All of my previous surgeries required relatively short recover period in comparison with the ones I will likely have this fall. the first surgery was at the start of October 2006. I was off of crutches and walking unassisted by Christmas that year, putting the recovery period at just over two and a half months. Surgery two was at the start of September 2008. I was walking on my own in about two months. The last surgery, number three, was mid April 2011 - I was up and walking without crutches within a month.
When I have surgery number four, I will be unable to walk on my leg until the fifth surgery. Given previous experiences, I reckon it will be about another month after the fifth surgery before I am walking unaided again. I am therefore looking at approximately four months of sitting on my butt doing nothing...
... except I don't want to be doing nothing for four months. So I am trying to think of things to do - as of now I have a list of five big things I want to do:
1) Binge watch the fifth season of the Walking Dead on Netflix when it comes out this fall.
2) Learn to knit (I regret not doing this when I had eight months off between completing my Bachelors degree and the start of the nursing program I am in).
3) Complete all of the embroidery squares on the afghan blanket I bought a few years ago - I somehow constantly pick out embroidery patterns and colours but never get to actually working on it. I hope this project will keep me busy and be meaningful once I have recovered - hopefully a symbol of finally getting over this infection (It will be ten years before the bone graft process is complete).
4) Make a giant dent in my ever growing (despite my attempts to purge) collection of books. I would like to read the Pickwick Papers and Nicholas Nickleby by Dickens ad re-read The Lord of the Rings.
5) Review the Latin I learned in University. You know what people say - If you don't use it, you lose it! Latin is also great for nursing - helps with medication names and body parts, so I feel I am doing at least a little something that is useful.
I want to make my time off meaningful. It is devastating to have to pause my nursing education, and to be left behind as my peers move forward, especially those in my clinical group. I hope these activities will be comforting and relaxing, and help me get through something I really don't want to do, even though I know it is necessary and unavoidable. In my mind I see pain and worry ahead, but I also see myself sitting on a porch in the early fall, basking in the warm air and sun, leg propped up with a Penny Press puzzle book while I drink tea and watch the leaves slowly turn to yellow an gold.
Alright... this is likely not going to happen most day. I will spend the first week or so after surgery propped in bed watching tv or sleeping. But I need an ideal to keep me sane and from deciding to not go with the surgeries. The ultimate goal is to get rid of the osteomyelitis. To do that I need these surgeries, and imagining I can sit in the sun with a book after between surgeries four and five will help me go through with it.
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