the neverending story….

The first few months of 1994 had an epicenter: March 31, 1994.  I was 9 and on Jan 14  of that year I had undergone bilateral femur, tibia osteomonies (translation: they cut and broke my legs in three places at the hip, knee and ankle and nailed it back together….translation: legal form of human torture in the name of pain relief…).

It snowed a blizzard the night of the 14th the snow drifts were higher than my sister’s head (she was 3). It was so cold that my parents, sisters and a giant Amish family kept been awoken in the night at the Ronaold McDonald House by frequent fire alarms. They would shuffle out in their PJs, coats and hats and wait for the Delaware fire department to arrive and try not to gawk at Amish nightgowns and winter coats.

Meanwhile I was awoken as well…. in the PICU with hives in a body cast. They thought it was my epidural so they took that out in the middle of the night while the blizzard winds whirled outside.  The Anesthesia resident got woken up four times before they did it…poor guy.   My Grandfather (ever the Top Gun) flew in late that evening somehow to Dover AFB and surprised us all.  I have been told it didn’t happen like this but I remember him walking into the ICU room in his US Navy black and gold winter coat (they swear he was in civilian clothes but my morphine drugged mind remembers this)  .    My grandfather and Dad took the night watches so my grandmother and Mom could sleep and take care of the little girls.  (which turned out to be a snow drill with the Amish times three).

My Dad sang Kum-by-ya to me in the wee hours of the morning once the epidural morphine began to fade and six new fractures and numerous nails started to throb…

and that was just the first night of a 14 day hospital stay. and the first night that I counted the days till March 31.

That the day the body cast came off. I counted the days the whole 10 weeks. We drove up there, they took me to the cast room and sawed me out in about an hour.   My legs were scaly, hairy and now dotted with fresh scars. I had not sat up in ten weeks. To transport me to x-ray they needed to transfer to the wheelchair from the high cast table. They picked me up gently but gravity failed me…I screamed as I came to an almost sitting position in mid-air. My body seared with pain at a position it knew no more.

Turned out the bones still had not healed.  i was not ready for freedom. they hollowed out my cast and made it into a splint which I went home in.  I was devastated.  March 31 turned out to be a terrible disappointment.

Nov 23, 2009.  10 weeks after  total hip replacement (translation: they cut out the top of my thigh bone and jammed a large piece of plastic into the rest of my thigh bone and into my hip socket…translation: more human torture in the name of pain relief).  10 weeks ago I discovered Nov 23 was the end of  the dreaded  hip precautions.  disappointing yet again. I can’t touch my toes…heck I can barely touch my knees. My hips are tight and resistant to the idea that they should now go back to doing what they did 10 weeks ago and more.  My therapist doubled my stretching in honor of the occasion. I came home soaked in a tub for an hour and still feel like my hip flexors are made of cement.

you would think i would learn to expect less…to expect no miracles but rather that all freedom especially orthopedic freedom is not free.  (if only the surgeons understood this).

yet again disappointing. really these surgeons  for all their confidence are more trouble than they are worth at times.