Hello form the North!

 I haven't posted an update in a really long time. That really goes without saying but typing out that sentence provides an easy way to start writing this without having to figure out something witty or insightful to say. I don't think there is one single reason I stopped posting. Instead, I have been busy with many different things - thoracic surgery early on in 2019 plus the ensuing recovery; moving four times within the span of approximately twenty months; post-graduate studies; returning to working as a nurse during a pandemic after a prolonged medical leave; exploring different parts of the province; taking advantage of the online course offerings during the pandemic by taking extra university courses; enjoying several of my hobbies, including reading, gardening, and crocheting. I think I just really wanted to focus on living and being present in the moment and, as a result, blogging got placed on the back-burner. I have tried blogging sporadically over the past three and a half year. Sometimes I just stared at a blank screen. Occasionally I erased a couple lines of text. Once in a while I even had nearly completed posts saved as drafts, ready for a final edit. But updating just didn't feel right.

I'm at a point now where things in my life are more settled and certain. I feel like I've really gotten this adulthood thing down and have balance in my life. The pandemic has also given me a much-needed break from dealing with the fiasco that remains my right leg. I hadn't realized how much of my life revolved around trying to fix my leg until the pandemic put a halt to doctor's appointments and planned procedures. Looking back, the break from it all has been more than welcome and, now that I've started seeing doctors/surgeons again, I feel recharged and in a better frame of mind to work on fixing me leg once more. Although I'm not sure that 'fixing' is the right word. We (my doctors and I) know that my leg will never be what it used to be. I'll always have some form of pain and have to remember to pace myself, but we are aiming for less pain and discomfort than I have at present. It seems fitting to resume blogging as this process picks back up again. If anything, these posts will continue to exemplify the impact of what happens when everything goes wrong in the wake of broken leg and chronic bone infection.

This post will remain brief - I'm writing this before I head out for work. I do plan on working on a proper update this weekend. For now, I'll just say that my leg/foot is still crooked and that I now definitively know that I have issues with at least three of the nerves in my right leg (the superficial and deep peroneal nerves and the sural nerve). There has also been some talk about damage or irritation to a nerve that runs behind my knee. My surgeons (there are two of them now) and I have discussed several options for trying to alleviate symptoms - first minimally invasive and, if that does now work, invasive. It feels good to have back up plan if things don't work out with the minimally invasive approach (given my history, everything that could go wrong has, so it is comforting to know we have a plan for all scenarios). I cannot emphasize how reassuring and comforting it feels to have a plan again. As the issues with my nerves increase, I'm experiencing more pain/discomfort and seeing an increase in the limitations caused by my leg. Perhaps I would be willing to leave things as is if I were twenty or thirty years older. As it stands, I am only twenty-nine. My orthopaedic surgeon and I agree that I still have too many years ahead of me to simply accept the pain and limitations my legs causes. For instance, I have moved to a breathtakingly beautiful part of northern Ontario. I want to enjoy living here to the fullest and that means being able to go on hikes - something I am unable to do at present. There was a point around 2018/2019 when I was adamant I would never have anymore procedures or surgeries on my leg. After several years to mull things over (and experience the issues with my leg increase), I feel like I am missing out on too many aspects of life and am willing to go through more medical treatments to obtain those things. I have to believe that those things are in my grasp.

I will leave it at that for today. Here I am, wishing everyone a beautiful Thursday from northern Ontario!

 

Another One

I haven't posted anything since my hospitalization back in June. I desperately want to tell everyone reading this that the lack of updates is a good thing - a sign that everything sorted itself out and turned out okay. Unfortunately, I am unable to type those words. The blurry vision I was experiencing, that we thought was just astigmatism, turned out to be something serious. The kind of serious that never goes away. I wish all of the reassurances that my doctors gave me were true. It will go away they said. It will get better. These things often come and go. You've got age on your side. All those reassurances. All well meaning; all likely true for the vast majority of young people with a sudden onset of double vision. But, as with my leg, when I do something I do it all the way. The double vision didn't disappear, either gradually or suddenly. It stuck around. Or is sticking around. It's still there, ever persistent. Because apparently I have developed an autoimmune disease. And that really sucks. So I haven't updated this blog because I'm processing the unexpected (because these things are never really unexpected, even when we've known somethings not quite right for a while) news. And really, given everything with my leg, because of course that is still an ongoing issue as well, it's been a bit hard to handle at times. I only just feel like I've gotten a hold of everything, and even then there are still bad days. Lots of ups and downs.

I'm hoping today will be a good, albeit a stressful day. For today I am having surgery. Surgery number eleven to try to fix my leg. So as is my tradition, here is a picture of me, not so bushy eyed but ready to go nonetheless.

I don't really want to post about the autoimmune stuff at the moment, but thought it fair to bring up given my long absence after my hospital visit some two and a half months ago. I will get to posting about it eventually. With all the nonsense with my perpetually broken leg, I've always found comfort in writing blog posts. It's helped me to work through muddled thoughts and feelings. But I feel like the best thing for me right now is distraction. While the broken leg nonsense had dragged on far longer than it ever should have (and what feels like infinity at times), there has always been the knowledge that one day it will get better. The autoimmune stuff won't. The definiteness of the situation is both a comfort and a cold hard blow - on the one hand I can expect a new kind of normal without the ups and downs of worrying if it will go away but on the other... well, it's forever. So that kind of really sucks.

I'm not entirely sure where I am going with this. In all likelihood the pre-surgery jitters are making me ramble on a bit. I guess this is just a heads up that I am still here with the same broken leg plus a whole new medical mountain to scale.

As always, it will be okay. We find a new kind of normal. The birds still sing and the sun still shines, and that's a pretty darn good reason to be happy. Add a cup of tea and a good book (plus me glasses... oh, yeah, I have glasses now), and life looks pretty good.

It never freaking ends...

Right now I am sitting on a hospital bed on the stroke/neurology unit of a hospital. Fortunately, it is the hospital where I have had seven out of the ten surgeries I have had to try to fix my leg, so I know that I am in good hands. Unfortunately, I am in the hospital. Definitely not the place a single twenty-five year old wants to find herself on a Saturday night. I'm single and ready to mingle and there's nobody to mingle with here. I'm probably the youngest person on this unit by at least thirty years. Maybe I'd have better luck on the spinal/trauma unit but, oddly enough given my history, that's not where I find myself right now.

This week sucked. And by that I mean that it has been really really really truly awful, to the point where not much could make it worse than it already has been. Actually, that's not true. It can't get any worse because it's about to end, but that just means that next week is going to start on the same bad note that this week is ending on. The week has been awful to the point that I just want to leave a trail of expletives at the start of this post. But I won't do that, because there is a little old lady in the bed across from me, and for some reason I can't type all those horrible words while she is looking at me. So, lets all hope together that next week will get progressively better. I really need it to get better.

This is the point where I'm supposed to get in-depth about what's going on, but that's not going to happen. Typing this out so far has taken a vast amount of effort and concentration (and given me a headache), so I'm just going to copy and past the message I posted on the external fixator support group I am part of (because even after external fixators come off, you're left with a host of post-fixator problems that any present/former framie can relate to).

If anything doesn't make sense, I apologize in advance. Actually... no. No, I don't apologize. Of all the posts I ever write, typos and confusion are justifiable in this one. If you don't like it, you try typing under similar circumstances!

Post to my support group:

"When it rains it pours. My next appointment with my orthopedic surgeon wasn't supposed to be until July 6th. I have been in so much pain, however, that I made an impromptu trip to my surgeon's office yesterday morning (June 8th). You can see the x-rays that were taken. My tibia is still broken and the surgery I had in February to treat the nonunion has officially failed. I am absolutely gutted. I have been dealing with this since I was thirteen (I am now twenty-five and working as a nurse). I struggled with chronic osteomyelitis for years before getting an external fixator in 2015. The fixator came of in May 2016. Since then, my tibia has failed to heal. I've had ten surgeries so far, and am now in the process of scheduling the eleventh one. Unfortunately, I have had some serious changes in the vision of my left eye over the last week. On Monday, things were a bit blurry. I went to the optometrist on Tuesday, was told I have astigmatism, and ordered glasses. Since then, my vision has rapidly gotten worse. Things have gotten blurrier, I am having double vision, and am unable to focus on things. I went to the ER after seeing my orthopedic surgeon and have been admitted to the neurology floor. One of the neurologists I saw in the ER said that my eyes are pointing in different directions. Other than that, my left eye looks fine, so the neurologists believe there is something wrong with the optic nerve or in my brain. I have had a CT scan and am waiting to have an MRI scan. Several potential diagnosis have been suggested, some minor and other quite serious. We can't schedule surgery to try to fix my leg until the issues with my vision are sorted out (or I at least get a diagnosis). I am exhausted, disheartened and very scared. For the last few months, I've felt like I can't handle the situation with my leg anymore. Ironically, now that I am having vision problems and awaiting a diagnosis for that, the issues with my leg seem much more manageable than they have in a long time. I would give anything to just have to worry about my leg."

So... yeah. My leg is still broken. The previous surgery failed. And now my vision is all messed up - double vision, blurriness, inability to focus, eyes not working together as they should, dizziness... 

It's definitely justifiable if this post doesn't make any sense.

Oh, and here are my x-rays. 

I will try to post a more comprehensive explanation of things once I know more. Right now I am doing my best not to worry. Just taking it a day at a time and enjoying the amazing tea and m&m mixed yogurt you can buy in the cafe. They still sell the yogurt with granola and fruit that I like, but now it all has kiwis in it, and I am allergic to those... no forbidden fruit for me.

TLDR: In hospital. Leg is still broken. Need more surgery. Vision in left eye is messed up. Neurologists concerned. Waiting for MRI scan of my brain. Hopefully get a diagnosis after that. Can't have surgery until vision issues dealt with. Oh, and can't have the nice yogurt because it has kiwis and I am allergic to them. Drat!

Taking the plunge!

Here I go! Surgery number ten!

Waiting

Pippin: "It's so quiet."

Gandalf: "It's the deep breath before the plunge."

Pippin: "I don't want to be in a battle, but waiting on the edge of one I can't escape is even worse!"

Here I am, at this moment that is all too familiar. Tomorrow afternoon I will be having yet another surgery to try to fix my leg. Another attempt. But right now I am just waiting. Just waiting... saying it like that makes it seem like nothing is happening at all, but that's not true.

I've known with certainty that this surgery would be happening since last September when I sat in the fracture clinic signing the consent form. Since then, I've had five months of waiting, and I can tell you that more than nothing is happening.

The first months went by as if, indeed, nothing were happening. You tell your friends and family; you make sure not to book anything too major or too far in advance; maybe you do a couple special things to treat yourself, thinking "Hey, I'm having surgery so I should be kind to myself. I deserve it!" As time goes by you slowly start preparing yourself for the big event but, for the most part, life goes on as usual. Time goes by at its regular speed.

Then you get a letter or a call from the hospital informing you exactly when the big event will be. At that point, the inevitable surgery becomes a bit more real; not just an afterthought or a vague point in the future that you think about occasionally as you get on with your daily life. All of a sudden, you have to start making preparations - you have to e-mail your boss or manager to request time off work; there is blood work to be done and there are pre-op appointments to attend; maybe you need to buy some medical equipment or rearrange parts of your house for ease of access during the recovery period after surgery; perhaps you clean your home so it's lovely and fresh while you recover (I do before every surgery); you plan some meals that are easy to make when you are in pain and/or bed bound. At this stage, time slips through your fingers. You'd give anything for it to slow down so you could avoid the inevitable surgery. It's going to hurt. You're going to be uncomfortable. The comfortable routine you've established in your life if going to be disrupted with both uncertainty and a mountain of boredom as you recover and wait to resume your usual routine. If only you could avoid it altogether.

And then it's nearly there - you're facing the last few days or hours until it happens. Now time is slow. I think Pippin is right - if something it inevitable, it's not the thing itself that is hardest to face, but the inescapable moments or days beforehand. When all you can do is watch it coming, looming over you. But it hasn't fully engulfed you yet. You're either as prepared or unprepared as you're going to be. Either way, it's going to happen. It's not quite there yet, but you're too close to be able to think about anything else. All you can think is "It's going to happen..." but the point is that it hasn't happened and that leaves you with what feels like all the time in the world to think about it and worry. You'd give anything to just hurry up and get it over with.

It's at that moment where I am right now - waiting; waiting and knowing what's going to happen next but not quite there yet. There is so much happening. So much anticipation. But also hesitation. Worry. Both hope and fear. All bundled into one buzzing, restless, living thing inside of me. The surgery itself is the easy part. I get put under general anesthesia and my surgeon does all the work. It's getting myself to walk into the operating room, willing myself to let it happen, that is the hard part. Both knowing and not knowing what's going to happen. Knowing what happens when you go in for surgery: patient registration, going up to same day surgery to be prepared for the operating room, what happens to you when you enter the operating room, waking up in the recovery room, being transferred to an inpatient ward. I've done it all nine times before. I know what will happen. But then there's the not knowing: Will the surgery be successful? Will the surgeon find anything unexpected? Just exactly how badly is it going to hurt? How long will it be before I get back to normal? Both knowing and not knowing....

At this point, I would really just like to get it over with. Time feels like it is standing still, and all I can think is "Let me take the plunge". Let me get it over with so that I can have something, anything, other than surgery on my horizon.

The conversation between Gandalf and Pippin didn't end after Pippin mentioned waiting on the edge of battle. Pippin going on to ask Gandalf a question:

Pippin: "Is there any hope, Gandalf? For Frodo and Sam?"

Gandalf: "There never was much hope. Just a fool's hope."

Do I have a fool's hope that this surgery will fix me? I don't know... We're on to surgery number ten to fix the same issue. I feel like I've run an entire marathon only to end up right back where I started. It's just not the good kind of marathon that you celebrate finishing. I started with a badly broken leg that wouldn't heal, and after all the treatment and surgeries to fix it, I'm still stuck with a broken leg that won't heal. We -my surgeon, family, and I- have approached each surgery the same way: this should be the last one, this one will fix it, it gets better from here. Yet here we are, nine surgeries down and standing on the threshold of number ten. Will this one really fix things? Or are there more down the road...? 

After me previous relationship ended, I found it difficult to get back out there and start dating again. I thought I had the rest of my life planned out, and then it all kind of crumbled and fell apart. Recently I've been, however, on a couple of dates with a really lovely man. We're not at the point of a relationship, but I hope I can go on some more dates with him and see where things go from there. Yesterday evening he sent me an e-mail. He wants to know if there is anything that I would really love to do once surgery is over and I have recovered from it. If possible, he wants to make it happen. His message, the kind intent behind it alone, is incredibly touching and thoughtful. His hope for my recovery wants me to have hope.

The thing is, I have absolutely no clue what to tell him. I've never gotten to the point of recovering from surgery and being all better. I used to hope that I would be, and even dreamed about it, but that hope hasn't happened in a long time. Truth be told, I'm not sure what I'm actually expecting of this surgery, or if I'm expecting anything at all. I've been living with the issues with my leg, and all the accompanying pain and discomfort, for so long, that it's hard to imagine a life in which I'm completely healthy and normal, let alone to believe that such a life could actually happen. I've been through so many struggles and surgeries that this all just feels normal. There have been so many surgeries in the past; there is another one tomorrow; and part of me feels like it wouldn't be crazy to think that there will be more to come in the future. 

With all this in mind, "What do you want to do once surgery is over and you've recovered from it?" doesn't feel like a question that should exist in my little corner of the world. Do I dare to hope or, to echo Gandalf's words, is it a fool's hope? The only way to find out is to go through with the surgery. But I don't just want to hope. I don't want all the expectations only to have the same let down I have had with all the previous surgeries. I would rather go in expecting nothing, only to be pleasantly surprised and given the world than to go in hoping for the world only to have it torn away from me. Maybe the middle road is best. Maybe I need to have what my surgeon and infectious disease specialist mentioned all those years ago when we thought the bone infection was gone the first time. Maybe the best thing to do is to be cautiously optimistic. I don't want to be a fool, hoping for something that will never happen, but maybe being a fool, hopeful and optimistic despite all signs contrary to what you are hoping for, is better than accepting that it will always be this way. Without hope, what reason is there to actually go through with the surgery? Without hope, wouldn't it be easier to just accept that my leg is how it is, painful and uncomfortable, and get on with life with all the limitations my leg will impose on it? Right now I might feel like my leg won't get better, but deep down there is the faintest hope. I have to believe that there is hope. The very fact that I am going through with the surgery is proof of that. I wouldn't go through with all this happening, all this nervous dread and anticipation, if I didn't believe that there was hope. There is always hope. There has to be. 

I will play the fool. 

There is so much happening before surgery. It's not just waiting. Hopefully (there's that word again) this post sheds some light on some of the feelings running through my head. I think they're all too common to anybody facing chronic medical problems and/or surgeries. Even blogging about the surgery and how I feel about it is something happening. I don't know what the purpose of posting about it is exactly, but it makes me feel a bit better about the surgery looming ahead and it ate up a couple of hours to type it all out. And, most importantly, it made me feel like I was doing something. I was typing - something was happening. I wasn't just waiting for the inevitable tomorrow afternoon. That, along with foolish hope, has got to count for something, right?

*The irony of referring to everything I have been through with my leg as a marathon is not lost on my. I promise you that I've made my peace with the fact that I will never be able to run a marathon. XD

Update - Time change

Just a quick update to let everyone know that there has been a change in regard to what time I will be having surgery. Surgery will still be on February 1st, but it's now scheduled for 1:00 pm instead of 10:00 am. On the bright side, I can sleep in a bit. The not so bright side is that I still won't be able to eat or drink anything after midnight even though surgery will be three hours later than originally scheduled. Too bad they won't let me eat and drink up until three am. Fingers crossed for my poor mum that I don't get to hanrgy (hungry + angry = hanrgy - irritable due to hunger) waiting in pre-op while my poor belly rumbles. Just kidding. I'm sure she'll have fun eating her breakfast in front of me and drinking her coffee on the way to the hospital like she always does! XD

On a somewhat related note - I went to my pre-op appointment on January 19th. I got sent a package of paperwork to fill out beforehand. The package is full of surgery related questions. One of them asks me to list all my previous surgeries. There's only room for ten and I'm already filling out nine of those spots. Maybe after ten you get a pass to skip your next pre-op appointment? That would be great! Seriously though, that would be nice. I sat in that waiting room for three and a half hours. I spent twenty minutes tops talking to the pharmacist, nurse, and anesthesiologist. They were way more interested in hearing about my previous nine surgeries to fix the same freaking problem than anything else. Not many people my age have been through all that. Unfortunately for me, repeating the story so many times does get a bit tedious at times. Serious though - the staff were great. I've just been through this way too many times. The anesthesiologist even apologized numerous times for the long wait. He said there wasn't much to go over as I'm a pro at it already. On the bright side, I went out for lunch afterwards and had an amazing grilled cheese sandwich. Move over Ikea! I've found a new best place to eat after hospital appointments!

Read all the books!

Speaking of resolutions, here's a list of all the books I read last year, and the ones I've read so far this year. I don't know what other people read, but I think my reading list is pretty awesome!

Here's the list from last year:
1) I am Malala: The Girl Who Stood Up for Eduction and Was Shoot by the Taliban, Malala Yousafzai
2) Life Inside a Medieval Castle, Joseph Gies and Frances Gies
3) Paper: An Elegy, Ian Sansom
4) The Extraordinary Journey of the Fakir Who Got Trapped in an Ikea Wardrobe, Romain Puertolas
5) The Man Who Knew Infinity, Robert Kanigel
6) Modern Death, Haider Warraich
7) The Secrete Language of Doctors, Brian Goldman
8) The Dragon of Handale, Cassandra Clark
9) The Little Book of Hygge, Meik Wiking
10) The Introvert's Way: Living a Quiet Life in a Noisy World, Sophia Dembling
11) The Wisdom of the Shire, Noble Smith
12) 25 gram geluk: hoe een egeltje je leven kan veranderen, Massimo Vacchetta and Antonella Tomaselli
13) De Hobbit, J.R.R. Tolkien, translated by Max Schuchart
14) Life Below Stairs: True Lives of Edwardian Servants, Alison Maloney
15) Girl in Hyacinth Blue, Susan Vreeland

What I've read so far in 2018:
1) Modern Romance, Aziz Ansari and Eric Klinenberg
2) The Time Traveler's Guide to Elizabethan England, Ian Mortimer
3) The Little Book of Lykke, Meik Wiking
4) The Miniaturist, Jessie Burton
5) Wij alleen, Toon Tellegen

Out of everything I have ever read, the last one on the list, Wij alleen, has by far become my favorite book. I think that is really saying something; for years my ultimate favorites have been the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings. I picked Wij alleen up at a book store at Schiphol airport in Amsterdam on a whim while I was waiting for my flight to board at the end of my holiday last October. I know people say not to do it, but I judged this book solely on it's cover and I'm so glad I did! I don't know if there are any English translations of Toon Tellegen's work - for all you English speakers our there I hope there are. I love reading, but it's not very often that a book touches me in the way this one did. It's full of short stories, usually 2-4 pages long, that really highlight the concept of togetherness. I wish it were longer! As of right now, his books are the first I'm going to buy next year when my year of no new books is over!

It's two-thusand eighteen!

Hello everyone! I hope that the new year has been good to you all so far! A little part of me still thinks we've just finished celebrating the holidays, but my calendar clearly states that it is in fact January 26th, so there you have it. We've just about made it through a twelfth of the year already. Enough time has passed (in my opinion) to determine if there are any hopes (or not...) of completing our new year's resolutions. I'd like to think that I've been pretty successful so far. I'll tell you all about my resolutions for the year in a moment, but here's some history on my previous New Year's resolutions first.

As any long-term reader of this blog knows, I've had a broken leg for a long time. Like a really really really insanely large amount of time. Seven hundred and eighty-two days, in case you're wondering exactly how long I'm talking about. Before my leg was broken, my tibia was host to the not so welcome chronic bone infection. The infection, which only existed because of a badly broken leg that wasn't treated properly, stuck around for quite a few years. I've obviously been dealing with this issue for a large part of my life (since I was thirteen) and, as such, it makes sense that many of my goals/resolutions have revolved around getting better. Here's a quick rundown of those goals and/or resolutions:

In 2006, my badly broken leg took a disproportionate amount of time to heal. The bone ultimately healed itself, but it ended up crooked and required surgery to re-break the bone and set it properly. Needless to say, I spent most of the year hoping that my leg would get better.

The following year, I had all the telltale signs of infection. I spent 2007 trying to convince my doctor and orthopedic surgeon that something was wrong and hoping that my leg would be okay.

During the next year, it was obvious that something was quite wrong. My doctors still wouldn't believe that anything was wrong but ultimately agreed to remove all the hardware from my leg. My hopes for 2008 were much the same as they were in 2007.

On to the next one: 2009 started off with a sinking suspicion that I might have a chronic bone infection. My surgeon brushed my concerns off.  Unlike the previous years, 2009 was not spent hoping that my leg would get better but instead trying to convince myself that there was, indeed, nothing wrong.

The year after that was considerably normal. I managed to shove many of my fears about my leg into a tiny box and, therefore, my goals for 2010 were surprisingly non-leg related. They had more to do with graduating from high school and passing my first batch of university exams.

Things kind of fell apart after that. It was clear in 201 that things were quite wrong with my leg. I spent the first half of the year hoping for a diagnoses (and a doctor who would believe me when I said something wrong); the second half was filled with hopes that antibiotics could knock out the infection so that surgery could be avoided.

When 2012 came around, I was resigned to the fact that the infection wasn't going away and that surgery and IV antibiotics would be needed. I just hoped to get through all the treatment.

The year following all that treatment was spent hoping that I had finally beat the damned infection. I suppose 2013 could be described as a year filled with a mix of hope and fear. Hope that the infection was gone; fear that it was lurking in the shadows, waiting to rear it's ugly hear again.

2014 was shockingly normal (until the very end when I suspected the bone infection had returned). Thus, the year was filled with other resolutions: graduating university and getting into college.

In 2015 everything cam crumbling down. I was given the undesirable news that the bone infection had indeed returned. The resolution that year was to remain healthy enough to make it through two semester of college and then have surgery to remove the infected section of bone. I was successful, but just barely.

Bring in the next year - 2016. It started with the big blue monstrous external fixator stuck to my leg. Despite everything that went wrong with the external fixator and re-growing my tibia, my goals for the year were easy to define - lose the fixator and re-learn how to walk. We could worry about getting the bone to heal later.

When 2017 came around, I was still stuck with a nonunion. I was resolved to fix this and end the year with two health lower legs! Unfortunately, things didn't go as expected.

And that brings us to this year: 2018. Unfortunately, I still find myself in the midst of non-union territory, and surgery to try to fix the problem is fast approaching. This year, however, something is different. I don't have any goals or resolutions revolving around my leg. Yes, of course I want my leg to get better. I want it more than almost anything else in the world. But this year it's not going to be my focus.

I can hear you all asking "How can fixing your leg not be one of your goals?" If you look back at the short history of my broken leg journey that I just outlined, you'll notice something. With the exception of 2010 and 2014, my resolutions and goals for all the other years were primarily focused around my leg. Some might say that this is natural. A broken leg that is slow to heal is a big deal. A chronic bone infection that first goes diagnosed for many year despite obvious symptoms that something is wrong, followed by lots and lots of treatment and surgery, is also a big deal. A chronic bone infection that come back despite all that treatment and ultimately requires losing a big chunk of bone and having to relearn how to walk is an even bigger deal. After so many years, it's natural to want to put this all behind me. But if the last years have taught me anything, it is that I am not in control of what is happening to my leg. No amount of hoping or willing it into getting better is going to actually make the ends of my bone knit together. No resolution will fix my leg because, at the end of the day, resolutions are things that you can control. As unfortunate as it is, I cannot control the nonunion.

Looking back, many of my goals, hopes, and resolutions over the last twelve years have revolved around my leg in one way or another. As previously stated, this is only natural. But hoping that my leg gets better cannot be my only resolution. I can, however, control other things in my life. Aside from hoping that my leg would get better, I had several other resolutions in 2017. My biggest resolution was to graduate from nursing school and pass the CPNRE. After having been out of school for a year, this was a big feat to accomplish. But guess what? I did it! Another goal was to get hired as a nurse at a local hospital. I did that as well. I also had to other resolutions - to not buy any more books and to read a book a month. I completely failed the former, but was quite successful with the latter (I ended up reading fifteen books rather than twelve).

The thing about all of those resolutions was that I achieved almost all of them. I still hoped that my leg would get better, but I was also aware of all the other really big things that I could accomplish. I don't regret all the years I spent hoping for my leg to get better. Hoping for that was natural. The initial break and malunion, the chronic bone infection, the relapse, the external fixator, re-learning how to walk... all of those things were huge and took up most of my time, energy (both physically and mentally), and attention. But I don't want fixing my leg to be my resolution for yet another year. I don't know if this will be the year that it finally gets better. I certainly hope it will be. But I don't know if it will be and there is nothing I can do to control the outcome. So it's not going to be one of my resolutions this year. It's not even going to be one of my major goals. This year, doing some actual living is my goal.

So it's two-thousand eighteen. This year I have the following resolutions:

1) Explore! Explore all thing things! The one thing you don't get to do when you have a broken leg, a bone infection, an external fixator, or have to learn to walk again is explore. I can walk now, so I am going to do and see all kinds of stuff I couldn't do and see before.

2) I'm going to apply to Nipissing University for the RPN to RN bridge program.This is a really big goal. Being accepted means dedicating myself to anywhere between three and a half to five more years of school. That is a big commitment. But my previous plans fell through last summer when I broke up with my then boyfriend. This is my back up plan and I think it's a pretty darned good one!

3) Take my road test so I can get my G2. Doing this will allow me to drive unaccompanied and search for jobs in bigger cities. Living in a bigger city will help me with the first resolution. 

4) If I pass my road test, buy a car! My dream car is a Volkswagen Beetle. I doubt that will be my first car, but one day I will hopefully have one.

5) Don't buy any more books this year. We're a month into the year and so far I have been successful. It's been a challenge (there have been some lovely books at both the ROM and the AGO), but I haven't caved in yet. 

6) Read a book every two weeks. It must be one from my own collection. Hopefully I'll be able to declutter my bookcases a bit.

7) Keep growing my plus elephant collection! 

I don't think I have ever had this many goals. It feels good to have them. Of course I want to be successful with all of them, but it's not the end of the world if I am not. The point is that they are all non-leg related. Whatever happens to my leg, it's going to be an amazing year and I am going to be in control of it! I guess that's kind of a resolution in and of itself...

8) Don't let the broken leg define who you are or control the things you do or don't do.

A bit tired

Hello fellow internet users! I hope the new year finds everyone in good health and high spirits! I'm wishing everyone those things because, at the moment, I'm feeling rather run down and, when it comes to work, a tad bit under appreciated. There are just a whole bunch of things that have all come together recently and left me feeling rather blah.

For starters, there is the upcoming surgery on the first of February. Say what!?! How can it only be three weeks away? I've been talking about this thing for a better part of the last year. How can it be only three weeks away? I think that I've been thinking about it for so long that I've almost convinced myself that it was never actually going to happen; as if it's become that thing you just always talk about. I'm nervous and hopeful, all bundled up together. Hopeful it will be the final surgery. Nervous that is won't work. Scared that something might go wrong. Apprehensive because I know it's going to cause me a fair bit of pain. And maybe just a tiny bit excited to be able to show of my angry-bird crutches again.

Then there's the actual pain my leg has been causing. I've noticed the number of shifts I am accepting at work is dwindling. When I started at my current job last September, I was working full time. Over the last few weeks, however, I've gone from accepting roughly thirty-six hours of work a week to as little as twelve. I'm working my first shift of the week tonight. Last week I also only worked one shift. The week before, however, I worked three shifts (thirty-six hours). I want nothing more than to work, but I'm slowing down. My body just can't keep up at the moment. Twelve hours of standing on my leg is just too much. Not only is there the physical aspect of things, but also a mental one. I want to be able to work. I am young and I make good money. I want nothing more to be able to work as hard as possible so I can save as much as I possible can. But at the moment that's not possible. There is a huge internal struggle between what I want to do and what I actually can do, what my body will physically let me do. There's this disconnect and it's hard to deal with.

Add to that the constant changes between day and night shift. I'm finding it pretty difficult to go between the two at the moment. I'm sure this is compounded by how tired I am and how much my leg hurts most of the time, but at the end of the day it's not natural to do that to your body. Literally, your body is not meant to work a day shift and then, twenty-four hours later, work a night shift The part-time and full-time employees at least have some consistency - two weeks of days followed by two weeks of nights, then rinse and repeat. But my work schedule is all over the place. And I don't know most of my shifts in advance. Work will just call an hour and a half before a shift begins and ask if I want to come in. So there is no consistency at all. My coworkers say I should be able to handle it because I am young, but it wears you down after a while.

And the biggest problem (at least in my opinion) - the lack of appreciation. I'm going to use the holidays as an example for this. I gave up spending Christmas with my family in order to work. Working the holidays comes part and parcel with being a nurse. I understand that. I'm not looking for constant gratitude from my patients or their family members. I became a nurse because I want to help people and I new in advance that a lot of nurses don't receive the recognition that they deserve. But not a single patient or any of their family members thanked me for working the holidays. Not one. This is how I started my shift on Christmas: "My husband has diarrhea. Does that mean he is going to die?" Yeah. That's how I started the shift. And it was a horrible shift - I didn't get a single break. And that's just one example. For all the talk in the news about how overburdened and short staffed health care is a the moment and the health care crisis to come with the aging baby boomers, a lot of people are surprisingly clueless. I hear the words "Oh, I'm not your only patient?" way more often than I should. That's right. I have patients who actually think I am there to provide personal one-on-one care. Being a nurse on a busy oncology/medicine/palliative care unit is like being a rubber band, stretched every which way. There are a million important things that have to get done; everyone is vying for your attention. It's exhausting. The twelve hours are grueling. I often don't get my breaks and sometimes I don't even get to go to the bathroom. And I work rotating shifts and holidays. So please, for the love all things soft and polka-dotted, don't corner a nurse at the start of her shift on Christmas and let the firs thing you say be "My husband has diarrhea. Does that mean he's dying?" Please wish your nurse a Merry Christmas first. She's given that day with her family up to take care of yours.

To top it all off, I've just had rotten luck getting sick. Some how, this twenty-five year old ended up with shingles in December. How did I get shingles at that age? I have no clue. What I do know is that it sucked and, no matter how cliche it is to say, that I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy. I don't know if I'm experiencing the aftermath of shingles right now, or if I've come down with some new viral thing, but I've been sick for the better part of this week. I am exhausted. This girl is sleeping a solid ten to twelve hours a night and she's still tied.

So I've been struggling with some stuff at the moment - upcoming surgery, pain, work and under appreciation, rotating shifts, being sick. Basically all the things I normally deal with, a little bit at a time, but right now all jumbled into one big ball of tired and sore and sick and plain old blah, making it difficult to cope with any of the things I normally cope with quite well. I am hopeful that I will feel much better when this nonsense with my leg is finally sorted, which should result in a lot less pain (maybe even none? Fingers crossed!) and an abundance of energy. Until then, I just have to keep myself occupied until surgery. I've been doing lots of crafty things and reading like the bibliophile I am. My manager called this afternoon to ask if I want a night shift in the emergency department, which I have accepted. And, weather permitting, I'm going to the ROM on Saturday to see the viking exhibit!

Little owl I stitched by hand this week. Hoot hoot!

I've been plugging away at the butterflies for the quilt I am making. This is the seventh one I've completed. Only five more to go! This has by far been my favorite to stitch. I worked from the outside in, one shade of pink at a time. It was really neat to see the whole thing come together that way, to watch the different shades blend together. So far I've put in about 107 hours of cross stitching. I'm guessing about 70 more before all the butterflies are done.

Here is my Christmas tree. I know it's a little bit late to post pictures of it, seeing as we're almost half way through January, but I wanted to show off the glass ornaments I bought while in the Netherlands last October.

So tired! I don't know if I am coming or going from a shift here. I'm going to go with getting ready to go to work, because my hair looks pretty neat and I don't have that flustered look I sometimes get by the end of a shift.

Happy New Year!

Mr. Penguin wishes everyone a Happy New Year!

Best Christmas gift ever!

I reached a lot of big goals this past year - finishing school, passing my certification exam and becoming certified as a registered practical nurse, getting hired to work as a nurse in a hospital, getting my first taste of life no longer being a student, and going on a real true proper vacation for the first time in almost a decade! In comparison, the goals for this year 2018 are pretty simply. I hope to buy a car in the spring (granted, I need to pass my road test first so that I can finally drive without another licensed individual in the car) and am planning on applying to Nipissing University for the RPN to RN bridge program. And the main goal, of course: I want to fix my leg! That's been on the top of my list for the last three years (pretty much since the start of 2015 when I was told the bone infection had come back). My leg has been broken since my surgeon cut out 6.5 cm of bone. That was twenty-eight months ago. Almost two and a half years! Wow. That's a long time to have a broken leg. Hopefully this will be the year to see it fixed!

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas! I hope everyone is having a lovely day full of their favorite things (for me that mean a big mug of tea and comfy slippers)! Right now I am sitting in my robe (that makes it sound like I'm some sort of wizard), listening to the kettle boil and occasionally looking out the window to admire all the snow out there.

I have to work tonight and again tomorrow night (unfortunately, patients don't just get well and go home over the holiday), but I was lucky enough to get the last few days off, so I was able to spend some quality time at home with my family. My brother came over yesterday afternoon to have a meal with my mum and I, and he'll be coming over for an hour or so today before I head off to work!

Me, coming off of a night shift on Friday morning, ready for some time off before the holidays!

New really big mug after my lovely bird mug broke a few weeks ago.

I've continue my tradition of collecting cards and postcards.

 Here are my lovely little piggies - enjoying the small wooden hide house I got them.

 Christmas present from my brother - another one for the collection!

This month I took a break from working on my butterfly quilt. I'm about half way done the cross stitching part and look forward to completing it sometime next year. I decided to take a break from it for a while so that I could do some holiday stitching - something I've been meaning to do for years but never seem to get around to doing. I've had some lovely Margaret Sherry patterns sitting around for ages and am so pleased I took the time to make them now that they are done!

And lastly - always a child at heart XD

I hope everyone has a lovely day and is able to enjoy and appreciate the quiet days to come between Christmas and New Years!

Another One

Hello fellow internet users! It's been a while since my last post (over two months by now). Unless you count the pain that my leg has been causing on a regular basis since who only knows when (actually, I do know - since the external fixator came off), there hasn't been much to update about. Life goes on much as it always has - I read; I drink lots of tea out of really big mugs; I probably cross stitch  more than I ought to (ten bucks says I get carpal tunnel when I'm forty!). I also go to work. I do nurse-y things while I'm there. The twelve hour shifts are hectic, but I try to do everything I possibly can for my patients. If I'm lucky, I have time to make a patient a cup of tea. And then I go home, peal off my compression stockings, and wonder if my leg will hold up for another shift or if I've finally reached (or worse, crossed) that invisible line that's so hard to distinguish, always moving/never static. Have I over done it? Will a few days off allow my leg to recover enough to do a few more shifts? Should I call my surgeon's office? I think I'm getting pretty close to that line. I never do three shifts in a row anymore, and now even two is getting difficult. Which leads me to the point of this blog...

When I returned from vacation at the end of October, I started calling my surgeon's office because it had been over a month since I had signed the consent forms for yet another surgery but still hadn't received any information about it. I finally heard back from his assistant on December 4th. Apparently the hospital changed some stuff in regards to surgical times and the booking process for surgeries, hence the delay in information regarding surgery. I was offered a choice - either February 1st or 14th. I like to think I choose the former because I don't want to have surgery on the fourteenth because that interferes with this singletons plans to buy lots of candy at a discount the day after Valentines day, but in reality by leg hurts most of the time so I just want to get surgery over as soon as possible. Therefore, I opted for February 1st. About a week or two ago, I received an envelope from my surgeon's office with a letter confirming this date, along with a date for my pre-op appointment and a package of questions regarding my health to complete prior to that appointment. So that's my big news - my tenth trip to the operating room will be on February 1st at ten in the morning (thank goodness - most of my surgeries have been at eight in the morning, meaning getting up at four to get there on time, and that's an early rise even for a nurse!).

What does the surgery involve? The fibular osteotomy will happen no matter what. I know, I know, those are big words.... but what exactly is a fibular osteotomy? Basically my surgeon will cut out a chunk of my fibula to fix the length discrepancy between my fibula and tibia. My fibula is currently longer than my tibia and, because my tibia is broken and held together by a giant metal rod called an IM nail, all of my weight is being transferred to my fibula. The fibula is, surprisingly, a non-weight bearing bone. As such, mine is starting to bend (something called "bowing") under my weight, this pushing on muscles and causing a lot of pain. This will be happening no matter what. The fibular osteotomy requires making an incision (I'm told it will be pretty small, maybe an inch or two long) on the side of my leg, so I'm guaranteed at least one more scar before all is said and done. And then the second part is yet to be determined - I will either have the screws holding my current IM nail adjusted or the current one taken out and a new, smaller one, put in it's place. I'm leaning toward the latter (exchange intremedullary nailing). I'm not one hundred percent sure yet, but obviously still have some time to think things through.  Regardless of the two options, the two ends of my tibia will be smushed together and, a a result of said smushing, hopefully knit together like any broken bone would, allowing me to leave this fiasco in my past once and for all. And that's it - really quite simple, isn't it?

If it was possible to avoid this surgery all together, I would. Unfortunately, my external fixator came off over nineteen months ago and I still find myself in non-union territory. My leg is as broken as ever (albeit not missing 6.5 centimeters of bone anymore; I'm guessing maybe 4 millimeters now, but can't say for sure). I know that this surgery is very minor in comparison to some of the other surgeries I have had. The recovery will be quite quick and easy, even less painful this time around. I think there is just something very unsettling about needing ten surgeries to fix the same issue. I really hope that I can get off the carousel after this next round. Then I can get on with being super nurse! XD

Other than the surgery date, there's not much else to update about. I had an ultrasound of my right leg on November 1st to confirm that there is nothing major going on with the nerves and muscles in my leg (other than being pushed around my by bending fibula that is). My surgeon's office e-mailed me the results sometime in the first half of November. Behold my amazing ability to copy and paste the results: “may benefit from some physio focusing on her ankle stabilizing muscles”. The muscles in my right leg are quite weak and could benefit from some physical therapy. Given that my fibula is still pushing against all those muscles, and the fact that the bending fibula won't be fixed until surgery, I've decided to forgo having physical therapy until after surgery. 

Oh, before I forget, I also wanted to mention that I got shingles at the end of November/start of December. Seriously! Who gets shingles when they are twenty-five? On top of all the other health related stuff I have to deal with, I got shingle! Fortunately, it was a mild case. I say fortunately, because the rash I got on my torso (left side) was pretty minor and most of the symptoms went away after about two weeks. However, it still sucked. More than sucked. It sucked a lot! Moving hurt, coughing hurt, even laying in bed trying to sleep hurt... fortunately it is over now. I never want to go through that again. 


And that's about it. I had an amazing time in the Netherlands. I went to museums, historical sites, several markets, about eight different book stores (my inner nerd jumped for joy when I found the Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit in Dutch). I also saw some of my family, something I was not planning on doing before I actually to Holland. Visits with them were last minute affairs, but one hundred percent worth it. And to top it all off, I was able to bring back a whole bunch of lovely glass Christmas ornaments in my carry on luggage (28/30 survived the trip)! I walked much more than I should have - by the end of the trip many outings turned into walking for 10-15 minutes and then having to sit down for a bit to rest, rinse and repeat. But it was worth every bit of pain and discomfort. Of course, I took my cane along with me as well and let me tell you! That piece of metal and rubber was the thing that got me through the trip. I only went out once or twice without it. I went for a walk without it one evening and not even five minutes in I was regretting it. Hopefully walking will be a much more natural, pain free thing to do the next time I do! That being said, despite the pain it was completely worth it!

Here I am, sometimes after a night shift in the middle of November (before the shingles filled shenanigans began).

Shingles... unbelievable itchy. Would not wish on my worst enemy (not that I have any enemies!).

Here are some pictures from my trip: