Stop That Hearse!

Wait! Return the casket, give the flowers to your grandma, and divvy up the ham buns. This blog ain't done yet.


I took an unannounced hiatus from blogging to have foot surgery, as most of you know already. I was all set to provide a play-by-play on the experience, but medications and blank-stare types of exhaustion got in the way. Shoot. As my friend Karen said, "You should have written anyway; that would have been really interesting."


So I'll try to give you the short version of the long story, but since you all know me and how I write, I'm not surprised to hear your coffeepot starting to percolate or the teakettle starting to fire up, depending on your caffeine addiction preferences.


Mom flew up to Idaho on Wednesday night (March 12) to help me out for a while. The next morning we were getting ready to be at the surgery center at 9:30am and Mom is asking me... "Marie, where's the cereal?" "Marie, where's the coffee?" Now I definitely am not a morning person, but I am most definitely a breakfast person. I must have breakfast. My stomach growls at me and that's how I wake up. I can kind of laugh about it now... a little... but I begrudged Mom her breakfast and coffee. The first thing I said later when I woke up from the anesthesia was "I'm hungry!" Ask the nurse. He was cute, but he didn't know how to make an omelet. Too bad, or else I would have kept him.


Our friends/relatives/fellow troublemakers Merv and Diane happened to be on their way through Boise to an unknown destination Thursday morning, from Seattle. They knew my mom was here, so they tracked us down to come by and see me walk the runway in my gown and paper slippers. Then they all left to get lost in downtown for an hour before deciding to go to the doughnut shop 3 blocks away. It was raining, and my mom was driving my car for the first time, so she wasn't familiar with any of the controls. She found the windshield wipers and the headlights before an accident happened. Diane assisted.


The headlights are important to note. So important, in fact, that they got forgotten. All afternoon. All evening. All night. Until they died somewhere around 3:26am Friday morning. You have to cut Mom some slack here, because she's used to her fancy Tahoe with lights that turn on and off automatically. I guess you don't even have to mess with the lights unless you want to blind someone in their rearview mirror.

Meanwhile, as the lights lay dying, I lay dying in my bed because of my own stupid mistake. You're thinking "Oh don't call yourself stupid, everybody says that when they don't really mean it..." But oh yes. I mean it. I had my wisdom teeth removed in 2006. They gave me a prescription for Norco (vicodin). I don't think I used any of it, so I had a half bottle sitting in my cupboard. I got a prescription from the podiatrist for... Norco. Same dosage, in fact. Sweet! One less prescription to fill--I already have some! How smart am I?

The surgery prep crew gave me a "pop-block" by which they numb your leg from the knee down. The nurse said I wouldn't remember getting this pop-block after the surgery. I did. Anyway. The pop-block lasts 12-24 hours on most people, and I was at the shorter end of the stick. Something about metabolism. So my leg started to thaw at about midnight. No big deal, I'll take a Norco. 1 hour later. Huh, this Norco isn't working. This is really starting to hurt. Should I take another one? No, this is heavy stuff, I need to wait a few hours. 2 hours later. Hmm... I am in pain. This is not fun. This is really not fun. I think I'll take some Advil because the doctor said I could take it for swelling along with the Norco. 6 Advil later, still in pain. By this time it's about 5am and Mom wakes up, which is great, because she can drive to the pharmacy to get my (real) prescription!! Except the pharmacy doesn't open until 9am. And the car won't start. We had just the loveliest morning, drinking coffee and popping Advil, until AAA came to our rescue. I love AAA. I should write them a letter.

The Norco turned out to be almost useless, since it begins to deteriorate 6 months after dispensed, and so the ones I had taken did nothing. I was oh-so-happy to see that new bottle.


Mom and I basically hung out at the house for the next 4 days... she did everything from grocery shopping to laundry to cooking to bringing me ice bags whenever I asked to changing the DVD to a new episode of Gilmore Girls, while I sat, and sat, and sat. I had to keep my foot up the whole time or else I would have ended up with the Goodyear Blimp for a foot.


So I'll end this part of the saga with a few pictures.

Here's Mom:

The lovely tulips she got for me. Tulips are some of my favorite flowers!

Flowers from Meredith

And a cheer-you-up balloon from Meredith!

There's one more picture, but for my fair readers who have fair stomachs, this would be a good time to stop reading. If you don't look away now, you might end up running for the door on the starboard side, dashing across the planks and grabbing the handrail and... the fish would never be the same.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
So au revoir...
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Ok you're still here. I'm warning you, this isn't pretty!
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Ok, if you're still reading you must not mind watching ER.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

There are two incisions: one down the side of my big toe (they adjusted the bone and shaved some off) and one across the top of my foot, where they installed the hardware. Yes, 5 screws and 1 plate. Just the thing to set off the suspicious airport security people. This is going to be fun.