rehab

January 2023 — Whatta Month

Fandango51 Comments

I’m so very happy that today is the last day of the month. For me, personally, January 2023 has been the worst month of my entire life.

There were only eight days this entire month that I was relatively pain free. The month started off with me hurting my back on New Year’s Day and suffering from severe lower bag spasms. Within four days of that injury, though, the back spasms had stopped and I was close to pain free. And that period of painlessness lasted for another week.

Then I fell off a latter, busted my hip, had hip replacement surgery, and spent two weeks in the hospital (including rehab). Now I’m at home and am undergoing home-based rehab services including physical therapy, occupational therapy, and visiting nurse visits.

(That sounds redundant, doesn’t it? “Visiting nurse visits”? By definition, visiting nurses visit patients, so I’m not sure how else to describe what they do. Oh well, deal with it.)

So anyway, today is the last day of the worst month of my life. February can’t possibly be any worse, although I’m not expecting it to be a particularly fun month. I will be going through in-home rehab for the entire month, and hopefully, by the end of the month, I’ll reach the point that I’ll be able to walk again without having to use a walker.

So here’s the deal.

First, I expect you’re getting tired of my whiney posts about poor Fandango and his broken hip. So I’m going to try to minimize such posts. Second, as my energy level improves, I will try to get back into reading more of your wonderful posts, responding to daily word prompts, photo prompts, and to share my observations and perspectives on what is going that doesn’t involve poor Fandango and his broken hip.

Although, truth be told, it’s been kinda nice not paying attention to all of the political and societal bullshit during the past three weeks. Almost blissful.

SoCS — Home Sweet Home

Fandango43 Comments

It’s about 9:00 on a Friday night and I’m tapping out this post on my iPhone as I’m lying in my own bed for the first time in 13 nights. My wife picked me up at around 12:30 this afternoon to take me home after I spend three days in a postoperative acute care room and ten more days in a postoperative orthopedic rehabilitation room.

I can’t express how happy I am to be home. I can’t express how lucky I am to be sharing my life with a woman who is doing everything she can to make my homecoming and transition as smooth and as welcoming as possible, Including preparing for me the most incredible home-cooked dinner ever.

This day, of course, had its challenges. After all, it was my first day home and we had to make some serious accommodations in order to serve a handicapped person. Those changes are temporary, but necessary until I am able to literally stand on my own two feet.

Tomorrow (Saturday), I have my first in-home physical therapy session, which should be interesting because, unlike the rehab facility, I do not have a fully-equipped, state of the art gym in my home. I’ll let you know how that goes.

But still, at almost 9 pm, I’m drained. So I’m going to end this post and schedule it to be published at 3 am on Saturday morning. Why? Because then I can use the phrase “throw in the towel,” which is Linda G. Hill’s challenge for this week’s Stream of Consciousness Saturday prompt.

You see, when I was confronted by the physical therapist on the Sunday after my surgery the day before, and she told me that she wanted me to stand up and take a few steps using a walker, my initial response was, “Fuck you, bitch. I just had major surgery for a fractured hip and a hip replacement barely twelve hours ago. That’s not going to happen.”

She looked at me and said, “I’ve never had a patient throw in the towel without even trying, and you’re not going to be first. So if you know what’s good for you, you’ll grab onto this walker, pull yourself up and out of bed, and start walking, buster.”

And I did.

No Energy

Fandango71 Comments 

No energy
No energy to talk
No ability to walk
Can’t get in and out of bed by myself
Can’t go to the bathroom on my own
My left leg feels like dead weight
Muscles not responding to instructions from my brain
Physical and occupational therapy sessions four times a day
Painful, grueling, and exhausting
But as they say, “no pain no gain.”
Who the fuck are they?

All I do is eat a little
(No appetite for this hospital food)
Between therapy sessions
Spend most of my time trying to sleep
Lots of weird, strange dreams
Where I’m able bodied
And then I wake up in this place
In the middle of my nightmare
Is it any wonder I’m depressed?

They say they’re sending me home next Friday
For the next phase of my recovery
I’m doing what I can
Fighting through the pain
To be ready for that
In the meantime
No energy to open WordPress
No energy to write
No energy to read, like, or comment.
No energy to thank all of you
Who have wished me well
Wished me a rapid recovery
Thank you

Photo Challenge — The Other Option

Fandango12 Comments

Stephen walked out of the courthouse, turned and faced the concrete wall, and leaned into it, touching it only with his forehead. His arms were straight down at his sides and he was standing on the balls of his feet, his heels slightly elevated. It was an awkward position to stand in, but with the way things had been going in his life, it seemed fitting to him.

The family court judge had just granted full custody of his two children to his ex-wife. It was not unexpected, though. Stephen had recently lost his job. Been fired, actually, when he failed a random drug test. He thought he had his drug habit under control, but it was clear to his ex and to the judge that that was not the case.

Because of the restraining order his ex had filed, the judge had suspended Stephen’s visitation rights pending completion of a 30 day stay at the county drug rehabilitation center. So it would be at least a month before Stephen could see his young son and daughter again.

He felt the rough concrete surface of the courthouse wall digging into the skin on his forehead, but he didn’t mind the pain all that much. At least it reminded him that he was still alive. He was tired of the numbness he’d been feeling of late. Better to feel pain than to feel nothing, he thought.

After a few minutes of standing in that position, Stephen’s calf muscles began to cramp from standing nearly tip-toed. He used his arms to push away from the wall and he stumbled over to a bench and sat down. He had 24 hours to grab what he needed and to check-in at the rehab facility. Otherwise, the judge had warned him, a bench warrant would be issued and he would be arrested.

Stephen wondered, given the state of his life, if it would be better for everyone if he wasn’t around. But he also knew that no matter how bleak things were, he didn’t have it in him to take his own life. So his only real option was to go to the center, get clean, get his shit together, and prove to the judge, his wife, his kids, and mostly to himself that he could be a better man.

But there was another option. Stephen reached into his pocket for his cellphone and tapped a number. Maybe feeling nothing is better, after all, than feeling all of the emotional pain, he thought. When the guy he called answered, Stephen said, “Hey, it’s Steve. You around? I need some blow. Yeah, like right now.”

Written for the Mindlovemisery’s Menagerie Photo Challenge. Image found on Unsplash.

Lunacy

Fandango16 Comments

7F0F57D0-63EB-4D2B-B32E-946DD186DE48“I’m sorry, really I am, but I needed a fix bad,” Meg said.

“Let me guess,” Dwayne said. “You didn’t have any money so you turned tricks to get enough money to buy you some heroin.

Well, it weren’t so much turning tricks as, you know, having what they call a tryst,” Meg said.

“A tryst?” Dwayne laughed. “Well ain’t you the fancy pants.”

“Wipe that smug smile off your ugly mug, Dwayne,” Meg said. “It’s none of your goddam business what I do.”

“Do you wanna know what the definition of lunacy is, Meg?” Dwayne said. “It’s doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”

“Yeah, so?”

So I’m taking you to rehab right now before you end up dead, little sister.”

Written for these one-word prompts: Scott’s Daily Prompt (heroin), Fandango’s One-Word Challenge (tryst), Ragtag Daily Prompt (mug), and Word of the Day Challenge (lunacy).