I have been reading through all my gardening books, making lists of things to plant, tools we'll need, steps to take. I'm excited! I love that spring coincides with healing and new beginnings. 

I decided to just take my 12 weeks of leave and not rush myself through recovery. That means I'll be returning to work on April 20th, right after vacation. Tom and I are going to Mexico with my parents and my goal is to be able to walk by then. I think it's feasible. I'm looking forward to having my normal life back, but now that recovery is in sight, the time off seems very precious and like I ought to be doing something productive or at least healthy or at the very least pleasurable. Planting a garden (albeit while sitting down in the dirt) seems like a great thing to do in the meantime while I finish healing. 

Day Fifty-One-- Heal, Wound, heal.

Well now. I believe I have gotten over the hump of depression for this week. This weekend was tough, though. For three reasons:

1) Tom is working. This is good, because we gotta make some money, but it is bad because, Lonely me. Couch-sitting, pajama-wearing, net-surfing, window-staring me. 

2) The 2-ct aquamarine earrings my mother gave me for my wedding were stolen by the cleaning lady last weekend. I am utterly heartbroken about this. 

3) A new little gap in my skin showed up beneath the bandage strips, extending the unhealed part by 1/4 inch. 

Crying a lot doesn't always help matters, especially where one's husband is concerned. Take note, all you married ladies. He may tolerate one crying jag, even hold you and pat you through it. But be advised, daily crying jags, especially during sex, will not be well-liked. When he got the work, I'm sure he was totally relieved to get away from me. 

But, after a bunch of time spent obsessing about the wound, reading internet pages on Persistent Chronic Wounds, daydreaming about hyperbaric chambers, complaining to anyone who would respond, and sobbing fitfully, the wound actually has begun to look better. It's shrinking. I started taking Lysine on Lynsey's suggestion, and I think that helps. Lysine is an amino acid that helps the body build proteins, to make stuff like...skin. I've taken it before to help with canker sores in my mouth. Also started a round of Echinacea, now that I'm off antibiotics. 

I am taking so many different pills and supplements, it's kind of ridiculous. 

Vitamin C (1 pill/day)

Vitamin B-50 (1 pill/day)

Vitamin D-3 (3 pills/day)

Omega-3 Fish Oil (6 gel tabs/day)

Calcium, Magnesium, Zinc (3 pills/day)

Glucosamine-Chondroitin (2 pills/day)

Multivitamin (1 pills/day)

L-Lysine (2 pills/day)

Glutamine (1 pill/day)

Glycine (1 pill/day)

Omega 6&9 (3 gel tabs/day)

Desogen (1 pill/day)

Vicodin (1 pill/day)

Acidophilus (1 pill/day)

Echinacea (6 pills/day)

Yesterday I finished the second round of Keflex (6 pills/day). 

In total, minus the Keflex, that's 32 pills/day. 

That doesn't sound healthy. 

Here are things that help pull me out of depression: 

Leaving the house

Friends visiting (Marianne, Monica, Laura all helped this weekend)

Exercise, even if it is just lying on the floor doing leg-lifts

Writing

Cleaning the house, which takes such a long time on crutches, there's no time to lie around moping.

The wound is actually shrinking, the skin is growing together. Still red in parts, and fluid soaks the bandage every night, but it's healing. I am secretly hoping that by Thursday it will be healed enough to start P.T. Cross fingers! Pray! Beg and plead! Please let me walk!!!!

Day Three Million- No Thank You, Plastic Surgery

Healing is taking longer than I thought it would. 

The wound on the inside of my ankle (smaller, shorter) is healing nicely. 

The wound on the outside of my ankle (bigger, longer) is not. 

Remember when the surgeon told me I would be able to walk in 3 weeks to a month? That turns out not to be true. He won't let me put weight on it or start physical therapy until the wound is closed. And it's still not closed. He says it's because my ankle was still so swollen when he operated, even though we had waited 12 days since the injury. He said he had to make a judgment call to do it, because the bones were starting fusing back together which would make the surgery more difficult. 

But the swelling meant the skin wasn't in very good shape when they cut into it. And now, a month later, it's having trouble healing. I asked Goldman if I could start walking or putting any weight on it at all. He said not unless I wanted plastic surgery. No, thank you, no plastic surgery for me. 

It's a setback of a few weeks...two, at this point. I was supposed to go back to work mid-March but I had to extend that to mid-April. Which sucks for everyone. But, no thank you, plastic surgery. 

It feels terrible to know this after visiting Heritage and telling everyone I'd be back in two more weeks. Especially the kids, who were so happy to see me, and who so need help. Being out for so much of the Spring Semester is bad. And I miss my studio sooooo much. But, no thank you, plastic surgery. 

Plus, what a pain to not be able to walk! Still! And I'm so tired of this couch! Still! And I hate the robo-leg! Still! And just, I'm ready to be done with this, my bones are back together, this should be over with by now. But, no thank you, plastic surgery. 

But at least there has been a fair amount of pleasantry in this apartment. Tom is still not working, which is beginning to be kinda bad, but it means that we can host fun brunch parties. There have been several nice visits with friends, and we've gone out a few times to eat. We did a puzzle, with Erika and Monica and Zach, on Wednesday in the middle of the afternoon, after an epic brunch by Tom. Homemade biscuits, beat that. I'm not sure how we tricked our friends into spending a perfectly fine afternoon putting together a jigsaw puzzle of a painting by Breughel, but we did. Maybe they were lulled into it by the cheesy scramble. 

Joe and Liz came over on Friday night; Renna came yesterday; Kate, Peter, and Giovanna are coming today. I love visitors. 

I have also been watching more than my fair share of movies:

-Michael Clayton,  I give 5 stars. Good acting by George C, and supporting cast; interesting plot.

-Me, You, and Everyone We Know, I give 4 stars. I think the movie is just an excuse for Miranda July to indulge in quirky people and quirky behavior, but at least it's not pretentious. Plus, the little boy is incredibly adorable, and any movie that can discuss pooping back and forth, forever, while maintaining its cinematic dignity, is worth a look. 

-Paradise Now, I give 5 stars. It's a movie about two Palestinian suicide bombers, the day before they are to carry out their mission. There's a lot of detail shown in the preparations, the experience of the two men, and there's a lot of discussion of why they are going to do this, their beliefs about the occupation of Palestine, whether it is possible to cause change, whether or not it's worth dying for, what Allah wants or doesn't want, what freedom is about. Some of this discussion is mildly hilarious, even. There's also a good little romance, and plus, the two actors (Kais Nasheef and Ali Suliman) are gorgeous. Like, dreamy. Like, wow. Highly recommended.

-Rescue Dawn, I give 3 stars. It deserves 4, maybe, because Christian Bale is pretty good and the shots in the Lao jungle are intense, but it's just not the kind of movie I like. It stressed me out to watch it; it was scary, gory, and somewhat painful to watch. I'm not into torture. But, if you like stories about POW's, the military, survival, escape, murder, and brutality, or hacking through jungle vines with a machete while starving, you might enjoy it. Tom did. 

-Several Pedro Almodovar movies. Talk to Her, I give 5 stars, if for nothing else than the hilarious giant vagina scene. But also for the awesome female bullfighter and her hotttt outfits. There's actually much more to the film, like vegetative states and emotional damage/healing, but those are the highlights. 

Also, The Law of Desire, I give 2 stars. Too long, to begin with. Too many side-stories. Young Antonio Banderas is pretty good, but not good enough for that role. Although his last scene is pretty touching. If you enjoy gay sex and cocaine, you'll probably enjoy this. NC-17. 

Also, Women On the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, I give 4 stars. It's really funny, to begin with, well-acted and slapstick, and Antonio Banderas is  pretty good, at least good enough for the role. The lead actress wears fabulous earrings. 

I could go on and on, but you'll begin to see just how very small my world has become, and I don't want to depress you.

Day Fifteen Gazillion

I am mad at myself that I haven't been taking mad pictures of my hoof as it heals. It was sooo grooosssss! Tom got a pic the day it got broken, and I'm gonna do another one today, but I wish I had gotten one when the cast came off post-surgery. 

I want to walk! Now!

Tomorrow I'm going in to school to bring in some paperwork and see kids and teachers. Sit in on silent reading in my Studio. I'm supposed to take the subway with Tom in the morning after rush hour, but I'm worried that the snow storm put ice all over the stairs and I will knock my ass out when my crutches slip. He says he will keep a hand on me and we'll make it. It will be the first subway ride in over a month. 

I can't wait to see those kids! Auugh! 

I am trying to really enjoy these last two weeks I have off. I want to turn that story I started into a real story, a short one, maybe 10 or 12 pages. Have something to show for myself. Another part of me is saying, kick back, watch movies, drink tea. Listen to the radio. Read. You don't have to do anything. You paid for this time. 

At any rate, time goes by. This will seem like a blip, a few years from now. 

Day Thirty-Three, Or So.

Pineapple Express was better than Superbad. 

Argue if you wish, but James Franco turns Pineapple Express from a bro-tastic flick into something palatable to the ladies. 

Yes, all kinds of high culture crowds my free time. 

Speaking of culture, Tom is still trying to figure out how to make bread. Remember in Stengren's class when we were studying anaerobic respiration and everyone made bread starters out of warm water, sugar, and those little packets of yeast? 

Well Tom made a sourdough starter from wild yeast, which apparently is everywhere, floating through the air. Sit a tub of flour and water on the windowsill, wait a while, and voila, wild yeast shall alight. You can tell the yeast has moved in by the little bubbles. 

You can make any number of batches of bread from the same sourdough starter, as long as you keep feeding it. It's like a silent, gooey pet, the starter is. Smells a little funny, too. 

Anyway, he's made several batches of bread so far, and each one has been kind of disastrous, sometimes because he screws up the starter, sometimes because he doesn't let it rise long enough, sometimes because he uses the wrong flour...I try to keep encouraging him because he's really into it (he loves to cook) and because making mistakes is a really good way to learn something, as long as you don't give up. 

Today he drove me into Manhattan to get a haircut which I needed desperately and on our way home we stopped at Roberta's in Williamsburg. We got calzones, which were incredibly yummy...Roberta's is Zagat rated, and barely a year old...it's a good place. The dough is especially tasty; fluffy and chewy and soft, with the charred brick-oven flavor that makes it special. He was in a bad mood, so rather than listen to him dwell on negative shit like how bad the traffic on Wilson is, I asked him what was something he liked. He said, There is only one thing I like, which is that pizza dough we just ate. There is nothing else on my gratitude list. Just the dough. 

And my Alex, he added. 

So besides having the best husband in the world, eating a delicious calzone, having a good new haircut, and enjoying Pineapple Express, here are some other good things:

-Hung out with Monica yesterday and she fed us the most delicious brunch I have ever eaten. 

-We brought the cats back home after being away for 9 days and they're still cute. 

-My leg doesn't hurt. 

-I'm down to 4 Vicodin a day. 

-There is a 2-hour class on yoga for injuries at Greenhouse on Sunday, which we are both going to. And we're even taking the subway. 

-Helen is taking us out for dinner on Sunday night. 

-I am going back to work on the 15th of March. 

I went to Downstate on Thursday morning. Goldman's wife was in labor, so he wasn't there. I saw an intern, who took off the little adhesive strips on my wound to check it out. It's still not dry, so he wouldn't let me start physical therapy yet. Booo! Hiss! The wound is gross. I got a little dizzy looking at it, at first. Jaggedier than one would expect from a scalpel. It's not infected, just raw. But, they put me on antibiotics anyway. 4 times a day for a week. If that doesn't kill all the flora in my system, I'm not sure what will.  All I'm saying is that wound better dry up. Or else....I'll whine. So watch out. 

By the by, I keep hearing about people being hospitalized with MRSA. Take your full round of antibiotics, people. Superbugs are bad. 

I did not plan this entry to be a discussion of microorganisms, but as we've learned, sometimes things just happen. 

One-monthiversary-- Martha's Vineyard, Still.

Originally, we were supposed to leave this island yesterday. 

But why would we ever want to leave? This house is all porches and windows and heated hardwood floors, perched on the top of a windswept hill, with whitecaps on the blue sound below and a large pond above. This land is a terminal moraine, dotted with boulders and rocky outcroppings. An ancient glacier pushed its way across the continent, and ended its journey here. The house somehow captures all of this loveliness like a huge terrarium.  

Anyway, we can't leave yet, for complicated reasons involving auto insurance and passing inspection and Massachusetts and old car headlights. The new headlight is supposed to arrive at the auto shop Tuesday or Wednesday, so we have to wait till then, but we MUST leave by Wednesday night, because I have another appointment with the doc on Thursday morning. 

My leg is less ugly, perhaps because I've been paying more positive attention to it. You know, bathing it, shaving it, moisturizing it. Letting it out into the air and the sunshine. It's still nasty and weird-looking, but at least it's mine again. Today it isn't hurting much. It's easier to love when it doesn't hurt.

 I am hoping that my leg will be ready to go back to school on March 2nd, but I'm not sure. I don't think I'll be able to walk on it yet, which means crutches, which means no subway, which means husband drives me to work, which is far away, which he can't do if he's working. But, so far, he doesn't have work lined up. So maybe I will make it to school a few days a week. On Feb. 17th, the doc said I could walk on it in 3 to 4 weeks. So that's like more the second week in March instead of the first week. 

I'll be back soon, at any rate. I can't wait. 

Despite intermittent pain and an annoyingly heavy leg thingamajiggy, it has been pleasant being here for the past week. We have completed one puzzle (The Rug Merchants) and are at work on a second (The Oyster Gatherers), a painting by Singer Sargent that is mostly composed of blobs of various shades of gray. It's tough. So far we've been at it 4 days. The Rug Merchants only took two. 

I have read a torridly enjoyable romance novel called The Prince of Midnight (mysterious and sexy highway man encounters damsel in distress; romance ensues; there is a lot of horseback riding and swordplay, soft-porn love scenes, witty repartee, and cross-dressing). RL 7th. 

I also read Home, by Marilynn Robinson. Writerly, moving, a little boring. Good enough to make me want to write. Unfortunately, I started writing a new story on the same day I started reading The Prince of Midnight, so I fear for the quality of my prose. Home is about a middle-aged spinster who returns to her family home to care for her dying father. Her wayward brother comes home at the same time, and they have to reconcile their relationships before old dad kicks the bucket. Robinson is one of the only writers I read who writes about Christianity. Her views are inoffensive and humane, and she treats her characters tenderly but unsentimentally. RL PHS.

My latest book is called Wild Swans, Three Daughters of China, by Jung Chang. It's nonfiction and so far it's pretty good. I will let you know how that goes.  

Back to The Oyster Gatherers. 

Day Sixty-Eleven: Screwed

I went to the hospital yesterday to get my stitches taken out. It wasn't during Goldman's regular office hours, so I had to wait 3 hours for him to get out of surgery. I asked him what he had been working on; he told me a guy got shot up about a week ago and one of the bullets entered his femoral artery, which then got infected. Goldman had to take off the leg at the hip joint. 

So a little ankle fracture in comparison seems like a walk in the park. Or, not a walk, exactly. 

My fortune cookie from chinese food last night said, You are a practical person with both feet on the ground. Katie said, Well, one foot.

Goldman took off my cast. It turns out I have two incisions, one on either side of the ankle. One is about two inches long and one is about seven inches long. He took the stitches out-- not painful, but the incisions are ugly. The whole leg from the knee down is ugly, in fact. Yellow and disfigured. The ankle is fat, the calf is thin, the toes orange. Scaly, hairy skin, no muscle left, bruised. And the scars, maroon and bunched. I didn't look at those too closely. 

Goldman cleaned the dried blood and the iodine stains off, and rewrapped my leg in cotton gauze. Then a nurse put me into a long white sock and this black walking cast that looks like RoboLeg. I can't walk on it yet, though. I am supposed to go back in a week for more x-rays and a prescription for physical therapy. On Friday, I'm allowed to start taking showers! But I can't start trying to walk for 3 or 4 more weeks, so that sucks. I'm supposed to go back to work in 2 weeks. I may have to actually not go back, or at least certainly not full-time. Crutches in the subway...ugh. 

Goldman also showed me post-surgery x-rays of my ankle. I have sixteen screws in there, and 4 plates. My ankle seems to be mostly hardware at this point. It was a bit shocking to see how long some of the screws are, and how they are literally holding my bones together. To think that I will have a full recovery from this is something of a leap of faith.

I know I'm making progress on healing this thing, but it feels like it's going nowhere. I am still lying around all day. I am still on painkillers, because my leg still hurts. I still can't walk. My ankle still looks monstrous, like it doesn't even belong to me. I still can't carry anything from room to room.  I'm still on crutches. I'm still wearing this gigantic cast on my leg (although now it's black and strappy--- that makes it sound sexy, but it's incredibly not. Like I said, RoboLeg). 

The frustration of being crippled is somewhat ameliorated by the fact that I am on Martha's Vineyard right now. It is an immense relief to be out of the apartment. It is cold and raw here, but beautiful. And this house with its high ceilings and huge windows and views of the ocean is an easier place to while away hours reading or sleeping. Also, Anne is here, and Katie with Michael, so I have company. Everyone went out on a walk this afternoon, except for me. I took a two-hour nap on the couch. 

Invalid can be pronounced two ways: invalid, and in-valid. 

Three Weeks In

I talked to my surgeon yesterday. We made an appointment for the 17th (4 days from now) to remove the stitches. I hope my wound is healing nicely. Any other possibility does not bear pondering. 

I have been feeling a bit down lately. I think it's The Couch, sucking out all of my positive energy. I am SO TIRED of these 4 walls, of this cast, of being alone and cooped up and somewhat helpless. I am missing so much of the world. It's all going by, outside my window, the weather is changing, people are working, eating meals, meeting friends, walking in parks. Children are learning, or not learning, slinging their arms around each other's necks, laughing, struggling and striving, eating chips in class. I am lonely for the rest of the world. 

People say they will come by, and then they don't. 

The worst part is that I have many more weeks of this ahead of me. At least 3 more weeks of this non-participation.  Then I can move up to semi-participation. And then NINE MONTHS of physical therapy. This injury will have demanded a year of my life, by the time it's healed. 

What I've Learned So Far:

-Life without pooping is not worth living

-The body is an ingenious and miraculous machine

-Cows are supposed to eat grass

-Baths are good

-My husband really loves me

-I take my body for granted 

-True friends show up for you

Some of those things I already knew, but I guess it's good to have reminders. Maybe next time I won't have to break my leg to be reminded. 

I know it's unattractive and unproductive to complain. It doesn't make anything better. How about a little gratitude to even things out? The "Grateful" list is good to make at any time but seems especially helpful in tough situations.

Things I'm Grateful for:

-My other leg

-My hands and arms and neck and back and butt and knees and fingers and ears and eyes and nose and brain and head and hair and lips and collar bones. My ________.

-Kimonos

-Flowers and plants

-Netflix

-My man

-My true friends

-Modern medicine

-Painkillers

-Orange kitties and gray kitties

-Deep sleep

-Dreams.

The HMV contraption

Day 18-- Gold Stars for Husband

My husband should receive a hundred gold stars. Firstly because he still apparently finds me attractive, even in a cast. Secondly, because he's been cooking every single meal and doing all the dishes for three weeks straight. Thirdly, because he watches Big Love with me even though he's not a huge fan. Fourthly, because yesterday, he constructed for me a home-mobility vehicle that allows me to CARRY THINGS AROUND THE HOUSE. 

This is a big deal, because when you're using crutches, you don't have any free hands. Robert's cupholder innovation is helpful, but too small to do any significant work. This home-mobility vehicle (HMV) allows me to carry several books, a cup of coffee, the Brita, and a bowl of cereal and yogurt from the kitchen to the pink room, or to wherever I want, really. The HMV is really a rolling office chair that Tom tricked out with a speed-rail attachment that supports my left leg, whilst still leaving my right leg free to push myself around. We have rolled up all the rugs so I am free to roll unimpeded from room to room on our hardwood floors. 

I believe he got the idea for this contraption from a sports doctor he's seeing for back pain. The sports doc's wife also just broke her ankle, and he came up with the HMV to help her get around while she was recovering. The sports doc also said, Orthopedists don't understand pain management, and he gave Tom a prescription for a hundred Vicodin, with two refills. !!! For Tom and me to share, he said. How nice.

I'm off Dilaudid (however romantically-linked it may be to Laudanum, Opium, Victorians, corsets, swooning, lace, hysteria, Xanadu, Lewis Carroll, or poetry, I must get off the stuff), and now just popping Percocet every 5 hours. It's fine, so far, although I spent some time yesterday feeling nauseous and weak. At least my appetite has somewhat recovered. I now eat 3 times a day! What excellent progress. 

Erika is coming over to do an Ab-blaster workout with me. I can't wait. 

Day Something. I can haz bucket?

At the beginning of this experience, I lay on the couch in my new cast with piles of stuff around me. I was constantly asking Tom to carry something for me into another room. Then we hit on the idea of The Bucket. 

The Bucket is a plastic bin that I have filled with all the items I need on a daily, hourly, minutely basis. It moves into the bedroom at night and sits next to me on the bedside table. It moves back into the pink room in the morning and sits next to me on the couch. I love my bucket. 

Bucket Contents:

The New Yorker, Feb 9 and 16

Moleskine planner

Half-empty jar of Omega-3 "700" EPA & DHA from cold water fish

Half-empty mason jar of homemade herbal salve

Vitamin organizer (Sa-Su)

Checkbook

Red wallet with owl decal

USB cable

Body lotion with royal jelly and natural mica to enhance skin tone (99.02% natural)

Green zipper pouch full of pens

2 straps for holding cold packs onto cast

Rubber MacBook keyboard cover, unused because annoying when typing

Hand salve- a farmer's friend

2 boxes of chocolate truffles, from Heather

Shea butter hand repair cream

Half-empty jar of vitamin D 3, 1000 IU

1 bottle Oxycodone with Acetominophan 5mg/325mg

1 bottle Hydromorphone, 2mg (only 3 left)

2 pencils, one sharpened, one unsharpened

iPhone earbuds

Emppty glasses case

Smaller jar of homemade salve

Memo book

Rewetting drops

Feline claw clippers

Tweezers

1 bottle aspirin

Half-empty water bottle

Downstate discharge paperwork

Pharmacy receipts

3 vials Arnica Montana pellets

Lip balm

Dental floss

1 bottle Cascara Sagrada pills (look it up!)

1 packet Desogen pills (pause to take today's dose)

1 ball point pen stolen from nurse at hospital

1 red diary

Man, I'm gonna have to downsize. I've asked Tom to do the cleanup game. He said, "Not right now." Dammit. This room is a mess. 

My ankle is bugging me a bit today. 

Day 3 Again-- notes

Life without growth is not living, and the act of growth can be pleasurable, and sometimes painful. Growing pains, they call it. The sweet ache of life. 

This limb aches with life. 

When this cast comes off, I will get pedicures. Many, many pedicures. Salons shall know my name. I will honor these toes and foot and ankle. Perhaps I may wear toe rings. No, toe rings bug me. Well, lots of great foot massage then. 

My body is jellifying. Diminished and pale and jellied. 

Spring is bound to come, though. 

Let me just say, when you haven't pooped in 4 days, finally pooping is deeply joyful. It restores your hope in the world. 

Also, situps continue to be available and I shall partake daily. Still waiting on the set of small weights. 

There was a chunk of plaster on my cast that stuck into the back of my knee and kept me from bending my leg much. Tom cut it off tonight with some perfect tool that he has made just for cutting plaster. My cast is more comfortable now. Still tight, but getting looser. 

2 Dilaudid, 2 Percocet. 

I finished the Ommivore's Dilemma, by Michael Pollan. Do you know that we are all eating corn, in the form of meat? The meat in our supermarket comes from cows that are eating corn (plus lots of antibiotics, so they don't die from it), but cows are supposed to eat grass. Grass, people. Cows eat grass. Not corn. They have 4 stomachs just for the purpose of digesting grass! But cow factories feed corn, because it fattens up the meat quicker. And because our government makes corn very, extremely cheap for industry. 

So, we eat those cows. We are at the top of that food chain. 

Just sayin. Read the book, it's good.  8th grade RL. 

I also finished Away, by Amy Bloom. It's about a Russian Jewish woman who emigrates to America in the 20's, after living through the massacre of her family in her home town. It's a great story, full of characters and lascivious yet elegant details. The librarian at Heritage, Caitlin, recommended this book to me and today I recommend this book to you. It would be good if you were on at least a 10th grade reading level for this book. 

Now working on Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver. Locavore food movement. It's okay...I'm a little bored but so far inclined to withhold judgment as to how good a book it is. 

In the queue is Home, by Marilynne Robinson. 

I watched Entourage today. a whole disk. What an utter work of shit. I can't believe it's had more than one season. 

I had a couple of nice visitors today. Tom was working, so we set up some babysitting shifts. Robert Feldman brought me a bunch of DVD's, thai food, and cardboard and duct tape. He fashioned me a cupholder on my crutch, and gave me a travel coffee mug. Now I can make myself tea and carry it to the couch. Also can carry: small ice packs, moisturizer, water bottle. Robert is a very clever man. And interesting. He even did the dishes and took out the garbage!

Meredith came by and brought flowers and chatted. 

Hector came by to bring me the schedules of all the 10th graders-- sweet! He hung out for a while and we speculated on the relative probabilities of keeping our jobs in these tough economic times. 

Chin up. 

 

Day Eleven Hundred- Post Surgery

Don't break your bones, kids. It's really painful, inconvenient, and depressing. 

Thursday was, by far, the worst day of my life. I'm not joking. 

I wasn't allowed to eat or drink anything, even water, all day, because they don't want you puking it up and choking when you're under general anesthesia. 

Also, hospitals aren't the most user-friendly institutions out there. We spent so much time waiting to be called, in various waiting rooms around the hospital, and they don't care if your broken ankle is throbbing because it's not elevated because you're sitting on one of their waiting room chairs, nor do they care to give you a wheelchair rather than make you crutch your way through the halls and elevators, with your heavy cast dangling and your dehydration headache making you all confused. 

Tom had to leave at 11 am to go to work, which in some ways was the worst part of the whole day, besides right after surgery, which was scheduled for 3. I was so thirsty and sweaty and sore and scared and frustrated that I cried a little after he left, feeling pretty sorry for myself, but then stopped when I realized I was losing precious fluids in the form of tears. 

I will skip the part where I waited for what seemed like fifty-eleven more hours, skip the anxiety, skip the part where the anesthesiologist put the IV in the wrong spot on my wrist and I almost passed out, skip the freezing OR, and just mention two things: one, that a very dear friend showed up later that morning after Tom left and helped me get through the afternoon, and two, that waking up after surgery was the worst thing I've ever gone through. 

I've never been in that kind of pain. My whole body was writhing, my jaw chattering, I could barely breathe. Some smart nurse wrapped a warm blanket around my head which cut down on the sudden sensory input of the recovery room, but with the oxygen mask roaring in my ears, unable to get a full breath, and the unbelievable pain in my left leg, I felt unhuman. 

My sister-in-law Anne was there immediately, like an angel, patting me and saying soothing things to me that I couldn't hear past the oxygen mask and my chattering teeth. It was she who got the nurses, who were utterly unconcerned with my fate, to start the morphine drip. Anne felt like my only link to the world. She stayed with me, even after Tom got there when he was done with work. I am incredibly grateful to her. 

A nurse later told me that when she broke her humerus, the pain of the surgery was worse than all three times she gave birth. 

The surgery was supposed to take three hours at the most, but it took five. Nobody, including my surgeon, would tell me why, he just said they wanted to do a really perfect job. 

You can't sleep in a hospital, even when you're all drugged up on morphine, because the nurses are always in and out, the hallway is noisy, and they won't close your door. Plus there was construction going on outside my window all night. I couldn't wait to get home the next day, even though my pain was still high, just to get some peace. I got in bed at 6:30 last night and didn't get out till 9 this morning. 

The only cool thing about the hospital was my Foley catheter, which they stick in your urethra, which means you don't have to get out of bed in the middle of the night to pee. Getting up to pee at night is one of my pet peeves. Although, when I think about being passed out under anesthetic, in a room full of male surgeons and residents and nurses, and having someone stick that tube into my urethra in front of everyone, I feel pretty embarrassed. Ashamed. Silly of me, but still. 

This was a truly traumatic experience for me and two days later I am still feeling pretty horrid. The healing I had over the last two weeks has been obliterated. I am back to the beginning, and this time it hurts even worse. 

Day Skeighty-Eight

Dear Universe, 

Surgery tomorrow-- what fun! Thanks for hooking me up with a good doctor.  I really hope everything goes smoothly. Can you please make that happen?

Because, Dear Universe, I am tired of all this. I am ready to go outside. I want to do yoga. I want to run. I want to stretch. I hate the couch. I hate the cast. I hate being unable to take care of myself.  

I'm done, okay? Can everything please go back to normal now?

Regards, 

Alex

Day Ten FItter, Happier

Feeling pretty good, all things considered.  The sky outside is brighter than usual. It's groundhog day, and 49 degrees outside. 

Not that I've actually been outside. I haven't been outside for going on a week now. This indoor landscape is the only real place on earth, as far as I know. This couch, these walls. These pillows. 

Doesn't it sound a little cozy? Letting the world pass you by, gazing through your window at the clouds moving across the blue sky? 

It's not bad, I have to say, except for one significantly bad part. 

The bad part is getting better. Lesser pain and swelling. Surgery this week...then I'll have to go through the pain and swelling all over again. But by that time, there will be a light at the end of the tunnel. 

Diogenes, a student in my studio, sent me a text message today. Tomorrow my students will all be back at school, after the Regent's. I won't be back for a month. I am worried about how they will manage without me, and how to make myself available and helpful to them. 

Tom found me a set of light weights, so I can keep my arms in shape while lying here. I have nothing better to do. Also sit-ups. I can do sit-ups. One must retain some semblance of one's former glory, after all. Even if but a shadow. 

My sister left this morning at 5 am. She was so great to have here, so incredibly helpful and kind. She gave Tom a break from everything. So now he's much nicer, too. I must do something nice for her. Perhaps something in the mail. I will mail her my cat, maybe. She does like him. No, actually....not my cat. Maybe a tiny replica of Larry Fitzgerald, with a red and white suit and a tiny number 11, and a miniature curvaceous bum. Hmmm...

I told my friend Mark about the "Blackness Scale" created by Terrence and Ajay, and he was intrigued, wanted to know how black he was. Obviously, this guy is white. Here are his self-made lists of scores for and against him.

Pros:

Know lots of African-American music-- jazz to hip hop

Strong slang vocabulary

Basketball skillz (see? vocabulary)

Wear lots of track suits

40's 

Have talked to Warren G on telephone

Have dated white girls with huge asses (bonus ++)

Cons:

Pretty nerdy

Own a Belle and Sebastian album

Hang around a lot of frosties, aka white devils

Don't like okra, gravy

Can't dance (excepting robot)

Mark thinks he should get a 7/10 (whereas Terrence placed me at at 6/10), but I can't be the judge. 

Day Seven

It's been a week since the fated trip to Fahnestock Winter Park.  Six days till surgery. I haven't been in pain up til now. This morning, when I get up on crutches, intense pain shot down my shin and came to rest in a throbbing burning ball in my ankle, as though someone was pouring lava down my leg. It roiled and scalded and scooped a hole in my bones. 

Modern Western medicine has the antidote, though: narcotics. Everyone I talk to asks if I am in pain and then they say, "Did they give you the good drugs, though?" Yeah, they did. But I have to say, Vicodin and Percocet aren't really my definition of "good." Painkillers are weird, because they don't actually fully take away the pain, but they can sort of veil it so that it's not such a big deal anymore. Painkillers make your brain not notice the pain. 

I'm listening to Dead Prez right now (as Ajay Ram says, "white people love Dead Prez,") and that last line about painkillers went right along with the beat of "Radio Freq." Or maybe I'm just high on drugs. 

I don't handle pain very well. Humans in general fear pain, I think. Some handle it better than others. An injury like this makes me scoff at Hollywood. We've all seen those action sequences where the hero falls and lands wrong and gets up and continues to limp along whilst shooting bad guys. Then in the next scene, the limp is gone, but there's a bullet wound in his shoulder, about which he seems equally blase. Me, I would just faint after the fall. And then I'd lie there, passing in and out of consciousness, and the bad guys would come and shoot me and the movie would be over. 

In my head, there is this ongoing debate about anaesthesia, which essentially boils down to: general, or sedation and epidural? When getting one's body cut, hammered, and scraped, is it better to be dead or alive?

Gee I'm sunshiny.

My sister Kendall is here. She did yoga on the rug next to The Couch, and then persuaded me to do some situps. My leg didn't hurt at all-- high on drugs. Then she gave me a massage. I highly recommend having a good sister. 

Day Five

Taking baths is my new greatest pleasure, besides sleeping. Before the break, my two chief pleasures were eating, and another thing that isn't appropriate for a public forum. Now my appetites are much reduced. 

Bathing is, at least, something to break up the monotony of a day on the couch. The cats like it too. Mouse sits on the toilet seat and peers at me as though he can't quite understand what I'm doing lying down in a tub full of warm water. Then he taps his paw against the shampoo bottle till it falls into the tub and he jumps away from the splash, pleased with himself. Kitty Girl is more sceptical of the whole operation and watches guardedly from the bathroom doorway. She is not going anywhere near you insane creatures who like to submerge yourselves in water. 

I've used up all the bath salts that were lingering around the bathroom shelves for months or even years, and the bath oil that I purchased a small bottle of three years ago. Who takes baths, after all? They are, for some reason, a luxury. But not being able to shower standing up has turned them into a necessity. And I welcome the excuse. 

I am feeling not as dark as yesterday. My father, who fancies himself a follower of natural medicine, prescribed to me three remedies: homeopathic arnica, to bring down the swelling and bruising, fish oil (6000 mg/day) to keep from clotting and to lessing inflammation, and vitamin D 3, for what he calls "the sads." It all seems to be working. I can wiggle my toes and there is extra room inside the cast now, instead of being all filled up with swollen foot meat. However, even though I'm feeling better, it's not as hopeful as it might be, because surgery will put me back to square one as far as recovery/healing goes. So the important thing in the meantime is not to succumb to the dark forces of lethargy, ennui, and depression. 

This whole situation is creating some strain on my marriage. My poor husband now has to take care of 100% of the household tasks, as well as the little personal things I can't do for myself, like carry anything from room to room, get up to switch the stereo to CD mode, or put clothing into drawers or in closets. It's twice as frustrating for me, because contrary to popular belief, I don't LIKE being waited on hand and foot. I have been accused of being a princess before but this is proof that really I'm just a peasant with noble and/or artisanal aspirations. A true princess would accept the service as her due. Me, I am just restless and annoyed. I hate asking for things. 

However, Tom and I came up with a game to help remedy this situation. He stands in the room and I tell him exactly what to do, in what order. Put this bag into the bottom drawer and then close the drawer. When you're done with that, take this mug, that wine glass, and this piece of orange peel into the kitchen. Wash the mug and glass and throw away the orange peel and then come back in here. Get me the clipboard, it's on my desk under the pile of papers and then clip this paper onto it. Go into the closet, get out my jacket, and in the jacket pocket you will find another piece of paper...

And so on. Tom likes it because he doesn't have to think or make decisions, and I like it because I can clean the room without getting up from the couch. 

9 more days till surgery. 

Day 4 Despair

I didn't have surgery yesterday. My ankle is too swollen. If they do surgery now, the skin may not heal correctly, and then, as Dr. Goldman said, a manageable problem could turn into a very difficult situation. 

So he scheduled my surgery for NEXT FRIDAY, ten days from now. Oh it sucks. It sucks sucks sucks sucks sucks. 

10 days of sitting on my ass. 10 days of not healing. 10 days till they cut into me and then another month to heal from the surgery. 

Morbid fears:

Gangrene

Not being able to walk again ever

Amputation. Prosthesis.

Surgery hurts bad.

Vicodin addiction.

Constipation.

Marriage is ruined by stress.

This room is stifling. 

This room is freezing. 

Need:

ice

clipboard

garbage receptacle

sage smudge stick

the ability to write

student loan paperwork

teething ring. 

Wonder:

Is my writing practice broken?

How do I keep from going insane?

-1. Don't smoke crack. 

-2. Talk to husband

-3. ?

And I won't walk unassisted for three whole months.

I've got to get out of this room. 

Day 2

Spiral fracture. Spiral fracture. Spiral fracture. 

Rather poetic, really.  Spiral-- I like spirals. The galaxy moves in a spiral, through time. Spirals are carved into ancient Irish boulders that line the path to the Newgrange tomb. Spirals are the best pasta shape. To get the longest piece of cord from rawhide, you cut in a spiral. 

Fracture, however....fractious fraction frak freak fracture refract...none of these lead to anything likeable. Except refraction, which leads to rainbows. And fraction, which leads both to math class, and to fairness. Frak leads to Battlestar Galactica, which I detest and yet am obligated to watch because Tom loves it. Fractious (2 word parts, "frac" and "tious," say "frac," say "shuss." Synonyms: bad tempered, unruly, irritated).

I spun my ankle over my ski. Twisted the bones so hard they broke. Twisted them-- spiral-- so hard they broke-- fracture. 

So tomorrow at 8:15 am I am supposed to have surgery. Tom and I spent the day on the phone with various doctors' offices, trying to get the right guy for the job, make sure he's covered by our health plan, etc. The right guy's name is Ariel Goldman, and he's an orthopedic surgeon. He may or may not be at the clinic where I'm signed up for surgery tomorrow. We shall see. 

Day 1

Hello, it's Ms. Webster. You may have noticed I'm not at school. This is because I injured myself-- I fractured my left ankle while skiing over the weekend.  This blog is for me to keep in touch with you and for you to keep in touch with me. You can comment on any blog to let me know how and what you're doing. Remember, I am at home on my couch with a gigantic cast on, bored out of my mind. So please, leave comments. 

So, here's what happened.

1) I am a sucky skier.

2) The hill was icy.

3) I lost my balance and fell.

4) Ouch, my left ankle hurt. Bad.

5) I fainted.

6) The ambulance took me to the hospital.

7) They took x-rays.

8) My ankle was fractured in 3 places.

9) They put a cast on it.

10) I have to have surgery.

I didn't even get to ski! This happened on the hill down from the lodge to the trail! I felt really stupid, like I'd ruined everyone's day. 

Tom and I spent most of yesterday in the Putnam Hospital. My leg hurt pretty bad, but if I didn't move it, the pain was less. I spent a while thinking, oh, this is just a sprain. They'll put a splint on it, and I'll be out of here. 

We waited a while, and then an orderly wheeled my gurney to the radiology lab, where they take x-rays. She took about three bajillion x-rays, which hurt because I had to keep moving my ankle into different positions. Then she wheeled me back to the little room where they had stashed me earlier. I cried a little and played Fuzzle on my phone. 

A male nurse came in and said, "Bad news, you fractured your ankle in three places. You will probably need surgery. Someone will come in and put you on an IV with some pain medication." 

He left, and I started crying.  My ankle hurt really bad now; knowing it was broken somehow made it worse. And the idea of surgery was scary. I've never had surgery before. I've never even broken anything before. And now here I was, crying into my ski gloves in a hospital, my ankle screwed up beyond recognition. It was swollen and disfigured. My toenails looked like little red-hots embedded into 5 pale sausages. 

Another nurse came in and started hooking me up to an IV. I have this problem where any time I get blood drawn, have to get a shot, hurt myself, or cut myself, I faint. This was no exception. I started blacking out, which was bad because I really had to pee, plus my ankle killed and the needle in my arm was taking forever, and I couldn't breathe real well. Tom, who has seem me do this before-- on our honeymoon, for instance, when I got food poisoning and fainted in the street-- explained the problem to the nurse, so she wheeled me into another room, where they hooked me up to one of those machines that beeps a lot and monitors your breathing and heart rate. Apparently I have very low blood pressure. 

We waited another kajillion hours, and then a doctor came in. He put my leg in a cast, which was maybe the most painful experience of the entire day, because he had to pull the bones back into place. I practiced deep breathing and tried not to pass out. He was nice about it.

After that, things got better. My ankle felt better, because it was stabilized. Plus, the pain meds helped. Go figure. 

We drove home to New York City. I parked my butt on the couch. We watched The Wire. I slept pretty well. 

The doctor said it would take about 6 weeks to heal. I can't imagine what it will be like having to lie here for 6 weeks; I guess I'll find out. My boxing instructor is pissed off.