Still boring

One thing about spending a summer healing from major surgery, you don't feel like you are whining on your blog.  I just have so little to talk about.  My ankle is mostly boring although I got the cast boot caught on something in the car the other day and tried out some rotational force which wasn't really ideal.  I'm pretty sure it is fine and just a little bit scared that it isn't because I'm so used to my ankle not holding up to stress.  It's been pretty swollen which in turn leads to crazy nerve symptoms but I haven't been elevating 24/7 since I did it because my nieces were here.  So I've elevate a lot but not like it was my career.  Tomorrow will involve nothing but elevating and if there are any symptoms after that I'll deal with Nurse Rachet on Monday.  It's not worth going up and having my cast removed, a quick check and a new cast which is all they can do.  There aren't big exams of my ankle yet because I don't think the surgeon wants to have any big movements happen yet at all and when they start probably it won't be because he is pushing on it.  He did have me move it a tiny bit last time and he moved it a tiny bit but that's it.  I can move some within the cast and that is safe movement and so I'm assuming that the turning was safe movement even though it didn't feel good.  But nothing obviously tore which is great after the last few years and which I'll have to get used to over time.

In other news Dr. Mind seemed even less interested in leaving when I spoke to him last.  I think that it is possible that this won't happen although I'm still preparing for it to occur.  Right now I feel like I need to run after everyone I know yelling "don't leave me!" because I know that I'm going to lose my brother sometime soon and my cat won't be here for a very long time either and those two losses are enough for me to even think about, much less survive.  I already have a mental note made that Dr. Mind needs to make sure that the person who I see if there's an emergency when he is out of town knows about my brother because he is on vacation fairly soon and if things happen with my brother I will need help.

My nieces were here the last few days.  Anna was as attached to me as she used to be and I have missed that SO, SO much.  She says we are "best buddies".  We spent hours and hours reading and doing her "homework" (coloring).  She now loves books that I have always loved and so we have that in common and it seems to be a great bond.  I love watching her as a big sister.  The baby (who is going to turn one next week!!!!) adores her and it is so much fun to see them interact, although Anne can be too much at times.  I hope they are always so close.

My anxiety level finally has gone down but for whatever reason I cannot seem to get total control. For a while it was panic attacks and then those ended but it was still just very high anxiety and then that improved but I'm having nightmares.  What is worse is that they are often my September 11 nightmare and that is one I could do without.  Because I worked that morning in a basement with no tv, radio or cell service we were limited to the information we got from briefly catching a minute of news while transporting patients.  I saw Tower One fall while writing an order at a nurses' station so I knew the towers were both gone.  It was many hours before the ramifications of that were clear.  But there were many rumors that day that made the news and were then corrected and those were the worst.  I remember entering the PT room knowing that the color had totally left my face to announce that the Capitol parking garage had been bombed.  I didn't know that wasn't true for many, many hours.  It was a day of confusion for everyone but our piecemeal news was very traumatic.  In light of this after the Pentagon was hit (I think) they decided to have us treat patients quickly and go home as they felt this was time to be with family.  I had to work a little later than others because I ad a home health eval that had to be done that day.  So it was even more hours for me before I started to understand or even knew some of what had happened (I don't think I knew about Flight 93 until I finally got home and later was horrified to realize it had flown directly over my head in the first minutes of the hijacking.  I don't know why that bothered me but it always has.  I think it made me extra aware of what the passengers did in bringing the plane down where they did rather than over the several cities they flew over or would have flown over on the way to DC.)  Anyway, at some point all of it meshed into a nightmare where fact and rumors are one and the world is ending because of those events and we are watching the nuclear warheads exploding in the sky.  Those dreams have haunted me from time to time in the last 13 years and they are back right now.  It's probably related to things feeling very out of control.  My brother, Dr. Mind, my ankle......I so wish that I knew what the PLAN was for the ankle.  I know that he varies things according to need but I'd just like to know little things like he told my mom after surgery that it would be 12 weeks before I was full weight bearing.  I'm partial now and doing great with it.  In the plan at 5 days I wasn't going to be weight bearing until 8 weeks when I'd get a boot.  Instead I got the walking cast at 6 weeks with partial weight bearing and I'm supposed to get a boot at 10 weeks.  So I'm assuming that means boot and crutches for 2 weeks then weaning to boot alone and then eventually into a shoe which takes a while from what I've read.  But I really don't know and that annoys me.  I am really hoping that I won't be told not to remove the boot for showers; the idea of a hot shower and lots of lotion is keeping me going right now.  In fact I may just try to sneak a little money from my budget to get some good lotion with a great smell, just for this.  I want the clean that smelly foot and leg so badly and to get all the nasty skin off.  I think I am supposed to get 2 weeks of ROM on my own before PT but again, subject to change.  He seems to see the 12 week mark as a big deal so my guess is that he doesn't want the scar tissue disturbed until then but I'm trying mind-reading so what do I know?

And that's my life.  My good, sweet kidney cat is curled up with me, her defensive move against getting her routine anti-nausea medication.  It's been about 3 weeks since I gave up on most cat foods for her and she's really doing well as long as I hold to my principles (high quality food only).  I had read that cheaper food that was meat in the initial ingredients was as good as top brand food.  We painfully learned that is NOT true as she threw up and threw up and as so very, very sick one day this week.  Her stomach is so fragile that she only has to vomit a couple of times and it will be blood-tinged and this time she clearly felt AWFUL so I felt TERRIBLE.  (The blood no longer scares me, it just makes me sad, especially when I created it).  But now she's back to her usual weird diet of expensive foods, raw eggs, ice water, and tuna in oil and she seems to be feeling better.  I guess I'm learning to navigate this terminal illness thing but I certainly handle dying people better than dying animals.

Sorry this was depressing.  I don't even know how to change it and I guess that just says how I am really feeling right now.