Six week summary

pretty roses in bloom...

...a gift from a Shabbat guest

I realized something new today about Soroka hospital...

There are roses to smell. I'm not kidding. I have spent many days, weeks, and even months here (I'm at the hospital now, just for physical therapy, don't worry), and never noticed that before. There are rose bushes outside of the physical therapy building, on the way to what used to be the labor and delivery building. I feel so fortunate today to have noticed that and stopped to smell them. I am so poetic, right? :)

I noticed them because I am feeling fortunate. Seldom does someone walk around here feeling fortunate, all the more so, me. I just had my first physical therapy session since the surgery. On the one hand, it is really absurd that it took six weeks to get me the appointment... the wheels of paperwork and confusion run deep in this subsidized health-care system. On the other hand, I had six weeks to chill out after surgery. I did a teeny bit of physical therapy at home, knowing what to do because of having been through this surgery already twice. Not much, though. My muscles are very, very weak. I tried to do Tai Chi last week and paid for that for the next two days. My legs are really weak. They shake with tremors at the littlest challenge.

However, the physical therapist was inordinately impressed with the progress she saw. After reading my medical history, people expect a basket case. Then I walk in. :)

I told her the main things that are bothering me these days is the range of movement deficiency, and power; like sturdiness and stability. She assured me that those are things that will improve with the work we'll do. Yay!

Notice I didn't say “pain” as something that is bothering me? Well, it's not that the pain from the surgery is totally gone, but it's so much less, I am still in a state of shock that it healed so well. The original pain I walked into surgery with is completely gone, and what remains, I believe, will disappear also in a matter of time. I learned some exercises I need to do, and yes, it hurt, but that's OK. It's physical therapy, it's supposed to hurt or else you wouldn't need it. I needed to put the exercise bike on a really low setting, and couldn't do that for more than five minutes, but it'll improve.

To my surprise (but not the physical therapist's), the left leg is actually weaker than the right. The surgery this time was on the right, but my left leg, which has borne the brunt of all the other surgeries, is actually weaker. One problem that is happening is like a “whack-a-mole” game: the lymphedema. That is on the left side only. I haven't been able to wear my pressure garment for the lymphedema since the surgery, because the right thigh joint, and incisions, are too sensitive (still). The pressure garment is torturous for it. So, without wearing that, the swelling and pain comes around, and I guess it causes me to actually favor the left leg at those times. I may have to go back to lymphatic draining. Bleh.

I'm starting hydrotherapy on Tuesday! Looking forward. I really loved hydrotherapy in the past.

These days the most difficult thing is that I have returned to my regular driving routine, along with all the errands, and I am profoundly exhausted by the end (or middle) of each day. I am at that place that I am able to do all the things I used to do, but doing them all is too much for me. I remember this stage after each surgery. All of me has to get stronger, not just my legs. Sometimes by the end of the day I can hardly put one foot in front of the other to keep moving. There are days that I just can't, and the kids have to be more independant. I get light-headed, my eyes gloss over, and my body can hardly move. I plop myself down on the couch, or in bed if I need to, and the kids are usually quite understanding. At those times, I can't read to Azriel at bedtime, and that is hard for him to accept. He got used to me being very available while I was recovering- we read the entirety of "Alice in Wonderland". That was fun. Thank Gd, though, that they are older now- all my other surgeries were when they were much younger, I always needed a nanny, and it was all much harder. We had so many nanny's- a regular revolving door. (when I got NF, and those early days of surgeries and hospitalizations for infections, Azriel was 1 1/2, and Dov was 8 1/2, with two other kids in between. Geez, that was so hard.)

Anyway, bottom line?

I believe that this surgery was successful.

I had my doubts in the beginning, because of the necessity to change the type of surgery based on the fact that there was no cartilage in the joint. I was worried that something wrong happened. What I found out, as if I needed another reminder, is that things that look like mistakes at first, often aren't really mistakes at all.