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.

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.

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!

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!

Day 5, Post-Op. I’m not feeling as much PAIN in my ankle, per se. I’m feeling a lot of stretching and discomfort and ITCHINESS! I just want to reach something in there and scratch above the right side of my ankle but there’s some iron-clad splint all up in there. The back is getting itchy, too, but I’m thinking it’s because either the incisions are starting to heal, or they already have and my weird, jerky, involuntary movements are causing the scabs to stretch and tear. *shudder* Just thinking of it gives me the heebee jeebees. But yes. I think my anti-depressants are causing me to develop Tardive dyskinesia (this is my hypochondria speaking) or I have restless leg syndrome, because even before surgery I was getting these weird spasms and jerks in my legs, usually around 11pm. And now it’s apparently happening when I sleep, because I’ll wake up from sleep with a bad pain. I’m just praying it’s my imagination and that my incisions are healing perfectly.

I’m also feeling quite tender and bruised towards the top of the splint/cast, sort of near my shin and calf. It’s the weirdest pain ever. Jorge said it’s probably because of them shaving my muscle off of the bone to make repairs. Just thinking of that makes me want to faint.

My face still has the weird scabs I noticed when I woke up Wednesday morning, the day after surgery. I think I had old zits or some that were forming and they didn’t give a fuck when they ripped the intubation tape off my face 😆 . Now I have these scars and a cut and it’s taking all the power within me not to mess with them when my anxiety strikes. I already managed to chew the inside of my cheeks and some of my lips. Why can’t I just stop doing that!?

I’ve spent the day finishing up “The Hook Up Plan” on Netflix and now I’ve started “Valeria”. They’re pretty good! I also finally opened and started using my AirPods I bought for a good deal on Target.com. I gotta say, I love how they make phone calls sound. I swear, sometimes I think I’m going deaf like mom. It really frightens me.

I ventured out into the house today! Emily pushed me in my computer chair LOL. But I immediately regretted it because my Halloween decorations are out and my Thanksgiving ones are not D: . There were old cups and dirty dishes on the dining room table and on the counter in the kitchen. The kitchen nook table had a juicy, rotting banana on it *aherk*. Emily cleaned that up. And threw the moldy, fermented apple juice down the drain. I was trying not to have an anxiety attack. She was supposed to make spaghetti because that was the deal if I got us Raising Cane’s for lunch, but because the pots and pans she needed were dirty, she refused to cook. Same, kid.

So she made me a sandwich instead. I am SO nervous about gaining weight while I’m thrown in this bed. I swear, I will not take being active for granted once my ankle is healed. I couldn’t imagine being stuck to my bed like this. This is a huge reminder about eating better and not going full Type 2 Diabetes (I was pre-diabetic during my last check-up). I think of dad and his amputations. I think of Mom and her now using a wheelchair most of the time. I think of grandma and the 61 years she spent confined to her bed.

Don’t get me wrong, the resting and downtime is great, but it’s frustrating not being able to clean, or do laundry or dishes (even though I hate it), or organize my bedroom or my desk. I’d like to move my Cricut machine to where it’s more functional and I can use it better, but there are too many Knick-knacks on my desk and shelves and I can already hear the girls whining if I ask them to help. The little time I spent in my computer chair in the kitchen really made my leg sore, so I came back to my room.

I guess I’m done whining for now 😆 . Going to get back to watching “Valeria”. And figuring out how not to lose my shit with the itchiness happening in my foot.

I broke my ankle on October 27th. I FINALLY had surgery on Tuesday, November 16th.

I woke up at 8:00am to get ready. The kids had already helped me out tons the day before by taking my cats to John’s apartment while I’m recovering. Their main area is my master bathroom so they tend to make messes everywhere and the last thing I need is a cat hair in my incision LOL.

Linda was here bright and early for me. She was driving me and staying with me while I was in surgery. She’s a Godsend, really. I owe her so much. Crazy that she was mom’s caregiver for so long and now she was there for me.

So Linda and I arrive at the hospital and they wheel me in. I was to be there at 9:30am and they were really quick about taking everyone in to the 2nd waiting area…but they didn’t take me in to pre-op till around 1:00pm. I needed to pee since around 11am but I didn’t want them to call me right when my buns touched the toilet seat, because that would be my luck. So as they wheeled me to pre-op I asked to go pee and did the urine test. The fact that I was going to have surgery didn’t hit me until I was undressing and in the hospital gown.

The nurse came and put a compression stocking on my left leg, my good leg. Then another nurse came and drew blood. Another came to insert the IV into the top of my hand and although it hurt like hell, the nurse really was pretty gentle. Linda thought I was joking when I yelled, “OH NO, THE IV! Give me your hand!” I was definitely not joking LOL.

It was another 2 hours between me getting into pre-op till I was taken in to surgery. Both orthopedic surgeons that would be working on me came in to speak to me, Dr. Pechero and Dr. Gillette. Leave it to me to have the type of surgery that would require TWO surgeons to work on me, Dr. Gillette being an orthopedic trauma surgeon. He’s actually written 2 papers and assisted with 3 more about this type of fracture and repair, which I thought was cool and again—only I would fracture my ankle in a way that was rare enough to have medical papers written about it.

The surgeons didn’t want to originally, but they were going to “go in” through the back of my foot, so I would end up with two incisions on the back of my foot. They also explained that they may have to bend my knee in a strange position to get into my foot. OR, they would flip me over, buns up, so they could operate. Of course they would. Especially since I’d signed the paperwork that students were allowed to observe in the operating room. Oh well. You’re welcome!

I met the anesthesiologist and he brought some liquid and inserted it into my IV to “take the edge off”.

I honestly don’t remember much after that except that a nurse was waking me and asking me if I felt okay. I was groggy and had that after-intubation-sore throat, but I got dressed, they wheeled me out to Linda’s car and she drove me home. I somewhat remember getting into my bed; I think it was around 8:00pm (outpatient surgery). I remember speaking to Jorge, sending updates to the kids and Mario, friends and family and briefly seeing the kiddos before I passed out. I had so much saline in me and I was so thirsty from not drinking anything since 11pm the night before that I woke up every hour or 2 to go pee. My leg felt heavier and heavier as the night went on.

I had enough drugs pumped into me that the first part of the next day didn’t seem too bad, pain-wise. But my leg felt even more heavy so I started dreading having to get up to pee. I was still on the liquid diet (they didn’t want me to puke due to the anesthesia) so around 2pm is when I tried eating 2 Fig Newtons and I was okay.

By 8pm that night, I couldn’t stand the pain. My right knee and leg looked so much bigger and obviously swollen than my left one. Plus my neck, back and legs were now sore from the position they had me in during the surgery. And I couldn’t sleep most of the night. I finally fell asleep around 5am.

So Thursday morning my kids forgot to leave me coffee or something to snack on LOL. Then since they were in a hurry and Bentos never came back after letting him out, Jaylen put his food and water bowl outside on the porch and figured he’d be ok. My camera app kept going off, indicating that someone was at the front door. It was Bentos. Running between the front of the house and back porch, waiting for someone to let him in. Then I hear thunder…and it starts raining. Of course it would rain!! And poor Bentos is terrified of thunder so I felt bad and had to let him in. So I prayed to God that I wouldn’t kill myself with my crutches and newly operated-on leg and made my way to the front door. He’s not there. Went to the back door and he runs in, soaking wet. He attempts to jump on me and I yell “Down” and attempt to carefully move with my crutches and almost slip on the wet floor! Of course I would twitch my bad ankle and felt a pain rush up my leg. Then I couldn’t find him and he ended up being in my room, hiding in the curtains. The little damp and dirty doggy laying on my white curtains. I asked him to get out and then it took me like 30 minutes to calm myself. I swear I’m so out of shape, just using crutches to “walk” with makes me winded!

I also spent Thursday morning trying to get stronger pain meds but it was to no avail. They told me to double up my Tylenol with Codeine and that I could start Ibuprofen. I also spent lots of time trying to get my medical excuses and all that sent to my boss who needs to pass those along to admin. I spent some of today doing that, too. It’s a bit frustrating that I have to spend some of my recovery time tracking down all these things and worrying if my paycheck is going to be short or not. Ugh. Anyway.

Today has been better. A little. My knee is still in a lot of pain from not being able to move from this position. My leg is incredibly heavy today and since I, OF COURSE, had to start my period today, I’ve been back and forth to the restroom a lot today. Not fun. But Gina and Omar came in clutch today. She called to ask if they could get me some dinner and brought the kids and me some Papa John’s Pizza. It was the best!

I’m actually feeling a little stabbing pain on the left side of my ankle now, which means that I’ve forgotten one of my pain meds. Since I’ve been incapacitated and in bed, I’ve been passing the time by watching shows (started and finished “Narcos Mexico Season 3,” “Locke & Key,” “Dietland”, “The Astrological Guide for Broken Hearts”, “The Curse of Von Dutch”. Watched “LoveHard” and “Red Notice” and have kept up with “Grey’s Anatomy” and “A Million Little Things” and have also started switching between “Catfish” and “My 600 Lb. Life”). I’ve also been blogging, scrolling through social media and TikTok, playing Pokemon Go and sleeping. Hopefully I can finish my book soon (Rachel’s Holiday by Marian Keyes—STILL reading that one) and start watercoloring again. Hoping I start feeling better soon and that there aren’t any crazy problems with this recovery. I always go back and think about my breast reduction surgery. That one was tough!