The Mongrel Hour

I did go to hospital from Thursday the 3rd to Sunday the 6th of November.  Like a tax on my system a lot of my physical resources were taken up building new tissue for the unfinished gnarly section of the wound (shown earlier).

As son as the 'dirty' section was cleaned up and sewn together allowing new healthy tissue to bring the wound together, I felt better.  I was last on the surgery list since the wound is technically referred too as 'dirty' due to the necrotic (dead)  material.  The ice cold anesthetic took the journey from my wrist up my arm and in the last moment I felt a rasp in my throat and I was gone. In Post Op (post operative care) I had a drain from the wound and a little more swelling and a tight feeling where the new stitches were sewn, but I felt lighter, still tender but not burdened. A man next to me was struggling as he came to consciousness. He wanted to stand but couldn't. He seemed to be in pain.  There was so many of us.  I was in a section where eleven operating theaters were available and all were in use.

Surgery for the third time, showing the surgeons signature which marks the spot.

Now the work begins.  In hospital I had a couple of meetings with the in-house physio therapist  who advised how to progress with rehabilitation.  The wasted, hard muscles of my thigh and those around my knee (Rectus Femoris, Sartorius, Vastas Medialis and Abductor Brevus), have stopped working for the moment and encouraging them back into service is all about pulling at scar tissue, within the wounds tolerance.  I do several stretches every 2 hours and then cool it down with ice.  I can feel progress but its a dog of a job.  Last night I woke in a dream at midnight watching a list of names for 'wound' in a thousand different languages.  Together with the image was a pressing urge to get these stupid muscles working.  I pushed, prodded, iced, strained and entreated the dead leg to wake.  By 2.00 am I felt the leg had noticed the urgency in my tone and had responded positively.  I am able to walk in a fashion without the aid of crutches for half a dozen steps.  If I can get my leg to bend at the knee past 90 degrees I will be able to explore what might be possible on a stationary bike.  Once on the bike, I fancy things will start to get better a quicker pace.

Balancing pain with rest is a careful calculation.  If I can avoid the painkillers by ensuring that I do not over exert myself I sleep better and heal better.  However there are times when I have felt stressed by the discomfort and popped a couple of pills which in general are opiates or similar.  I sleep around two hours at a spell and move around then sleep again.  Its a mongrel of time and nothing seems easy.  A carers job must be at least as difficult as the nong getting things right again.  It's  a testy difficult, ornery, painful,stupid, frustrating, aching, dip-shit mongrel hour and I can see the seconds pass in a time zone I have never seen or heard before.