Tag: surgery

Things I’m Thinking

~ Judy ~ 3 Comments

Doctor…No
I’m thinking I won’t have that bunionectomy after all. I discovered that the recovery can be treacherous, prolonged and painful and realized my foot isn’t that bad. I think a combination of various shoe inserts will do the trick, I really do. Also, I wasn’t crazy about the doctor doing the surgery (here are your options, Judy, pick one or don’t, your hoof is just one in the herd). Shoe orthotics, that’s the thing for me.

This is a holiday?
Went to the grocery store yesterday and Target today. Both were packed, it being Super Bowl weekend, which is second only to New Year’s Eve in sales of chicken wings and guacamole dip. I don’t really care about the Super Bowl unless my team is playing. And since the Vikings haven’t been super for some time, the only thing left would be the commercials, and you don’t have to sit through the game to see them anymore. You can watch them online.

I see there’s another talking baby ad. Am I the only person who thinks talking baby ads are creepy? The only thing more disturbing than talking babies are dancing baby ads, which would give real babies nightmares. Leave the babies out of it, that’s what I say.

The wages of love (or that’s what you get)
With Valentine’s Day around the corner, the other thing you see in stores now are a lot of sales on K-Y and similar products designed to enhance your special moment. You may notice that directly below these shelves are the ones holding an array of pregnancy tests. If you ask me, there should be a big arrow pointing from one to the other. See? This is what happens. Might as well pick up one of each right now.

Real babies are sort of aimless
Gina and the kids will be back today. They were here yesterday while Man Bret was sanding the kitchen cupboards, a six-Advil job that resumes today. Toddler Bret spent a good part of yesterday trying to climb the stairs. He can’t do it alone, of course. He’d kill himself. And he has no purpose in climbing the stairs anyway. When he gets to the top, he just wants to come down again. This is what he likes because he’s 18 months old and has all the time in the world.

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2012 – Year of the Bunionectomy

~ Judy ~ 2 Comments
AVAILABLE WITHOUT A NOTE FROM MOM

Have I mentioned how annoying it is watching your body fall apart after age sixty? Oh, that’s right. I do it all the time.

My personal illusion of immortality was shaken this week when I had to schedule a bunionectomy on my right foot, the result of a lifelong addiction to improper footwear.

When I was young, I thought only hillbillies living in the Ozarks and walking around shoeless eleven months of the year got bunions. Am I related to Li’l Abner? No, I am not. But it turns out that shoeless people are probably the ones least likely to have bunions. Them and the women who wear wide, sensible shoes with thick rubber soles. Walk around in pointy-toed heels for forty-five years or so and see what happens.

A bunion is not an out-of-control callus. It is a cuneiform bone deformed by years of pressure, not unlike the ancient Chinese practice of foot-binding deplored by enlightened people everywhere. I don’t know if that particular form of torture is still going on in a remote geisha house somewhere, but I do know you’d have a hard time getting young women in America to part with their fashionable 6-inch heels. This is not an exaggeration; high-heeled shoes today are six inches and higher. It is a mystery how anyone wearing them stays upright and mobile.

I’d tell them… Keep it up. One day an unfeeling podiatrist will be sawing off part of your foot and sticking a pin in it to keep your toes from falling off… but they wouldn’t listen, and I couldn’t blame them. I have a closetful of cute shoes I intend to wear again, yes, I do.

SO WRONG

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Photos: Google Images, orientvisual.com, parentingclan.com
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We Don’t Need No Stinking Soda Crackers

~ Judy ~ 1 Comment

That’s it. I’ve had it with surgery. If anything else goes whacko with this body, the doctors will have to make an extraordinary case for operating, and I’m not sure “or you will die” would do it. Had the tumor on my parotid gland removed last Friday and it was horrible. I wanted to die then for sure.

The thing is, I am not the best patient – ask my children, they’ll tell you. I complain, I argue, I don’t do as I’m told. I self-medicate – in the hospital, at home, I don’t care. It makes everyone crazy. And then in the hospital one is at the mercy of strangers, which keeps you from cursing as much as you might like. Some things I wanted to say in the 24 hours after surgery but didn’t:

1)  There is no anesthesia in the world that doesn’t make me nauseous, so there’s no point in telling me it shouldn’t. As my personal definition of hell is 23 hours a day of nausea and one hour of anticipation, it’s fortunate for you that there was nothing close enough to throw when I found out you were giving me only a half-dose of nausea medication. Finally, I do not want a soda cracker. If you keep pushing it, I will have to kill you.

2)  It seems no matter what time I ask, it isn’t time for more morphine. Really, is there a morphine shortage I haven’t heard about? Why are you hoarding it? Give me some!

3)  I have an IV taped to my left hand to put liquids in, another taped to my neck to take liquids out, and every other hour I have to wear inflatable leg wraps. If there is an optimal position for comfort in these circumstances, I have not discovered it. The bed is a rock, and none of its 56 amazing positions will change that. The pillow is a rock on top of a rock.

4)  Not only is my right ear and everything in the vicinity completely numb, it has the appearance of a breast implant gone terribly wrong. The scar below said ear looks like an amateur map of the Lewis & Clark Expedition. And I have bacitracin ointment in my hair. I do not feel pretty.

I can imagine the thousands of cell phone minutes burned when my daughters learned I was having surgery. “Who’s staying with Mom? What’s the plan? We need a plan!” They are patient and tolerant and sympathetic in the extreme, and after a day or so, I have to kick them out lest they lose their patience, tolerance and sympathy.

Those nodules on my thyroid gland? They will be the size of hard-boiled eggs before we part company.