Wednesday, September 17, 2008

Incommunicado

Long time, no blog. It's been a strange couple of weeks. Where to begin? I guess Labor Day morning. I woke up and my left ankle wouldn't work. I mean it was like Kathy Bates had snuck in during the night and whacked it with a sledge hammer. What in the world? It hurt all day Labor Day and went from bad to worse the day after Labor Day. So over the next two days I see three different doctors. Nothing specific beyond "pre-existing arthritic conditions." Things continued to go south in the next week as my RIGHT ANKLE quit functioning. Ok, what deity have I angered now? I'm enjoying my new life, new energy and continued weight loss and BOOM - suddenly I'm totally sidelined. Saw the orthopedist again yesterday and the final diagnosis is unbelievable. Apparently prior to weight loss there was excessive fluid and fat tissue "buffering" my ankles and the cartilage loss and the bone spurs. Now that excessive fluid and fat are both gone and the bone is rubbing bone and the bone spurs are digging in for the long haul. I got a cortisone injection in each ankle yesterday and - knock on wood - feel like a new man today. No cane today! (Yep, it got that bad..the last week a cane - the week before a walker. Do you know how OLD it makes one feel to be using canes and walkers?) My attitude went way south. I cared nothing about weight loss or being productive. There were very kind souls here taking care of me (sister and mother-in-law) and that continued to reinforce what I've learned through this whole process - I couldn't have done any of this without some strong, loving people in my corner. Once again, I thank you all. And Rhonda - oh dear God, poor Rhonda. She's been working herself to death since I left the hospital. First with all the post-op care and now with this stupid ankle stuff. I'll never, ever be able to repay her. She continues to be the best thing that ever happened to me.
Now on to good news. Rhonda took me to support group meeting last night at the hospital. It's a post-op support group for bariatric patients. Was able to soak up some bits of helpful information. But the best thing that happened was the weigh-in. My grand total weight loss (remember, this includes weight I lost on my own prior to August 12th surgery day) is 127 pounds. I've lost 39 pounds in the last three weeks alone. I was thrilled, obviously. We came home to catch the second half of the season premier of "The Biggest Loser." I can't believe I'm admitting this - they'll surely make me turn in my man card. But I started watching these people and suddenly started crying like a baby. Rhonda came in the room "Honey! What's wrong?????" I said "Last season we watched this and I ached to know what it'd be like to lose such large amounts of weight. Now I know........" I think for the first time I realized what a huge corner I've turned. I've grown cynical in my old age and sometimes think that miracles are things of the past. But the fact that I'm no longer thinking FOOD every waking minute is parting of the Red Sea huge. This is nothing short of a miracle.
This morning I woke up feeling new. My ankles have, for the most part, quit aching (the injection sites where they gave me the shots are sore and a little bruised, but I can live with that.) I jumped out of bed (yes, literally jumped.) I turned on the light in the closet and started trying on clothes. Clothes that I've not fit into for a long while. I had one suit in particular that I'd been wanting to get into. Again, like I've mentioned before, I'm not a suit kind of a guy. But this is a nice suit and I've been seeing it as some kind of enemy, hanging there in the closet taunting me. As recently as June the pants wouldn't button. I had to know THIS MORNING if I could fit into it. Well, I've missed my chance. It's now TOO BIG! Well, the pants are anyway..I could still wear the jacket with something else. Between me and you and the door, I cried again. My man card is about to be a thing of the past.

2 comments:

Elisabeth said...

HOLY @#@^%!!! You're doing great!!! Glad to hear that at least they know what's going on with the ankles. . .we meant to call & check in last weekend. (We're dealing with S's mom. . .looking into retirement homes.)

R, if you need help coming up with ways T can repay when this is over, call me - I'm GREAT at that sort of thing. . . :)

Chris said...

You're earning the real Man Card every day. Less of you, but MORE of a man!