Today is just like yesterday - a whole day in which I have not much planned. The furthest ahead that I can plan is a few hours. My foot is feeling better today as the sun is shining and the air is clean, albeit cold!
Me and Cold do not mix, moreso since my operation. I can feel inside my cast, that the scars where the surgeon cut are tender, and really complain about the cold! I look forward to when I can soak it in warm water and let that heat dispurse the ache.
I also have a phobia of cold weather. When the bones that were smashed in 1991 in the MVA accident get cold, they really complain - hugely! Why is it that surgery that should help, has unfortunte and unplanned side effects? These effects last far longer than do scars and I think that some will last for the rest of my mortal life! I am so grateful that I believe that we are not here by accident and that our souls have existed for long before mortality and will exist for Eternity.
This life is only a time for us to learn how to handle our mortal bodies and such emotions as love, joy and disappointment. That one I am hving a really hard time with! I am disappointed that I can no longer breathe well or do even a patch of what I used to! I do have a glimpse into what the Lord intended when he said "... Man is, so that he may have joy!" (Moses 1:39 in the Pearl of Great Price - ask your local LDS Missionaries!)
Life is a time to learn, and ever since I was disabled, I have wondered what I have to learn from the tragedy of my MVA accident and subsequent disability. What scares me is that if you dont learn, then you are going to repeat the lesson until you DO learn! That is how it works when you learn to walk for the first time! You fall (luckily not very far!), get up and try again until you achieve success!
I know that since my disability, I have learned compassion, although I do realise that I still have heaps to learn! That (I believe) is why I have gone from Elders Quorum First Counsellor in Richards Bay, to Branch Presidency First Counsellor in Port Durnford - where the members are genuinely needy, and I feel that - disabled as I may be - I can make (and am) a very real difference!
Tuesday, June 26, 2012
Saturday, June 23, 2012
Moon boot
Today is another example of how I disbelieve in Global Warming. It is cold - cold enough to make my foot - encased in a cast, as it is - painfully cold. It is rerally strange that cold weather affects where you have had problems before. Where my bones were smashed when I was run over, really feels the cold!
Zululand and Cold dont exactly go together. I know that scars tend to be susceptible to cold, and my foot is severely painful. Strangely enough, my foot is painful around the heel - as I would expect, but sore along the one edge also. I understand that part of the operation was where the surgeon cut ino the side of my foot!
My GP announced that he had been advised that the warning to keep the cast on for 6 weeks was not unnecessary. I have to endure the cast on for a further 3 weeks, then I have the loan of a suitable moon boot. I am looking forward to the day when my moon boot is put to use!
My Mom reports that I have - ever since I could walk - been obsessed with cleanliness and it distresses me that I cannot either shower or bath! Sponge baths are the order of the day and I long for the day when I can relax in either a hot shower or a bubble bath. I have long felt that you dont realise what you lose (have to give up) until it is gone. I cannot shower or bath, for fear that I will get my cast wet - again! I was wearing a plastic bag to keep it dry, but the water not so much seeped as flowed into the bag. This destroyed the structural integrity of the cast and I had to have it strengthened!
Zululand and Cold dont exactly go together. I know that scars tend to be susceptible to cold, and my foot is severely painful. Strangely enough, my foot is painful around the heel - as I would expect, but sore along the one edge also. I understand that part of the operation was where the surgeon cut ino the side of my foot!
My GP announced that he had been advised that the warning to keep the cast on for 6 weeks was not unnecessary. I have to endure the cast on for a further 3 weeks, then I have the loan of a suitable moon boot. I am looking forward to the day when my moon boot is put to use!
My Mom reports that I have - ever since I could walk - been obsessed with cleanliness and it distresses me that I cannot either shower or bath! Sponge baths are the order of the day and I long for the day when I can relax in either a hot shower or a bubble bath. I have long felt that you dont realise what you lose (have to give up) until it is gone. I cannot shower or bath, for fear that I will get my cast wet - again! I was wearing a plastic bag to keep it dry, but the water not so much seeped as flowed into the bag. This destroyed the structural integrity of the cast and I had to have it strengthened!
Tuesday, June 19, 2012
Reliance
My GP has said he will communicate with the bone specialist and find out if - as he believes - in another 2 weeks he can remove my cast and fit me with a moon boot!
My cast recently collapsed after getting - accidentally - wet. I try to keep it dry but this proved to be impossible.
I will need to wear a supportive moon boot for at least 6 weeks. The benefit of my GP fitting me for one is, he has around 150 "pre - owned" moon boots in storage. I can use one of these, nstead of my medical aid forking out thousands on a new one for 6 weeks use. I can borrow one from him at no cost and when I am finished with it, just hand it back. What else do you do with them once you no longer need them, but pass them on to the GP for use by another! How green is that - Recycling moon boots?
Once I am allowed to wear a moon boot, I will no longer need my crutches! That WILL be a happy day as I loathe being reliant on anyone! I had a friend say to me that I am to be admired for my fortitude but I think that I am so stubborn that I dont like to be reliant on anyone else!
I have been advised that it is a sin not to want help from ANYONE and I acknowlege this but there HAS to be a point where you need to take control over what happend to you, for yourself! It jars when you can do very little for yourself, and I yearn for the time when I can be indepedant again. Sure there is nothing wrong with accepting help, graciously offered, but I do so enjoy the freedom that I usually have of something as simple as STANDING. I am maybe TOO independant.
Even though I am (unavoidably) disabled, I DO enjoy being able to do things without help. You have no idea how free you feel if you can live adequately, on your own!
My cast recently collapsed after getting - accidentally - wet. I try to keep it dry but this proved to be impossible.
I will need to wear a supportive moon boot for at least 6 weeks. The benefit of my GP fitting me for one is, he has around 150 "pre - owned" moon boots in storage. I can use one of these, nstead of my medical aid forking out thousands on a new one for 6 weeks use. I can borrow one from him at no cost and when I am finished with it, just hand it back. What else do you do with them once you no longer need them, but pass them on to the GP for use by another! How green is that - Recycling moon boots?
Once I am allowed to wear a moon boot, I will no longer need my crutches! That WILL be a happy day as I loathe being reliant on anyone! I had a friend say to me that I am to be admired for my fortitude but I think that I am so stubborn that I dont like to be reliant on anyone else!
I have been advised that it is a sin not to want help from ANYONE and I acknowlege this but there HAS to be a point where you need to take control over what happend to you, for yourself! It jars when you can do very little for yourself, and I yearn for the time when I can be indepedant again. Sure there is nothing wrong with accepting help, graciously offered, but I do so enjoy the freedom that I usually have of something as simple as STANDING. I am maybe TOO independant.
Even though I am (unavoidably) disabled, I DO enjoy being able to do things without help. You have no idea how free you feel if you can live adequately, on your own!
Saturday, June 16, 2012
WoMD
I have taken to referring to my cruthches as WoMD - Weapons of Mass Destruction. I also have a cast support where my Glass Fibre cast cracked. Personally I think it is a test to see how well I cope with the stresses of being SERIOUSLY inconvenienced.
To me it is no great shakes!
First (in my coma), I could not stand up, let alone get out of bed!
Then I could only move about with a wheelchair in front of me for support
Then I moved around really slowly, alwats scared I would fall. Even to this day, heights, slopes and stairs (downwards) terrify me!
I found out why this is though!
In your heel on both sides, are muscles that pull equally, keeping your foot aligned orrectly. In my left foot, the muscles along one side of my heel were pulling harder than the other side. My own foot was constantly pulling me off balance.
Hence the recent operation to my heel where this imbalance was corrected. They broke the heel bone and pinned it so that the muscles cannot pull me off balance! I now have 2 titanium pins in my foot!
The Orthopod reckons that, being titanium, they will not register on the security scans going into banks etc, but that makes no sense to me! If Titanium does not register, then why dont bank robbers use titanium weapons instead of steel ones? Then they can walk into banks with firearms undetected?
The cast that I had originally, was (I thought) Fibre Glass. Now it weighs a ton with Plaster of Paris around the heel and closing up the split. Watch out all you non disabled creeps who park in MY parking bay! I can threaten you with crutches, and if that does not work, I can kick even the most obese, into next week!
I was thinking, What if I try out for Bafana Bafana, what with my cast and titanium heel? I can kick the ball FAR (surely)! Just a thought! I cannot be worse than some who spend the matches running around keeping as far from the action as possible!
To me it is no great shakes!
First (in my coma), I could not stand up, let alone get out of bed!
Then I could only move about with a wheelchair in front of me for support
Then I moved around really slowly, alwats scared I would fall. Even to this day, heights, slopes and stairs (downwards) terrify me!
I found out why this is though!
In your heel on both sides, are muscles that pull equally, keeping your foot aligned orrectly. In my left foot, the muscles along one side of my heel were pulling harder than the other side. My own foot was constantly pulling me off balance.
Hence the recent operation to my heel where this imbalance was corrected. They broke the heel bone and pinned it so that the muscles cannot pull me off balance! I now have 2 titanium pins in my foot!
The Orthopod reckons that, being titanium, they will not register on the security scans going into banks etc, but that makes no sense to me! If Titanium does not register, then why dont bank robbers use titanium weapons instead of steel ones? Then they can walk into banks with firearms undetected?
The cast that I had originally, was (I thought) Fibre Glass. Now it weighs a ton with Plaster of Paris around the heel and closing up the split. Watch out all you non disabled creeps who park in MY parking bay! I can threaten you with crutches, and if that does not work, I can kick even the most obese, into next week!
I was thinking, What if I try out for Bafana Bafana, what with my cast and titanium heel? I can kick the ball FAR (surely)! Just a thought! I cannot be worse than some who spend the matches running around keeping as far from the action as possible!
Thursday, June 14, 2012
Improvements?
I have recently been bugged that perfectly healthy - if fat and lazy - people park in the disabled bays at the shops - mainly because these bays are close to the entrances to the shops. I feel that I will have to write on the glass windows of those guilty most of abusing the privilege "Dear God, I desperately want to be disabled! Please help! Amen" Maybe then they will stop being so selfish! If they WERE disabled, they would be the first ones bleating that inconsiderate people park where they shouldn't!
Since my heel was operated on a week ago, it is impossible for me to walk unaided and crutches take a huge effort to use. Being disabled is no picnic and the sooner they realise this, the better!
Being actually disabled, I have a lot of time to ponder the world around me! Scares me what I see sometimes. At Sacrament meeting on the first sunday of a month, the members are able to bear their testimonies about their beliefs. I speak badly but it always amazes me that there are some out there who are barely audible - even with a microphone!
I often want to bash their heads in when they drag their feet! It drives me crazy that I have a valid excuse and try not to, but the shoe leather content of the carpet up to the pulpit increases dramatically every Fast and Testimony meeting!
Since my heel was operated on a week ago, it is impossible for me to walk unaided and crutches take a huge effort to use. Being disabled is no picnic and the sooner they realise this, the better!
Being actually disabled, I have a lot of time to ponder the world around me! Scares me what I see sometimes. At Sacrament meeting on the first sunday of a month, the members are able to bear their testimonies about their beliefs. I speak badly but it always amazes me that there are some out there who are barely audible - even with a microphone!
I often want to bash their heads in when they drag their feet! It drives me crazy that I have a valid excuse and try not to, but the shoe leather content of the carpet up to the pulpit increases dramatically every Fast and Testimony meeting!
Monday, May 21, 2012
Inspiration
I am convinced that at the end of May, the orthopedic surgeon will want to insert steel pins in my heel. After this weekend, it cannot happen soon enough as the discomfort from my ankle was intense. Is this inspiration - or fear?
I really think that I saw the surgeon mid month last month and he suggested that it was a possibility that I need my bones "fused"! The ins and outs of the operation were not discussed, but I think that I was given a chance to come to terms with the idea of the bones being fused.
I look forward to no longer fearing slopes and stairs. I was not consciously aware of why i had developed this phobia.
It also turns out that it is not my only phobia:-
I get cold sweats in traffic heavier than 2 cars a DAY. Where I live, maybe 2 cars a day go past - and both of them live in my garage!
The one thing that I can see will not be so great is that I will battle to drive a "stick shift" as the foot controlling the clutch pedal will be "incapacitated!" Still since being in a coma, I have precious few items to set me apart from the crowd. I think that this is why I disliked my scars - they were not ostensibly chosen by me and in the sun, they went bright red, then faded to luminous white! Eventually I chose to have a tattoo covering them, since people query scars - "How did you get that?" - and no-one questions a tattoo! It was not even painful - or uncomfortable! I can live with a tattoo easier than scars.
I look forward to no longer fearing slopes and stairs. I was not consciously aware of why i had developed this phobia.
It also turns out that it is not my only phobia:-
I get cold sweats in traffic heavier than 2 cars a DAY. Where I live, maybe 2 cars a day go past - and both of them live in my garage!
The one thing that I can see will not be so great is that I will battle to drive a "stick shift" as the foot controlling the clutch pedal will be "incapacitated!" Still since being in a coma, I have precious few items to set me apart from the crowd. I think that this is why I disliked my scars - they were not ostensibly chosen by me and in the sun, they went bright red, then faded to luminous white! Eventually I chose to have a tattoo covering them, since people query scars - "How did you get that?" - and no-one questions a tattoo! It was not even painful - or uncomfortable! I can live with a tattoo easier than scars.
Apparently this will prevent my muscles from distorting the heel. For too long I have battled with balance and heights - although I am not scared of heights - tend to raise my blood level, even on a down slope in the lawn!
Since my MVA accident - 1992 - I have been unstable on both slopes and uneven ground. I used to think this was because I sustained brain damage - to my motor skills - and only recently discovered that my instability is due to the muscles in my heel puling at different strengths. I have a medical appointment at the end of this month to see if what the surgeon feels will help and I believe that sooner or later my bones in my heel will be fused.
Friday, May 4, 2012
Latest on my foot
About a month back, my left foot swelled up and was relatively painful to walk on! I consulted my GP who referred me to an Othopeadic Surgeon in the hospital at Ballito.
This guy arranged Xrays - cost my medical aid a fortune - and assessed the problem. Turns out that your heel controls how your foot is planted when you walk. The heel is a series of stacked bones, with muscles along either side, to control how straight your foot is - as needed.
Thw muscles along the outside of my heel, are more agressive than those on the inside, and this has pushed my heel out of alignment. I have been referred to an orthotics specialist and he will be constructing orthotic inserts to my shoes so that the balance of the muscle is corrected.
I was in town the other day, on my feet for a really short time and I could feel my foot was not sitting correctly and when I got home, my foot was screaming blue murder and trying to kill me!
I have a follow up appointment with the Orthopedic Surgeon at the end of the month. He will assess me for a possible operation where the bones of my heel are “fused” – my opinion is that fusing means either putting in staples, or more long term, putting in steel pins. In either case, the heel will not be able to bend sideways, but the ankle should still be able to bend. I can bend my toes upwards, but not to have my heel flexing (much) sideways.
The insert will only be a temporary “fix” – until my heel is “fused”.
The one thing that I will have to get used to is going through security detectors; I WILL set off the alarms. Someone advised me that if I go through these barriers, I need to put my left foot first, so that the security guards can see that my foot is what set off the alarms, and not imaginary hidden firearms!
I have a follow up appointment with the Orthopedic Surgeon at the end of the month. He will assess me for a possible operation where the bones of my heel are “fused” – my opinion is that fusing means either putting in staples, or more long term, putting in steel pins. In either case, the heel will not be able to bend sideways, but the ankle should still be able to bend. I can bend my toes upwards, but not to have my heel flexing (much) sideways.
The insert will only be a temporary “fix” – until my heel is “fused”.
The one thing that I will have to get used to is going through security detectors; I WILL set off the alarms. Someone advised me that if I go through these barriers, I need to put my left foot first, so that the security guards can see that my foot is what set off the alarms, and not imaginary hidden firearms!
This guy arranged Xrays - cost my medical aid a fortune - and assessed the problem. Turns out that your heel controls how your foot is planted when you walk. The heel is a series of stacked bones, with muscles along either side, to control how straight your foot is - as needed.
Thw muscles along the outside of my heel, are more agressive than those on the inside, and this has pushed my heel out of alignment. I have been referred to an orthotics specialist and he will be constructing orthotic inserts to my shoes so that the balance of the muscle is corrected.
I was in town the other day, on my feet for a really short time and I could feel my foot was not sitting correctly and when I got home, my foot was screaming blue murder and trying to kill me!
I have a follow up appointment with the Orthopedic Surgeon at the end of the month. He will assess me for a possible operation where the bones of my heel are “fused” – my opinion is that fusing means either putting in staples, or more long term, putting in steel pins. In either case, the heel will not be able to bend sideways, but the ankle should still be able to bend. I can bend my toes upwards, but not to have my heel flexing (much) sideways.
The insert will only be a temporary “fix” – until my heel is “fused”.
The one thing that I will have to get used to is going through security detectors; I WILL set off the alarms. Someone advised me that if I go through these barriers, I need to put my left foot first, so that the security guards can see that my foot is what set off the alarms, and not imaginary hidden firearms!
I have a follow up appointment with the Orthopedic Surgeon at the end of the month. He will assess me for a possible operation where the bones of my heel are “fused” – my opinion is that fusing means either putting in staples, or more long term, putting in steel pins. In either case, the heel will not be able to bend sideways, but the ankle should still be able to bend. I can bend my toes upwards, but not to have my heel flexing (much) sideways.
The insert will only be a temporary “fix” – until my heel is “fused”.
The one thing that I will have to get used to is going through security detectors; I WILL set off the alarms. Someone advised me that if I go through these barriers, I need to put my left foot first, so that the security guards can see that my foot is what set off the alarms, and not imaginary hidden firearms!
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