I’d been meaning to write for a few days now, but since my Desktop computer is still ridiculously slow, and I can’t seem to remember my password for WordPress, and I’m using my iPad as a laptop but my keyboard died (I literally hadn’t charged it in like, 3 years), and I couldn’t find one of those old-connection chargers—I didn’t update. (Wasn’t THAT just the longest run-on sentence in the world?)
Anyway. I had my follow-up appointment with my ortho last Wednesday and of course it took 4 hours. Linda is a saint for sitting with me that long, but thank God she does ‘cause she makes it fun. So when we’ve almost been sitting there for 4 hours and the doc finally comes in to talk to me, he already seems annoyed. He says, “You were supposed to come in 2 weeks ago, what happened?” I said, “Oh, I had to call and cancel my appointment because I had Covid.” And he snaps, “Well, I didn’t know that.” You would think the woman I spoke to would have made a note or something about why I rescheduled. 🙄
He goes on and says I should already be out of the boot. I’m shocked and mumble, “But I’ve been using it for the 2 weeks and I just started putting weight on it. I can stand, but I can’t walk on it at all.” He closes his eyes and says, “Well you need to lose the crutches.” My mouth drops open and I ask when I’m starting physical therapy. He says he’ll get his Worker’s Comp girl to give me information and that I’ll be attending 3 times a week. So to further annoy the man, I ask if I can go to my old physical therapy place because well, it kinda takes a really long time here for follow-ups, and how long would it take at their therapy? He says about an hour or 2 (bullshit) and that he’s in charge of my surgery and after-care so I would be attending physical therapy at their office. 😡
I’ve been putting weight on my foot more and more and have been “walking”…with my crutches. There is NO WAY that I can make my brain communicate with my foot and leg and move it forward. And when I do, I feel like I’m going to collapse from the shocking pain I feel in my heel and the right side of my ankle, where the scar is.
I should be starting physical therapy tomorrow—with my old therapy place. I asked around and I can choose where I want to go so *hmph*. I have to admit though, I’m terrified of what exercises I’m going to have to do. Last time was just sprains and strains. This time I actually broke something and have metal in my leg and need to learn to walk all over again 🙁 .
And speaking of learning again—I’ll have to force myself to eventually learn to date again because Jorge and I are completely DUNZO. Not even sure if I ever mentioned that we were trying to “work things out” again but that was a total flop. I think the holidays made us lonely and nostalgic and it was convenient to spend the holidays together with the kids and our families. But spending a week together just showed me we really don’t belong together. Even for Alaethia’s birthday last week: he was just in such a rotten mood and told me the ugliest things. The one that stuck with me the most and I keep repeating in my head when he randomly texts and starts being “nice” is, “I never should have married you” and other horrible things he said about why we got married. So I was a bitch and talked shit back. Of course before the night was over he texted to say he made a fool of himself and he was sorry but he couldn’t stop himself 🙄 . But it was fine. It needed to happen. I don’t want to waste anymore time being unhappy or on edge. For now, I’m concentrating on the kids, work and just living day by day.
Eenan and Alaethia tested positive for Covid on Friday. Mary picked us all up and we went to get PCR tests done. I was supposed to go out on Friday night but decided I should probably quarantine. Again. We get our results on Wednesday. They called us today and scared the shit out of us saying that all 4 of us were positive. I was freaking out; my hypochondria was acting up and making me feel like I was having heart palpitations and trouble breathing, but I’m sure it was a mild panic attack LOL. They called back to tell us it was a mistake—we were negative on the rapid tests. Jesus Christ.
Anyway. It’s almost midnight and I have to work in the morning so I shall go to sleep.
I am currently on Day 11 and I am, thankfully, feeling way better. The only thing I’m really feeling is the darn cough that goes between dry and phlegmy and the shortness of breath. Not only does lugging my body weight on my crutches make me tired; now I’m short of breath because of Covid, too.
A quick summary of how it started:
Day 1, Monday – Woke up for (tele)work and I noticed I had a scratchy throat. I figured it was my leaf-blower of a fan that caused it, since Jorge had just said the day before, Sunday, that he’d gotten a sore throat from my ridiculous fan. He had helped his mom empty out her storage unit and then was taking his kids and Daisy paint balling. He’d invited Jaylen but he was scheduled to work. Much to my annoyance, Jorge ended up staying at his house since he was drinking with Robert.
Around 9am that same day (Monday), he texts, “We have a problem” and tells me that Daisy and Justin were positive for Covid. Great. I start thinking back to our Christmas get-together and panic about our moms and then for Julien, who hasn’t gotten any of his vaccines (he was with his mom after the vaccines were approved for young children, so I assume he isn’t vaccinated).
Jorge says his sore throat is getting worse and now he has a cough. He’s also getting body aches. I start worrying that my sore throat isn’t from my fan after all. By the end of the night I’ve also got a dry cough and my sore throat is so painful I feel like I’m going to throw up.
Day 2, Tuesday – I wake up feeling awful. My throat is now very swollen and I have a bad headache. I called in to work and spent most of the day sleeping. Jorge Door Dashed some Gatorades to the house for me and the kids (mainly Jaylen) would pop in with gloves and a mask to bring me food (soup, mostly). I started my round-the-clock regimen of Tylenol every 5-6 hours. By the evening I was feverish and then got chills throughout the night. I didn’t even get to find out how high my fever got since our thermometer’s batteries were dead and we couldn’t find out newest one. Trying to get to the bathroom was brutal; every “hobble” I took with my crutches made my head feel like it was going to crack in half, and like my eyes were going to pop out of my head.
Day 3, Wednesday – I couldn’t sleep all night; I tossed and turned from the fever and chills, my throat was still making me feel nauseous and the cough was making my chest and back hurt. I called into work again and once again spent a lot of the day sleeping. The time I spent awake was spent watching “New Girl”. That day was when Angela tested positive and Julien started getting sick, too 🙁 .
Day 4, Thursday – I felt a little better. I was still coughing but my sore throat and headache were FINALLY gone and my fever finally broke. So I worked that day. It was a bit hard to stay awake; I felt so tired, but thankfully it was a short work-day. My body started feeling really sore, probably from my body contracting from the chills the past 2 nights. It felt as though I’d gotten a crazy workout after not working out for ages. Also, Jaylen made us some spaghetti and meatballs with Alfredo sauce. YUM.
Day 5, Friday – It was New Year’s Eve. I couldn’t help but remember my New Year’s Eve from 2 years ago when Jorge was still the district manager at the Wing Stop in San Antonio and he kept coming up with excuses for not coming home (they got super busy, they had tons of orders, etc.) but he was with that dumb little girl, Sabrina 😡 . In my usual fashion, even though I was sick, I brought it up to him and how lonely I was that evening. My biological children had spent that year with Mario, Jorgie and Justin were sick in their rooms with Flu B and Javi wasn’t there. It was just me and Bentos. This year, I was alone again and isolating, but I told myself I wasn’t going to allow myself to get upset about it. Instead, I masked up, washed my hands, gloved up, and made myself some Velveeta/Rotel cheese dip and some cream cheese and raspberry chipotle dip and watched “New Girl”.
The kids FaceTimed me and Jorge FaceTimed me too. He was doing a lot better. He was even working on Javi’s vintage truck.
My babies, at their dad’s
Day 6, Saturday – I realized I lost my sense of smell. I’d been smelling my Vick’s jar daily; to help with my congestion and also, the scent is so potent I’d know for sure when I was losing my sense of smell. Well, Day 6 was the day. I could tell that I was breathing in something minty, but I couldn’t smell it at all. Other symptoms on Day 6: my ears felt like I had cotton balls shoved in them and no amount of yawning or trying to pop them helped. My dry cough would come around every-so-often and I was no longer phlegmy, but I did feel some type of pressure in my chest. Like I almost felt like there’s a rattling in there? Or something. That same feeling is what makes me try to cough to get it out. Another symptom is muscle aches. Everything was still sore.
This was the day Briana broke the news to me that Betty White had passed away at the age of 99. And yet, it seemed like it was too soon. Jorge and I had just been talking about Celebrities that had passed and how sad it was going to be when she was gone. 😥
Jorge brought me tacos that day and we hung out for a bit. It was nice to have human interaction LOL.
Day 7 and Beyond – Jorge brought menudo for lunch on Sunday and it hit the spot. I’d been craving it forever. I tried getting around more (well, as much as I can with my crutches and boot) since I didn’t want to end up getting worse. I was feeling a lot better. Except for waking up all night on Tuesday from coughing. It was so annoying. It made the shortness of breath worse and I called in to work and spent a lot of the day sleeping. That night I was the same and called in half a day Thursday. I was just so exhausted. As of now, I’m a little worried to be honest, about the darn shortness of breath. Sending Jorge to CVS tomorrow to get me some cough medicine. I spoke to Martha tonight; both of us are getting over Covid. Well, she’s in the brunt of it right now. And my poor Jaylen JUST tested positive today 😥 . I hope it wasn’t me that gave it to him. He thinks it’s one of his co-workers. Mary took the girls to get tested today and thankfully they were both negative. I just really hope 2022 is kinder to all of us. I really do. I’m even scared to MENTION THAT because I don’t have the best track record. Praying for and manifesting the best vibes!
WARNING!! SOMEWHAT GRUESOME PHOTOS OF MY INCISION THROUGHOUT THIS POST!! VIEW AT YOUR OWN RISK!
It’s now 4 weeks and 5 days after my ankle/leg surgery. It’s Sunday night and I’m doing what I usually do: sitting/laying in bed, leg elevated and watching something. I was watching “Jane the Virgin”, which is the reason I wasn’t updating, heh. I finished the series and now I’m just watching random stuff, like The First 48 and Catfish. Which is my shower time show LOL.
So what’s happened since I last updated?
We survived Thanksgiving 2021. Even though there was some family drama a few days before, we ended up having Thanksgiving dinner at Jorge’s house. Dina was hosting and Javi and Julien were there. Justin was, too, and we met his girlfriend Daisy. Jorgie had stopped by for a while. My kiddos went to Mario’s for Thanksgiving lunch, like they usually do and would be by for Thanksgiving dinner. John joined us, too.
Jorge came to pick me up and we made our way to his house. It was tiring hobbling around on my crutches so I spent a lot of time on the sofa. At one point Jorge and his mom start fixing the “Knee Rover” so I can at least roll about the house.
See all that alcohol on the table? I figured having a little bit of moscato would be ok. I mean, it had been hours since I’d last taken a Tylenol 3, so I should be fine, right?
I could tell it hit me when I was giggling non-stop and rolling around on the Knee Rover. I couldn’t place my knee on it because my heavy-ass cast hurt my shin so I was sitting on it and using it like a little car 😆 . I started getting really tired but I needed to pee so I drove myself to the bathroom. I tried shoving the Rover into the bathroom with me and I’m not sure if I overexerted myself or if the combination of wine plus the residual Tylenol 3 in my body affected me, but I peed, washed my hands and as soon as I made my way out of the hallway I got really dizzy. I called for Jorge and he helped me to the sofa. But before I even got on the sofa I felt like I was about to pass out, my heart rate was through the roof and I was shaking. Jorge helped me transfer to the sofa and I just stayed there the rest of the evening—and did not drink alcohol again!
The food was delicious and it was great hanging out with everyone. Missed Briana and the kids being there, though 🙁 .
I was sad that an awesome cold front had rolled in and the rain was starting and I couldn’t go outside since I was afraid to slip. But it was a nice time and I really did feel grateful for my people, and that moment.
And Mom? Well I called to ask her the day before Thanksgiving when we should pick her up and she dismissed me with, “Oh, no. That’s ok, don’t pick me up. We’re having Thanksgiving here [at the nursing home].” I said, “Are you sure??” And she says, “Yes, yes. We’re having Sonia’s party today and then the Thanksgiving party tomorrow.” Well, alrighty then! As much as it sucks that she didn’t spend the day with us, I’m glad that she feels close enough to her friends that she would rather stay at the nursing home. She never would have done that a year ago!
November 29th was my 1st post-op appointment. I was nervous about seeing the incision but I was also glad I was going to see where the incision or incisions were located. The appointment took SO LONG; it’s never less than 4 hours at my orthopedic surgeon’s office. I’m wondering if it has something to do with Worker’s Comp. Anyway, Jorge was slowly losing it but he kept his temper. I got X-rays done, waited a while, then they took me to a room, waited a while, then they moved us over to the splint/cast room. When they finally came to remove my heavy-ass splint, two techs had to work to rip open the splint and then stand on each side while they pried it off me. I was terrified that they’d push on my incision. Oh, I only had one! I was seriously afraid I had two after all, but I didn’t; it’s just one huge one on the right side of my foot/leg.
The medical assistant tried removing the gauze that was directly on my incision. Whomever worked on my splint after surgery didn’t bother putting any non-stick cover/pad on my incision and since I’m allergic to steri-strip tape and they used glue to assist the sutures, the gauze was STUCK TO MY INCISION!!
They tried pulling it off but it was painful as fuck and they would have pulled off the glue and sutures. So what did they do? They SOAKED the gauze and the incision.
The gauze stuck to the glue over my incision. The brown stuff is a mix of water, old blood and iodine.
I sat there with my foot sticking straight out for about an hour. When they finally came to check on me the medical assistant said it was going to hurt, but she was going to pull it off. So she did. Some parts were brutal but I was glad it was off. She cleaned it a bit more and blotted it dry, then I had to sit there another hour and a half with my foot sticking straight out so it could air dry. It was exhausting and my foot was really swollen. They told me I wasn’t going to be able to get casted that day, due to the incision being too damp, so they put me in another splint. This one was WAY lighter than the hospital one! I was to return that Friday, December 3rd to get the sutures removed and get casted.
Jorge and I were both starving so we stopped by Zamora’s on our way home. I know I’m gaining weight from being completely sedentary and eating high-calorie, carby foods, but man: those enchiladas are LIFE.
My boss was quick to ask if I got my medical excuses and reminded me that I had an important training coming up the next week, all week, so he suggested I start teleworking because I’d missed a mandatory tech check that morning. I kind of felt pressured and instead of asking for a couple more days to mentally prepare, I said I could start the next morning. So dumb of me. My anxiety was through the roof those next few days.
But I worked and caught up on eleventy-billion emails with a lunch-time nap daily. I was still taking at least 1 Tylenol with Codeine per day, usually in the evening so I could sleep through the night, and it would make me drowsy after a few hours of being in front of my computer. But I made it work and when 4:30pm came around I didn’t feel as guilty about catching up on “Jane the Virgin”.
Linda took me to my December 3rd appointment. It, once again, took 4 hours just to have them remove my splint, tell me it’s still too “damp” to remove the sutures and then they showed me how to put on and remove my splint since I’d have to let my incision “air dry” at home for the next week for a few hours a day. I was actually supposed to return on December 8th to get the verdict on whether my sutures would come out or not, but since I had training the entire next week I had to reschedule for December 13th. The good news was: December 5th was the first day I didn’t take not one pain pill! More good news? I received my tiny fridge I’d ordered for myself since the kids liked to leave me without liquids during the day -_-.
I was mortified to find out that I’d have to be on my webcam throughout the training on Monday morning. So since I had very little time to prepare, I just filled in my eyebrows, put on mascara and lipstick and threw my robe on. Too bad; that’s all they get LOL
I did the same thing on day 2 of training, but finally, on the 3rd day and beyond I made myself sit at my desk for the full workday. I was super tired and my ankle was swollen by the end of the day, but I wanted to have a nice background and not be sitting in my bed all day. Plus my back was killing me since I couldn’t just flop over when I got tired.
I had Eenan put my Squishmallows up at the top of the bookcases and we both decided they made me look more insane 😆
Jorge was here the weekend so we hung out watching “Jane the Virgin” when he was here and he did my bidding, like bringing me food and non-stick pads for my incision. Monday comes around and we get some coffee and tacos and he takes me to my appointment to FINALLY see if my sutures can come out. Another 4 hours at that office and they finally tell me that the sutures can come out. The doctor checks on it too and says the medical assistant will “clean it up” and remove the sutures. When she finally comes in with the scissors and tweezers, she says she’s going to remove them and then put tape over it. I ask what kind of tape, because I’m allergic to steri-strip tape and she says, “Oh, this is steri-strip tape.” So she asks 2 other people what she should put on it and no one really answers. So she rubs iodine on the incision and then begins poking, snipping, pulling, poking, snipping, pulling. When she gets halfway through she pokes and prods the same spot repeatedly, to the point where I’m cringing in pain. I’m squeezing the crap out of Jorge’s hand. She says, “I’m sorry, ma’am, but this one’s really in there.” Well of course it is—I was already 2 weeks behind on recovery because of the wet gauze and sutures being too damp after that, so obviously they were going to be imbedded in my skin. After 30 hours (that’s what it felt like) she finally finished. The incision looked even WORSE now because there’s raw, bloody skin, a deep hole where she was digging and the glue that was STILL all around the incision was now yellowish-green looking and even crustier looking than before. She didn’t “clean it up” like the doctor said, she just put a gauze on my incision to cover it. I asked her if it was going to stick to the wound and she said no (lies) and I asked if I’d need antibiotics (since she practically dug all the way to my bone) and she also said no. They took me over to the splinting/cast room and they replaced the gauze. Of course the first one was already stuck and the man had to pull it off. Grr. Anyway, this time, they weren’t putting me into a cast or splint—they were putting me into a boot. They wanted to stabilize my leg and straighten it back out to a 90 degree angle. I told the man, “It hurts to straighten it out, though” and he said, “By the time I’m done with you, it’ll be at 90 degrees.” A few painful moments later, it was LOL.
The boot started to irritate the incision right before I went to sleep. It was really annoying trying to find a good position to sleep in because the hard plastic on the side of the boot was digging in directly into the cut. By the time the morning came around and Jaylen was taking me to my appointment with my physician at Texas Federal Wellness Center, I was in pain. My doc checked the incision to see where my progress was and upon taking off the outer gauze we realized the gauze the girl had put on the incision the day before was once again binded to my incision. So she carefully blotted some iodine on it and gently pulled it off. As soon as she did, she said, “You have an infection”. I knew it was going to happen!
The first photo was after the 2nd follow-up appointment. The middle one was at my physician’s office at Texas Federal Wellness and the third photo is from today after cleaning it up the last few days. All that nastiness was the glue they never removed.
I spent the next couple of hours trying to get my meds. I sent a gross photo of my infection incision (the middle one, above) to my Worker’s Comp contact at the surgeon’s office so she could show the surgeon and call in my prescription and she did. Love that woman! Then I had to keep calling HEB to see if they received it. They did, but had no info for my claim. I spoke to several people and they had no idea what they had to do. I said, “Look, I don’t mind paying it out of pocket. How much is it going to be?” The girl said, “The pills are $4, the cream is $354.” I said, “WHAAAT?? Ok, never mind.” And laughed. I gave her the claim number, because I knew that’s what they were going to need and it worked, thank GOD. worked.
So that’s where I am now: getting over this darn infection. Alaethia’s soccer season started that same afternoon. And Emily made the tennis team, so she’s been practicing for that. (Taking after mama!) I’m so sad that I won’t get to go to their games any time soon. I can’t wait till I get over this infection and can finally put weight on my foot, drive and get around. I’m not even wearing the boot since last night, since I’m pretty sure its not helping my incision close up. It would have been such a nice scar later on too, if that girl hadn’t gone crazy digging into my skin 🙁 . Oh, and I also can’t wait till my “quick showers” aren’t a whole darn hour anymore. Which I’m going to do now. Wish me luck!
