If you’ve not been following the sage of the bear/boys/bum injury, here’s a couple of links:
Last week I went in for an MRI at the request of our local clinic doc here in Ninilchik who took one look at this bruising and said, “How long did you wait to come see me?” shaking her head and pursing her lips like my mother when I was a teenager.
The MRI tech gave me a similar head shake and “Oh My Goodness, honey,” and sent me to an Orthopedics fellow in Homer. But before I could even get to his office he called me, said he’d reviewed my MRI, it wasn’t something he could fix, and he shuffled me off to Anchorage.
Monday the husband drove me up to Anchorage, about a four hour drive, to meet with Dr. Powell, orthopedic surgeon, who diagnosed me before I even left the waiting room based on the way I was hanging half my ass off the edge of the hard plastic chair.
“We’ll do the surgery tomorrow,” he said. “The sooner the better before it gets worse.”
Come to find out, two of the three tendons that hold the hamstring to the pelvic bone had ripped clean off and were just dangling around in the back of my thigh. Ouch, is right. The fear is, if left too long the nerves can get all twisted into the mess and cause permanent damage. We can’t have that, can we?
So Tuesday morning at eleven I arrived at the Anchorage Spine Center for my appointment where I was promptly given my very own open backed blue gown, fuzzy socks, and a hair net. A good look for me, I think.
Here is a link describing the surgery they performed, complete with gory pictures and what appear to be forks ripping into the thigh. I’m pretending mine was much prettier. SURGERY LINK
Apparently what they did was slit a hole across the bottom of my right butt cheek from inner to outer thigh, somewhere around 6 inches across. I’ve not seen it yet, it’s well packaged up. But boy, can I feel it.
Then they fished around until they found the dangling tendons and hamstring so they could reattach the little buggers. They drilled HOLES in my pelvic bone and hooked the tendons in place with some kind of super strong wires, then sewed the whole mess back up.
Then an hour later they stuck me on crutches for the first time and sent me on my way. No dilly-dallying around the hospital these days. Just a few crackers and you’re outta there.
The husband planted me in a hotel room with flowers, peach yogurt, crackers and my cell phone. He knows me so well. And we spent the night in neighboring beds, him snoring, me whining, and then after a checkup with the doc, we drove home today.
I’ve been instructed in no uncertain terms by Dr. Powell to lay here in this bed in the middle of the cabin for the next six weeks. I’m not to use my right leg, not to hop around trying to do things for myself or others and I’m not under any circumstances to chase any more bears.
My view for the next six weeks…
I think I can follow thru with most of that.
I’m not gonna lie…I’m in a lot of pain. The meds they gave me make me sweat a lot and my breathing feels funny, if I take the full dose so I cut myself back to half which controls the pain, but doesn’t take it away by a long shot.
We were brought a halibut dinner by one dear lady, another came and picked up the boys for an overnighter, the girls are gone and the husband went right out to push some more gravel onto our driveway before the sun set. So I’m alone in my little bed we put it the middle of the cabin, wincing at the pain and trying to look at the brighter side of things.
I aint dead. I’ll get out of dishes for the next six weeks. And as was pointed out by so many readers…at least I’ll have more time to write.
