Friday, December 12, 2008

Back On Two Feet

For the most part, I am off of my crutches. Finally! I am ecstatic about that. It has been coming up on 10 weeks since this whole nightmare ensued. But, at least with the aid of the brace, I am walking. And I am one week ahead of schedule.

It is an encouraging turn of events. And the best part is that I'm writing from my desk again. That in itself makes me really happy.

Yesterday I saw the wound specialist - the second of two visits this week. The reason I saw him twice is because of a problem he saw on the earlier one. I had a slightly elevated temperature (I usually run a little low, and my temp was actually above normal, which isn't good for me) plus I had swelling around the wound site. Some cultures were taken of the wound itself, plus I had X-rays taken of my heel. They were looking for infection, which was what I was thinking was going on as well...

And the good news at yesterday's visit is that there is no sign of osteomyelitis, which is nasty to treat if it occurs. The cultures showed colonization of Staphylococcus Aureus and Pseudomonas, neither of which is infiltrating or showing signs of growth, based on how the cultures looked. Plus, the bonus is that I have less pain. Sure, there is still some discomfort present, but nothing like what I was experiencing. And when I tried to walk unaided, I discovered that I could. That was at about 3:00PM yesterday, and I have been walking without the crutches ever since. About the only thing I still need help with is getting going in the morning - I have to still use something to support my left leg when I'm without the brace (when I'm in the shower, for example), so I use one crutch to get around when the brace is off. I will likely continue to do that for at least the time being until I can get to the point where I can stretch my Achilles and work the range of motion, and that will likely be when I start rehab. One more week until I find out when that will happen.

We had a terrible ice storm here overnight. I'm one of the lucky ones; I managed to not lose power. That said, I talked with my daughter a little while ago - she lives less than 3 miles from me - and there is no power at her mother's. Plus, I talked with my wife earlier this afternoon and there is no power in the building she works in; everything is running on generator. And she is working a double shift.... I don't know how long this will last, but there is talk of it taking days for power to be restored.

This happened up here a little over 10 years ago, and I remember the problems that went along with it. My house was without power for close to 5 days; I had pipes burst, we lost the contents of our refrigerator and freezer, and getting heat re-started was extremely difficult. It made for a very hard January, as I recall. Not a good time to be without power and heat. And that's true anywhere that the weather is like ours.

Pray for those who are stuck without power.

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