For the last year I have waited for a surgery. It was a huge shock when it was suggested and I was so busy processing the scale of the procedure that I didn't really ask a lot. Yesterday i got the call to say I can have the surgery next week. I have nine days (and counting down) to wrap up the loose ends of the things I need to deal with before I spend a year in recovery, the first three months in a wheel chair.
It's a huge deal and I expect it to be very, very hard but I'm not too worried. People keep telling me I'll have plenty of time for Netflix, which might be the truth but I think it's more likely I'll need every hour of the day to do rehab, shower and other life neccessities. Everything is painfully slow when you can't move well and pain makes it worse. If I do have time, I will need to be getting into some study which I have attended to only in fits and starts.
The timing is good in that I currently live with three supportive adults, last year it would have been only one. On the other hand it is a little disappointing in that I have just started a placement for my course and I will need to suspend that.
If you are interested, the surgery will fuse some bones in my ankles (we are doing both legs at once, which sounds extra hard to me but the surgeon says I will be glad to only have one recovery) It is intended to make my foot position a bit closer to normal, even out pressures to avoid the pressure ulcers which have plagued me and if I am lucky, it might make me a bit more sure on my feet. It's called a triple arthrodesis.
I don't know how the next six months will play out, I don't know how much I will post here, I don't know if I will be able to work at all. So many questions but the answers will come.
I do know I will not be working for the last painful month we are at the current site. I will clear my desk prior to surgery and I will be spared the goodbye, spared seeing a once beautiful and vibrant place become an abandoned shell.
Thank God for small mercies.
Oh Kylie.
ReplyDeleteI hope it all goes better than well, and changes your life for the better. Good luck - and please keep us posted when you can.
Thank you! I have been terrified of the prospect of losing a leg because of an infected ulcer and truthfully we didn't get even close to that scenario but the longer an issue like that drags on, it becomes almost inevitable.
DeleteIf I no longer have to worry about that, it will be a good thing
Yes hoping you’ll pop in now and again with a little update on the healing process. That sounds awfully painful so you know you can come here and yell scream complain and get it all off your chest in the company of friends.
ReplyDeleteTake care
Cathy
Thanks Cathy! The surgeon told me it would be a painful process and not for my legs! I must rememebr to try to be patient!
DeleteYou are so lucky to have lots of help at home! It sounds painful but definitely hopeful. Maybe your vibrant workplace will return now that the pandemic seems to be waning. Please come back and post. With all the free time...lol...maybe you will feel like posting. This space can be your journal. Best of luck and ample pain relievers for you.
ReplyDeleteI hope to post but I suspect I'll be bogged down in self pity or just the machinations of recovery.
DeleteMy children are wonderfully good to me at any time but I think this will up the ante!
Kylie I wish you the very best outcome and the easiest recovery possible. It sounds very difficult so I am beyond thrilled that you will have some much needed help as you learn to navigate your recovery normal. I will keep you in my thoughts.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Anne. I will surely have melt downs but I recover from them quickly!
DeleteOh Kylie how very brave you are and I do hope that it all goes well and please continue to keep us in the loop of your recovery and experiences.
ReplyDeleteXO
WWW
Thank you WWW. Sometimes bravery is the best of bad options : )
DeleteWell this sounds pretty drastic. I hope everything goes well and that you recover rapidly. And yes, you will have lots of time to blog!
ReplyDeleteThanks for your good wishes, Red!
DeleteThis is a Major Development and I wish you the very best as you go through the process, kylie. May your surgery be a credit to the surgeon and I am so glad you have three supportive adults to help you in your recovery time. It's good to be realistic about what you will get done each day, too. I still cringe when I remember how much time I thought I'd have on my hands after our first baby arrived. Hahahaha, I soon found out differently :D (I know the circumstances are different but the principle is the same.) Please keep us posted now and then if you can.
ReplyDeleteYou get it, Jenny! I'm sure you are very familiar with the way minutiae expand to consume great chunks of time.
DeleteI like your term Major Development
You will certainly be in my thoughts and prayers. I wish you the very best and that includes a complete and rapid recovery with loving support from your family members and medical team. You will be much missed hereabouts until your return. Remember that underneath you are the everlasting arms.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was just a small girl, I sung in a junior choir and one of the songs came back to me today "I know He holds the future, I know He holds my hand.....why should I worry or fret"
DeleteThanks for your support and prayers, Robert
I shall add my positive thoughts to those of your friends and fellow bloggers. My everything go well and may your pain and inconvenience be far outweighed by the benefits that the operation will bring. I, like others, hope you will be able to keep in touch. God luck and kia kaha, kia maia, kia manawanui.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Graham! I will endeavour to keep this whanau informed 😊
DeleteHaving some idea of how you cope with situations in your life, I have no doubts whatsoever that you will handle this too with aplomb and come out of it in flying colours. My best wishes that you do.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Ramana! Your encouragement is always valuable
DeleteYou will be spared seeing a beautiful place become an abandoned shell.
ReplyDeleteAll things are passing, Kylie. Our evil world is under God's judgment.
We are living in the darkest of times, when educated people justify infanticide, the mass slaughter of unborn children, and only women like Maria Steen in Ireland (YouTube) have the courage to challenge the feminists who corrupt young women.
I will pray for the success of your operation and your recovery. I shall ask others to pray as well.
*Nevertheless, I am continually with you; you hold my right hand.*
Psalm 73: 23
This was a favourite Psalm of Martin Buber, the great Jewish teacher.
If only the Psalms were read more by Christians as well as by all the lost souls.
Jack Haggerty
Thank you for your prayers and support , Jack.
DeleteAll things are passing, change is a constant: I know it but I am still sad when something positive has to be left behind
I once decided I should memorise some psalms. I managed to memeorise about 4 or 6 verses before I gave up!
Saying goodbye to a loved place, and to the people we knew there, is a kind of death. We talk about the death of a relationship: Elizabeth Bowen called her 1938 novel *The Death of the Heart*.
DeleteWhen the film *On the Beach* was released, the American evangelist Francis Schaeffer said this was what life was like in the West, whether the bombs fell or not, because few people believed there was any final purpose to life.
Schaeffer responded by writing books like *Death in the City* (a sermon on the prophet Jeremiah) and *He Is There And He Is Not Silent*.
The Psalms were important to me during the two years of my own conversion.
I remember telling a young evangelical women that there was not an evangelist in the world who could convert me. I had not reckoned on the preaching of Martyn Lloyd Jones: I wish I could meet that young woman again and thank her.
I recommend a shortish book on the Psalms by Gordon Wenham, a professor at Trinity College Bristol (England) who has degrees from Cambridge and Harvard.
*The Psalter Reclaimed - Praying and Praising with the Psalms* published in 2013 by Crossway Books, Wheaton, Illinois. A way to love the Psalms again.
Hilaire Belloc, who fought with the French artillery in World War I, said:
*The faith is Europe, Europe is the faith.*
Belloc predicted barbarism if the faith departed.
The permissive society and abortion on demand is a symptom of that barbarism, fostered by the media. Jordan Peterson is one of the few voices of opposition.
Listen on YouTube:
*Hilaire Belloc - On Anything: The Simplicity of Words.*
Jack
Best wishes for a efficient procedure next week and a gentle recovery Kylie!
ReplyDeleteThank you!
DeleteIt sounds like a very long and difficult recovery process. Good luck with both the surgery and recovery. Hopefully the end result will be a big improvement in your foot-health.
ReplyDeleteThank you Nick! It will be hard but worth it
DeleteGood luck, you sweet person, I hope it goes better than well for you.
ReplyDeleteSx
Thanks ms scarlet! It's good so far.
DeleteGood luck and speedy recovery Kylie. X
ReplyDeleteThanks Michelle!
DeleteI've heard of people who had both knees replaced by the same rationale the surgeon gave for doing two ankles, but, having had one knee done, I'm glad I didn't have them both done at once because my recuperative mobility would have been reduced even further.
ReplyDeleteI saw from your last post that you are doing well. May the trend continue.
Yea I don't have any real mobility but I think two feet was the right call. It's probably a lot cheaper for the system as well
DeleteGosh, Kylie. I had no idea. And how I neglected you! Mea culpa. I wish I'd be able to say to you "what doesn't kill us makes us stronger". Alas, I can't say it since it's complete nonsense. Strength doesn't need to be put to the test. Why sit in a wheelchair to appreciate our pins and feet?
ReplyDeleteAnyway, big hug, best wishes, you will be frustrated at times, shed a tear, it's good. I have never forgotten you,
Ursula
It's been a while, Ursula!
DeleteToday is a week since the surgery and I'm good. There's no pain and I'm in hospital where someone comes to take care of every need. Which is great and horrible. I'm starting to miss having agency
I'm not sure how I missed this post, so it sounds like you've had some radical surgery! A year out of action is a long time!
ReplyDelete