Renting a Wheelchair

Greetings from the post-surgical ward.  Jim and I were talking about it this morning, and we've decided that if anyone ever becomes chronically ill, we will be buying a house.  It's difficult convalescing in a RV; there's no where to go, nothing to do.  We've watched movies, gotten caught up on television series and now we're watching BBC America.  I'm not crazy about the current Dr. Who.

 

We rented a wheel chair today.  I needed to get out of the RV, badly.  When I had the first foot surgery, I relied on crutches.  NEVER DO THIS.  It puts 100% of your weight on one foot.  Plantar fasciitis is frequently caused by rapid weight gain, you know, like a 100% increase.  So, for a year after the first right foot surgery, I had to deal with my left foot as well. Lesson learned, use wheels.  It's kind of a crappy wheel chair, the handles are too low and Jim has to lean way over to push.  But it did get me out for a bit.
Sorry the posting is so pitiful.   It's the nature of the beast.  Hours of tedium followed by more elevating the foot.

Gruesome Picture of my Foot

Today we went in to get the surgical site rewrapped.  I have to say that this procedure has been more painful than the other two on my right foot.   I would guess it's due to there being two incisions and the number of nerves that were removed.  To get to the nerves, the transverse metatarsal ligament has to be cut, and in this case cut twice so the nerves could be resected.

It was good that I got it done.  Bad things were going on in my foot, and they were not going to get any better.   The normal foot has one nice little nerve that goes up between the toes in the second and third spaces.  My nerves had thickened up between the toes (the neuroma) and had sprouted branches everywhere.  All of those little branches had to be pulled out, as well as the main trunk of the nerve.  That was a fair amount of digging.
Now, you have been warned.  The next photo after this drawing is my foot.  If you're squeamish, now would be a good time to click away.
 

The skin is everted like that to provide as much surface area as possible for the cut areas to adhere.  Over time they'll flatten out.  Since the ligament is now cut in two places, the skin has to take up more of the slack in holding my foot together.

 

I'm to keep it elevated 6 inches higher than my hip for 72 hours.  It's really tedious.  Dr. Lewis said I didn't have to use crutches, but I am very glad I have them.  Nothing is that far away in the RV, but keeping the foot off the ground is good.  So, that's what's happening here.

Vacuum Breakers and Feet

Do you know what this is? No?  Neither did we until yesterday morning.  We had a bunch of serendipity.  Jim was out dumping and flushing the black tank.  While waiting for the tank to fill, he was looking in the storage bays to see if there were any mice stuck to the sticky traps.  While looking, he noticed water running down a bulkhead that contains the Aladdin electronic sending units.  Bad, so very bad.  Water and electronics, never a happy combination. So we started the search for the source of the water.  We traced it to this brass thingy that looks like a hat, conveniently located behind where the washer/dryer used to be.  It's a vacuum breaker.  The fitting below the teflon tape had loosened up, allowing water to leak out and run down the blue pipe into the storage bay.  We had to text a picture of it to Erik at Elite Repair to find out what it was.  Who knew?

The top of the hat.  I like the name Cash Acme - it reminds me of a Roadrunner cartoon.

 

After the great weekend, the weather turned on us.  This morning we had sideways rain mixed with ice pellets.  Yea!!!!  There were also some short lived sun breaks.

So today we went back to Costco with my new sunglasses that are incredibly painful on my nose.  They took them back, which really surprised me.  I gave the other pair that didn't fit to Jim, so now he has new good sunglasses.  Prior to today I did not know I had to ensure that the temples could be bent far enough behind my ears to hold them tightly on my face, and that the space between the lenses needs to be small for my "high narrow bridge."  It took about 90 minutes to settle on something.  My most favorite pair I ever owned broke the other day, very tragic.
After Costco we went to Safeway and swiped produce bags.  I plan on bagging my foot and taping it off with painter's tape when bathing. 
Tomorrow is surgery.  We have to be there at 6:30 in the morning!  6:30!!!!!!  Argghhhhh!!!!!!!!  I really hate getting up early.  Dr. Lewis already wrote me a prescription for Oxycodone, which makes my wonder how bad this is going to be.  The two right foot surgeries were not all that painful, except for when the bandage rubbed all the skin of the top of my foot on one of my bony protuberances.  That was really the worst of it.  Anyway, it'll be something.
There may not be blogging for a couple of days, so stand by for further updates.

A Glorious Weekend in the GPNW

The weather this weekend was a gift.  The sun was out, and it was just glorious.  I had to laugh at us yesterday.  When we lived here, we rode all winter.  We had our clothing choices for the bikes calibrated in 10 degree increments.  For a given forecast we knew what to start off with and what would be coming off as the day warmed up.  Yesterday we left when it was 55 with a chill in the air, neither of us could decide what to wear.  After significant rummaging through the bike box we found the toe booties and the head socks.  As it turned out, they were over kill, but the rest of the kit felt pretty good.
Today we went out to Fall City.  It was 70 at the end of the ride.  This is very unusual for this time of year.  Sometimes it's unusual even in the summer.   The water buffaloes were out, the ones foreground are wallowing in the mud.  They looked happy.  They're so far away, it's tough to get a good picture of them.

 

The always lovely Sikes Lake.  There were no geese today, only ducks.

 

It's pumpkin season in Carnation Valley.  Jubilee Farm is running horse drawn wagons out to the pumpkin patches.

 

Tomorrow a new system will be visiting the GPNW, bringing us rain.  It's ok, we must vacuum, clean the tile floors and defrost the freezer.  If we wait much longer, the ice maker is going to freeze solid and quit making ice cubes.  That would be bad.

Das Boot(s)

Woe, woe is me.  We went to see the surgeon yesterday.  For some reason Jim and I both had it in our heads that stitches would come out in 1 week.  No, stitches come out after 3 weeks.  We live in an RV,  there is no bath tub.  Personal hygiene becomes difficult when you are wearing a giant inflatable walking boot and you can't get your foot or the boot wet. The COs have graciously granted me access to their bath tub, but one hates to intrude.  However, one probably will have to a few times a week.
The good news today was that insurance will cover a second boot.  I have to sleep in it, as well as walk around outside in it.  I don't sleep in my shoes and was not looking forward to sleeping in a boot that had been outside.
I'm sort of despondent about it being three weeks before the stitches come out.  As I've said before, I'm starting to feel like an RV.  It's always something.  We were really looking forward to getting back in shape after the three month hiatus after the heart procedure.  Now there's at least another month of inactivity.   I have noticed that as I get older, the length of time required to get back strength and cardio increases.  However, it is what it is.
This is the look I'll be sporting after surgery.  Fortunately my new jeans have a wide enough leg that I can roll them up.  

Today was a glorious day.  The sun was out and it got up into the mid-60s.  It was unnerving how warm and nice it was.  The weekend is supposed to be good as well.  I'm thinking we'll dig the road bikes out of the bed of the truck and go ride, albeit slowly. 

Rain, Fish and Feet in the GPNW

The climate in the GPNW is not as terrible as it was over the weekend.  Tuesday we were able to get out for about an hour's walk in Issaquah.  That's Jim walking over the Issaquah Creek bridge amid the leaf muck.  The horizontal(ish) element is a partially downed tree branch.

 

Today we went over to Bellevue Square to mall walk.  We really need to stop doing that, we're engaging in way too much entertainment shopping.  I will say that recently I was finally able to find a pair of jeans after searching for months - $20!  Today's entertainment was a new toaster.
Afterwards, we went out to the fish hatchery.  The fish are coming home.

 

Some were doing a backflip.

 

Others just performed a straight on launch at the weir.

 

This morning we discovered the carpet next to the wall, near the driver's seat is wet.  We think it might be due to water running off the top of the slide when we brought it in when we left Spokane.  There's no water on the wall. We're running the space heater at it to dry it out.  I'm using hangers to hold the carpet on the slide up, and as a ramp to tilt the heater.

 

I spoke briefly to the podiatrist's office staff today, the results of the MRI are in.  I have not one, but TWO neuromas.  TWO!  Count them, TWO!  They're in the spaces between the 2nd & 3rd and 3rd and 4th metatarsals.  It's no wonder my dang foot hurts.  We have to get up early tomorrow to go have a pre-op appointment with the podiatrist.  While the thought of more anesthesia is not a good thought, the idea of pain free walking is very seductive.  After surgery, maybe there will be new shoes, maybe there will be cute shoes.  That would be cool.