Everyone's crow is the blackest

I work with a woman who doles out cliches and mixes sayings into her regular dialogue as easily as she breathes air. I've started to jot these down, as most have never rolled over my ears before and most probably never will again. My favorite? One time during a meeting, she referenced how certain people suggest outlandish ideas that will never come to fruition by saying "sometimes it seems like they're trying to boil the ocean." Brilliant! While I have yet to reuse such saying in any of my conversations, I am about to borrow another one of her gems.

Today was cast day for me. I got the pesky plaster splint removed from my leg for my first post-operative appointment. It was SO liberating to have that thing torn off after trying to sleep through many an uncomfortable night with it digging into the tender sides of my ankle. The battle wounds on my ankle 10 days post-surgery weren't pretty. MAN, were they UGLY and GROSS. I don't much care for them. I will spare you from the pictures I took since I don't think anyone wants to see a crusty, bruised, stitched up CANKLE.

I'll let you create your own mental image of the gore and instead show you what it looked like just before they paper mache'd  my cast on. The tape is covering where they removed my stitches. Kinda hard to tell from this angle, but I've got serious cankle action going on. Also have to mention that my calf muscle in that leg is already a bunch of mush.

My orthopedic surgeon sent me home with a few pages of glossy photos of the inside of my ankle which are pretty cool. I wish he had labeled them for me so I could explain what everything was to my lucky family members who get to listen to me drone on about the topic. Basically, he told me that the insides of my ankle were far more littered with shrapnel "floating bodies" than the MRI had shown. They removed pieces of cartilage floating around everywhere. They re-threaded the ligaments on the outside and then sewed in an allograft (cadaver) tendon to reinforce the ankle that is woven through a hole they drilled in my bones and secured. They cleaned up the bone lesions that resulted from bones grinding where the cartilage was no more and drilled a cavern where new cartilage would regrow.

I will spare you from my moans and groans about how frustrating it can be to deal with crutches, how bruised my hands and sides are from the crutches themselves, how even the simplest activities have now become herculean efforts. The first shower I took a few short days after surgery was an epic fail. I had to jump over the lip of the tub and over the sliding glass door tracks and into the wet shower on one leg. Dangerous and not advised. Luckily, I only sustained one shin bruise and didn't fall. I also didn't have my vinyl shower cast protector yet so was standing with one leg out and one leg in. I didn't get all of the shampoo or conditioner washed out of my hair and was later drying soap suds off my body.

I could go on and on, and focus on how bad things are for me. But, everyone's crow is the blackest. There's someone else out there with far greater, more permanent challenges.

Instead I will try to focus on how fortunate I am. I was lucky to wean off all of my pain medicine 48 hours after the procedure and have my parents close by to tend to my every need. I am blessed to have such a great mother who, despite being under the weather, went above and beyond to make sure I was comfortable. I am blessed to have great friends who sent encouraging texts and emails, paid visits, cooked meals, and chauffeured me to places. I am lucky to have insurance that is covering the full cost of surgery. AND, my luck continued as they had just one black cast kit left at the hospital today. Not everyone's cast is the blackest! I chose from green, blue, white, pink, red and purple. Part of me now wishes I got purple, but purple doesn't match my outfits as well as black does.

My leg's new home for the next six weeks. I can't put any weight on it until it comes off the last week of June. I can't wait till it gets warmer and I start to sweat...oh boy. I told my surgeon I was worried I'd start losing friends if the cast doesn't stay fresh. I guess I'll find out!