gift

itchy.  the hydromorphone made me itchy.  almost right away.  everything itched.  even my eyelids, as i was wont to tell anyone who would listen.  i was constantly going from itch to itch.  heather told me my face was flushed.  it was.  and it was hot.  the back scratcher delivered me with delicious scratching down my back and around my hips and anywhere else it could reach.  i was willing to put up with the itching for the pain relief.  but so far my freezing wasn't totally out.  i couldn't feel anything in my ankle. i kept telling heather that.

the first day or two home from the hospital are the glib and easy days.  i was still frozen and i was high and chipper on my drugs and all my friends and family were checking in with me.

heather went home wednesday evening and later that night evelyn came to be with me.  the freezing came fully out wednesday night and it was verrrrrry painful.  it felt like an iron post drilled into my ankle and anyway i tried to rest my leg made it feel worse.  it was like i needed my leg suspended weightlessly in the air not touching anything.  the hydromorphone stopped working. i had a horrible night and i barely slept.  i mostly fitfully scratched my itches and fruitlessly tried to move my leg into a comfortable position.

the next morning i told evelyn that i had a bad night. she said day two and three after surgery are hell, and she wasn't wrong.  i tried calling my dr. but the receptionist said he was all full for the day even though i told her i was having an emergency and i was just out of surgery.  she said i could talk to a walk in dr, but i didn't want some walk in dr. i wanted dr. howie.  he knows me and he knows what's been happening. so i called footbridge and left a message.  i was trying to hold it together but by the end of the message my voice broke and when i hung up i broke into tears.  i prayed and i had a cry with Heavenly Father.  

when evelyn got back from her run we talked about it more and we decided that i should stop the hydromorphone and take the tramadol.  tramadol is also an opioid but not as strong as hydromorphone.  they give you enough hydromorphone to get you through the first 3 days usually and then you move on to the tramadol.  so i did.  i took the tramadol and i was able to fall asleep.  and the pain calmed down a lot more.  when footbridge called me back, they woke me up and i was a lot calmer.  i told them i took the tramadol and it was working and so they told me to keep doing that and i would probably need to get a re-fill prescription from my dr. then.

it took a while, a day or two for the tramadol to really build up in my system and work.  so it helped a lot but i was still in pain, especially when i got up to go to the bathroom.  any time i took my foot down from it's perch my foot and leg would fill up with tingles and pain and when i stood up i felt a flash of searing burn on my inner thigh just above my knee. every time it happened at first, i would grab my thigh and look at it to see if i had a burn.  but no, i didn't.  i think it is a nerve thing.  remember i said i felt an electrical zig zagging when i was getting the nerve block? well i think, i'm not a dr., but i think they might have hit my nerve or something.  dr. howie said nerves heal but they take a longer time.  so i've gotten used to this thing every time i stand up.

i built the hugest tower of pillows to rest my leg on so that it was almost straight up in the air.

as days went on things slowly started to get better. on friday i was talking to mom, saying i wished i could play games with someone to distract me from everything and so she sent my sob story out and got bethany, and jane to come on zoom with mom and i and play telephone pictionary. it helped a lot. on the tuesday after, so a week later, i felt like i had turned a corner.  on wednesday i started back to work.  going back to work was also a great distraction.

i started decreasing my tramadol and sometimes that was a little bit hard and i felt discouraged and i prayed about it and got ideas of what i could do.  all along the way i have been comforted and bourne up, cheered and blessed by the Holy Ghost and by all my friends and family.  i have been taken care of in every way and my helpers seem inexhaustible.  it's been almost 2 months since all this surgery hullaballoo began. on tuesday it will be 2 months.  and in that 2 months there was probably just 2 weeks where i took care of myself, mostly.  but i still needed help.  like heather has come every single weekend and empties the litter box, and brings me things i need and does the chores that i can't do.  i need help to wash my hair, sweep, mop and vacuum, dust, clean the bathroom and do my laundry. each of these things has been cheerfully taken care of by my friends.

i was praying yesterday.  i had a good long prayer.  i was saying "i know this whole thing is a gift to me..." and i felt the warm reassurance of the spirit.  gifts don't always feel like gifts at the time, but i have this really strong feeling like this is a gift.  the whole thing.  all of it.  and that i will be able to look back one day and see more clearly that this experience was exactly the blessing that i needed  and the way that it lifted me up and made me more than i am and set me further on my path.  and that this is so much more than a physical experience but a deeper more meaningful lesson and spiritual gift.  so i don't see all that right now.  i can guess at it.  i can feel it sometimes.  other times i just feel the longing to be whole and free and tired of being helpless and frustrated with the restraints i'm living in.  and that's ok too because i also know it will pass.  and i remind myself that this is a moment and i am passing through it and i ask that i'll be open to all the lessons and blessings that will flow from it and the strength i'm building from it will be more than my beefy thigh.  but spiritual beefiness.  anyways, i thank God for his wisdom, and kindness. he is so tender and achingly truly loving and i thank all the people who are his hands who constantly lift up my hand when it hangs down. i am so profoundly grateful. i don't know how to express it because words just don't reach the depth of my feeling.  i hope i can show it by my actions.  i hope i can love and serve like them and pass on the pure goodness that i have received.  i hope i can learn to be like them to love in actions, to love by doing so tirelessly the work of God.  it is so humbling to be "one of the least of these" and to realize that i have been carried in every instance of need.  it is knowing in a new and different way that i am not alone and i never ever have been alone.

ok.  that's enough.  time to wipe my tears and eat lunch.  i can hear heather in the kitchen.