Two weeks post-op

Well, the cast is gone, the stitches are out, and for the next 5 weeks, I am now the proud owner of a big, heavy black boot. (With air pump a la early-90s Reeboks!) I can put minimal weight on my heel, with crutches... so I'm not much more mobile than before. Actually, I walk much slower and it takes a lot more effort than it does to just be one footed. But I think I just need to practice and get the whole kinda-sorta-walking thing down. I'll probably still use the scooter-stool around the house though.

Although my foot is swollen, and multi-colored, it looks SO GOOD. In my humble opinion anyways. Still not perfect.. still a little angled inward, but SO much better than before. From what I've seen on other bunion blogs, the toes really straighten out, and figure out their true place, once the patient is allowed to start putting weight and walking normally on the foot. I've got a long way to go before that happens, but it's great to see progress already!

As promised, here are the gross Removal of the Cast photos:




And here are some awesome Before/After shots!



Thanks for all of the encouraging thoughts everyone! I definitely have those "Damnit, why can't I just get up and WALK to the desk that is 4 feet away?" downer moments. But thoughts of hanging out and hiking and climbing and doing all these fun things with all my awesome friends this summer, gets me through those moments! So thanks!

My boss just called...

...to tell me that I got a bonus this year!! Woohoo! This couldn't come at a more opportune time. My next two paychecks are going to be smaller than normal due to some unpaid time off for the surgery, and also because disability only pay 60% of your normal pay. This is just seriously awesome, and makes me feel a lot better about going back to the office on Friday. It's nice to know you're appreciated!!

Tomorrow! Tomorrow!

I love ya! Tomorrow!

I know you hate me right now for getting that song in your head, but it's worth it. Tomorrow I go to the Doc's for my post-op appointment and cast removal! And possible stitches removal? (Not sure if they are dissolveable or not.) I also don't know what will be put on my foot in place of the cast... probably a small bandage of some sort? But I do know that if all goes to plan, I'll leave in a big black boot, walking on two feet! Well kind of walking. I'll only be allowed to put 10% of my weight on my left heel, but it's better than no weight at all.

I can tell that my foot is ready for this next step. It involuntary twitches a lot... like it just wants to MOVE. It used to kind of twinge and hurt when it would twitch, but now it doesn't. It kind of feels good to move my toes every so often. Sometimes I move them just to make sure I still can. It's weird that it takes so much effort to move my toes the tiniest bit. I feel like Uma Thurman in Kill Bill, in the back of the truck, willing her toe to move. I have a feeling there will be more of this in my future. Especially when I go to Physical Therapy.

Anyways, it's been a while since I had a real foot update, so I thought I would post since I am SO excited about tomorrow. Mostly I am excited to be able to get my foot wet!! Yay for clean feet.

Oh, and yes... there will be LOTS of gross pictures posted tomorrow. :-) Stay tuned!

Stout Month!

The Mountain Sun, a local brewery, turns all of its taps over to stout every February for Stout Month. So tasty. My two favs are the tangerine cream stout, and the hazelnut latte stout. The cherry dip stout was also pretty good. I was not a fan of one of the super hoppy Imperial stouts we tried. Hops smells and tastes like soap to me, so that kind of ruins it. Here's some pics from the evening:

Ignite Boulder 3

Last night I ventured out of the house for Ignite Boulder 3. "Ignite is a night of presentations on a variety of topics, with a twist. Each presentation has 20 slides, that automatically advance after 15 seconds." Almost all of the presentations were hilarious, all were entertaining, and of course highly educational. I was completely exhausted from my night out on the town, and literally slept most of the day, but it was totally worth it. I met a bunch of awesome new people and got lots of signatures and pictures for the cast! Sometimes it's fun to the be cripple girl in the corner ;-)



Check out more of my friend Stepan's pictures here.

Check out presentations from Ignite Boulder 2, and soon 3, here.

And if you live in the Denver/Boulder area, follow @igniteboulder on twitter so you'll know about the next one!

The Getaway

See George's full post here.

Kezza Goes Shopping

And the best video is yet to come!!

Smack it!

This is a true statement. I especially have a hard time letting other people do things for me because there are a lot of times when I am alone and need to do things by myself anyways. Therefore, I have perfected the technique of hopping on one foot with the aid of a crutch, while carrying something with the other hand. This is how I get things like food and cups onto the little table next to my bed. Around the house, my little scooter/stool-on-wheels makes me pretty mobile, so I can do most things on my own. Still have trouble reaching things, but that's nothing new. But I have to say, it is kind of nice when people insist on helping and do things for me anyways. I will admit it's easier.

I'm feeling a billion times better. I stopped taking the oxycodone yesterday. I really just didn't like the way it made me feel - head, body, digestive system - the whole package really. I maintained a regimen of Advil yesterday, but have even been scaling that back. Don't want any stomach ulcers or holes in my stomach. Sometime the lack of pain makes me worried - like did they cut a nerve they shouldn't have? But I'll deal with that later. I'm sure it will start hurting once I start walking on it. And I do have little moments of pain - especially when I involuntarily twitch my toes. I also took a shower yesterday, which felt SO nice. It wasn't super comfortable to sit on the shower chair and put my leg up on the corner of the tub, but it was nice to get clean. I'm sure it will get easier with time.

The one really great thing about this whole ordeal, is how truly amazing my friends are. I love how in times of strife, you see how awesome your friends really are (and how lame others are.) Everyone's true colors really shine. Some examples of awesomeness: Matt bringing me food and being a true lifesaver on Thursday. I think that will be a meal I'll never forget - I was STARVING! George for WD-40ing the scooter stool and for being all around awesome for putting up with me these next couple of weeks. Alex for bringing me Jamba Juice and watching The Office. Alex for coming back on Valentine's Day with flowers! Yay for getting flowers on Valentine's Day and not even having to ask! Especially since she looked like a lesbian at the flower shop on Valentine's Day. hahaha. Truman for bringing me my favorite Thai food, letting me live vicariously through his mountain adventures, and trying out the Smackit Racket with me (see pictures below.) Jamie for sending the best care package ever including said Smackit Racket! Vanessa for video chatting with me, and for being an awesome friend with whom I can talk about poop! hahaha. And Maia, Hoa, Rahul, Jay, Chris, Stepan, Ken, Stephanie, Leah, Dave, and all my other friends and family who I have yet to see, but who have made the effort to check in with me one way or another, keep me entertained, give me advice, and in general - make me feel loved! Thank you so much!! :-)

And now... here's some pictures of me and Truman trying out the smackit racket. It's incredibly difficult, and the only thing that got smacked was our faces. But still, good times... Next up - Bible Coloring book!

Kaplow!

Got the best care package ever from Kaplow! Check it out:

She even wrapped everything!!

Pictures of Truman and I attemping to smackit the racket coming soon. I think the only things that got smacked was our faces.

Cannot WAIT to color Jesus!

Please excuse the gross hair and face. I hadn't yet figured out the whole showering thing yet.

The Surgery Story

OK folks, as promised, here is my surgery experience. Sorry if it's not completely coherent - feeling a little funny at the moment from the drugs.

Bret picked me up at 5am for the drive down to Aurora. So early. I did manage to squeak in 3 hours of sleep, but I was still exhausted. Checked in at 6am and paid my $250 co-pay (not too bad, but it's weird to think about paying someone to cut you open. At least they are well trained professionals!) And cute at that! Yes, my orthopedic resident was very attractive. Helped distract me from the nervousness that's for sure. So after checking in with the nurse, getting changed into the gown, and getting snuzzled up in some warm blankets - I love the warm blankets!! I want a blanket oven in my house! - it was time to get IV'd. Not the most pleasant experience, but also not as bad as I thought it would be. Then the anestheticians came and consulted with the Doctor, and it turned out that because they would be cutting a tendon in my upper calf, they would have to do a form of general anesthesia. It wasn't a "deep" level - in that they didn't have to intubate me, but they did still have to put some sort of tube down my throat - which has made it sore.

One minute I was in the operating room and laying down on the table, the next I was waking up in Stage 1 recovery, and I was shaking a lot. My muscles were shaking - like I was shivering, but I wasn't cold. They started putting a bunch of those warm blankets on me but they started making me hot. It was mostly my butt and leg muscles that were shaking, so I kept saying to them "I'm not cold - my butt is shaking. No my butt is shaking. I feel ok.. but my butt is shaking." I guess that's normal though - to shake like that when coming out of anesthesia. Then I guess my doctor came and talked to me, but I don't remember that. And then the nurse talked to me for a bit and was helping me get out of the phase. It took me a while to get used to the feeling of my foot - I think it was mostly numb, but it felt weird and it was hard to articulate, and I think the nurse was getting a little annoyed cause she couldn't tell whether I needed pain medication or not. But we figured it out eventually. My throat felt really swollen and it was hard to swallow. For a minute I was kind of freaking out, thinking I was having some weird reaction to something - but then the nurse got me some ice to suck on and that helped a lot. Then some graham crackers and cranberry juice. Yum.

Finally, around 11am, I was able to get dressed and go home. I took a pain pill shortly before leaving the hospital and on the drive back I was SO out of it. I kept giving Bret wrong directions (even though he knew where he was going), and when we got back to the house, he shot that video below.

The first few times of taking the pain pills it made me feel like this - hard to think, articulate words, understand anyone. Basically I just felt really dumb. But then last night, my friend Matt brought me some food, and that made all the difference. I think it was just a mostly empty stomach that was making the pills do that to me. Since I've eaten real meals, it hasn't happened.

For all of yesterday, my foot was under some sort of local or nerve block - not completely sure exactly what it was - but my foot was numb all day. I think it has worn off now, but it's kind of hard to tell because I still don't feel much. But that very well could be the pain killers. My foot hurt when I woke up this morning, even though I followed the pain meg regimen throughout the night. I think because it got pretty swollen, and it actually got better once I moved around a bit this morning. I've also been taking 600mg of ibuprofen in 4 hour intervals (off set with the pain med), to help control the swelling. So far so good!

And now... some gross feet pictures!

Rockin the crutches

Sorry for the sideways video at the beginning... it gets right-side-up after a few seconds.

Kezza After Surgery

It's no David After Dentist, but here is me all drugged up after the surgery today. I'll write a full account tomorrow! Also, feel free to call me anytime. I'm already getting bored and would love to chat!

Awesome friends

Vanessa made me this...


Thanks for all the well-wishes and good lucks everyone! I have awesome friends. See you on the other side...

Tough Decisions

I have to be at the hospital at 6am. I must stop drinking all liquids at 4am. Obviously this means I must be awake by at least 3:55am so I can chug a glass of apple juice. That part is easy. Now the question is - stay up or go to bed?

Ready or not...

T minus 2 days. I've cleaned the house so the roommates won't hate me too much. (It's messy again.) I have almost everything I need - still working on the foot covering for in the shower. Do I go with the rubberband and garbage bag, or a buy a fancy waterproof cast cover? I've got the shower seat and the roll-stool ... although apparently I need to WD-40 the stool. My roommates might have nightmares from the sound of the stool rolling down the hallway. I foresee a bored future me filming some sort of homemade horror flick.... hmmmm...

Tomorrow at 2pm I call the hospital and find out my surgery time. I'm REALLY hoping that it's in the morning. Apparently, I cannot eat anything for the 8 hours pre-surgery. I can only drink apple juice, black coffee, tea and water. The last 2 hours I can't even drink anything. It even says that chewing gum and sucking on hard candy is not allowed. So basically, no saliva allowed. Geez. So anyone who knows me well, knows that it will be MUCH better if those 8 food free hours occur while I am sleeping. I apologize in advance to Bret if I'm crankier than normal that morning. At least all this food and drink deprivation will help me pass out easier.

I'm planning on requesting the twilight anesthesia versus the fully-knocked-out general anesthesia. For both they give you a nerve block, so my leg will be completely numb for 24 hours. That will be an interesting sensation. Instead of knocking you out completely, for twilight, they gently sedate you. This means that you could be awake during part of the surgery. However, they also give you a medicine called Versed, which is essentially an amnesia drug. So if you do wake up and talk, you have no recollection of it. So Harry Potter-ish! I guess it's a lot easier on your body to not have to deal with full knock-out. So hopefully I'll be all amnesia'd and happy and won't remember a thing.

I'd like to extend a HUGE thank you to my ride, and my former ride. You know you are. Former ride could not make the trek to Aurora with me due to unseen circumstances, and current ride stepped up to the plate like the awesome friend he is. And to everyone else who offered, or who has offered to hang out and keep me company, etc. You all rock too. I will definitely be collecting on those offers to hang out, as I imagine boredom setting in very quickly. I will most likely be hopped up on pain killers. I can only hope to be as entertaining as this kid:




I'll update again as soon as I am able!! Love you all!!

Vanessa starts her car...

(If you're at work - put on your headphones! Lots of swearing and inappropriate subject matter.)

Pictures from the week of culture

It started and ended with Twin Peaks. In between there was some live coffeehouse jazz, a Broadway production, a comedy club, a seedy blues bar, an Irish pub, the Colorado Symphony, a fancy hotel restaurant, a cool underground Mexican bar, a much-needed solitary brunch, a movie, an awesome happy hour, a quiet night at home, and a hike. It's been quite the week. Here's some pictures:

Boston's Famous Chicken! It's wicked good!

A conversation I had last night:


ME: Rubber Chicken? That's not a very appetizing drink name.
Anonymous: It must be a Boston drink.
ME: Huh??
A: You know ... Boston Chicken!
ME: What? Are you trying to be funny?
A: No... Boston is famous for its chicken!
ME: No it's not... what are you talking about?!?
A: Yeah my friend Paul is from Boston, and when I first saw his car I knew it was his cause he had a rubber chicken on the dash. Ya know, for Boston.
ME: Dude, that doesn't make any sense. I don't think people in boston even eat chicken. Are you thinking about baked beans? Clam chowder? Tea parties?
A: Come on - you lived there... Boston chicken! Ya know.. from Field of Dreams!
ME: WHAT?!?
A: You know, how Boston always has chickens hanging in the shop windows....
ME: You mean a Vietnamese open air market??
A: Nooooo! Come on! Boston chicken!!

Culture bomb!

Apparently this is my week of culture.

It started Monday with Twin Peaks and delicious Spicy Cinnamon-Sugar Popcorn.

Tuesday it continued with jazz night at a coffee house.

Last night was obviously dress-up-fancy-theater night.

And tonight it continues with comedy down in Denver. We'll be seeing Kyle Kinane, who is a friend of V's. Here's a clip:

Lipschitz...

I'm sure I've blogged about this before, but I'm excited so it's worth a second entry. Tonight, V and I are getting all dolled up and going to...


Yay new dresses and awesome musicals!