I’m betting there are members who have been wondering where I have been.
It has been a while, hasn’t it. I think we need a timeline.
On January 4, I went grocery shopping and had to park on the turb out front, since the garage was not yet parking ready after the plumbing odyssey had come to an end (yeah, right). I was transporting the groceries inside the I tripped on the sidewalk and face-planted in the tiny front yard in front of our condo. Fortunately, very little damage was done to my facial region. But I also landed both knees on the sidewalk, which was very troubling at the time.
After my partner and a couple of passers-by helped me up get vertical and move into the condo, I noticed blood leaking from one of my toes...and a couple of others, for that matter. I attempted to attach a bandaid to the major leak, but they really don’t stick well to bone. I had suffered what was later diagnosed as an open dislocation of the second toe on my left foot. Debbie rushed me to the trauma center about a mile away in Northridge.
After what seemed to be longer than necessary, I was moved to the triage area, where I was informed that few of the interns working there had ever seen a toe in that condition, and I informed them of the concern I had for the pain I was feeling in both knees and my left elbow. Then I was moved back to the waiting room...for more waiting, of course. Apparently, I was now on the waiting list for the X-ray room. Now in a wheelchair, someone eventually came out looking for me and wheeled me to the radiation area. One x-ray revealed an anomaly in the crown of my left radius.
The damaged toe was one of the few body parts that was not feeling any pain, but it was still an open wound, so I was moved to the emergency ward and given my very own ward room. Much time was spent cleaning out the wound with water and beta-dine, and making a terrible mess. Then a doctor came in and tried to sew the wound closed...somewhat unsuccessfully. She was cursing the pausity of asking available.
Eventually, some six hours after arriving, I was sent home with bandaged toe, a flat medical boot, a prescription for antibiotics and a directive to see a podiatrist for after care.
I called my personal physician the next morning who gave me the name of a recommended podiatrist (one of his former teachers), who I called and made an appointment with. I've been seeing him once or twice a week ever since in Grenada Hills. We have experimented with various foot protection devices, which have ranged from painful to extremely painful. This doctor also insisted I see an orthopedist about my elbow.
Another referral from my Doctor Joey, my personal doctor, found me going to see another of his former teachers, who was amazingly older than me. He took another X-ray of my elbow, affirming that it was broken, and suggested I keep it moving as much as possible and come back in 6 weeks if it didn’t feel better. It is better if I don’t bump it into something hard.
Recently, I seem to have come down with a UTI. Fortunately I was on the doorstep of an appointment with my nephrologist. This has been the most painful part of my travails. It concerned her that this would pop up at the end of my regime of Keflex. So she prescribed me 5 days of...you guessed it...Keflex. She wants to figure out if I am resistant to it. Recent sleep has been negligible, as well as painless urination, which has been treated with an OTC treatment which colors urine reddish-orange.
This past weekend I managed to fall twice, adding to my my list to bumps and bruises. The act of standing up is painful as is the act of sitting down is. And don’t talk to me about moving up or down stairs.
This too shall pass? Make it so...quickly.